MONUMENTS OF THE STONE AND BRONZE AGES. 633 



fragments of stone implements and pottery and some Gallo-Eoman 

 objects, all of which have been probably lost or accidentally introduced 

 into the soil near the monuments. These monuments then are appar- 

 ently not tombs nor in any way sepulchral. There would appear to be 

 little doubt that the alignments and cromlechs are a sort of temple, the 

 alignments with the avenues between being comparable to the columns 

 and the aisles of a cathedral, and the cromlech at the end to the altar 

 or inner sanctuary. 



At Avebury and Stonehenge the interments have been made in 

 barrows near the cromlechs; within three miles of Stonehenge, as has 

 been mentioned, are over three hundred of these barrows, which have 



MENHIKS, AVEBIRY ClKCLE, WILTSHIRE. 



yielded interesting relics to the excavations and efforts of investigators. 

 The cromlechs themselves, here as elsewhere, are evidently temples. 

 There seems to be no trace of any alignments at Stonehenge, but in 

 their place is the double circle, the inner composed of smaller stones 

 being considered the original, and the outer and more striking, much 

 more recent. Avebury had originally two double rows of menhirs 

 leading to it from opposite sides, but few of these stones now remain. 

 Avebury differs from Stonehenge and the cromlechs of Morbihan in 

 several important particulars. It consists mainly of a great circular 

 earthwork within which is a ditch or sort of dry moat, containing 

 twenty-eight and one half acres. Inside the ditch was the principal 



