SOME ANCIENT BRITISH REMAINS. 43 



circular, Hut-dwellings of the primitive folk. If leave were 

 obtained from the owner of the ground, it would be well 

 worth while to dig into its centre, and to carefully examine 

 the earth thrown out. 



This plan has been very successfully carried out upon 

 Dartmoor, within the last year or eighteen months, by some 

 members of the " Dartmoor Exploration Committee," to 

 which I belong. Specimens of flint weapons were found in 

 the floor of several of the Hut-circles, and one or two 

 " querns," or stones for grinding corn ; together with " cook- 

 ing-stones." No metal whatever, bronze or iron, was dis- 

 covered ; and this of course indicates a very high antiquity. 



In the case of these Dartmoor circles, many people, fond 

 of theorizing, had asserted that they were merely the ruins 

 of medimval tin-miners' huts. They cannot now maintain 

 their scepticism as to the great antiquity of, at any rate, a 

 large number of these "Hut-circles." 



With the exception of the one mentioned, I have not found 

 near Long Asliton anything like the remains of such huts. A 

 more likely position would have been rather further down the 

 hill-slope, in a less exposed place ; but here the ground is 

 partly meadow-land, and partly planted with trees, so that 

 any ancient remains which may have existed must almost 

 certainly have been completely destroyed by agricultural 

 operations. 



If we now leave this part of the hill, and pass through a 

 gate, about 200 yards west of the most westerly Bank, we 

 shall enter another large enclosure of untilled ground 300 to 

 400 yards wide, and 600 to 700 yards long. Right across 

 this, nearly east and west, is a small Bank or Trackline of 

 stones and earth. South of this, at different distances, are 

 the wasted remains of six, or perhaps seven, large Cairns^ or 

 stone tumuli. Their component stones have almost all been 



