STONEHENGE — STEVENS 473 



a long distance to Salisbury Plain ? This may best be answered by a 

 consideration of the map of Britain at that remote period. Dr. Fox 

 conveniently divides the islands into the Highland and Lowland 

 areas ; the division is a rough one but most suggestive. He points out 

 the natural barriers imposed by the Cambrian Mountains, Exmoor, 

 Dartmoor, and the Cotswold and Mendip Hills, which shut off the 

 Lowland zone of the Western Downs and Salisbury Plain from the 

 Pembrokeshire Megalithic center. 



The Lowland zone had its strong attraction, with rolling downs 

 offering good pasture, and its deep estuaries to the sea; but there 

 was in the Lowlands no stone for Megalithic monuments except lime- 

 stone, and the Sarsens which have been used to great purpose at both 

 Stonehenge and Avebury. When it came to final settlement, the 

 Megalithic Kace were more attracted by the chalk downs of Salisbury 

 Plain and the limestones of the Cotswolds and Mendips than by the 

 rocky land of Devon and Cornwall with its barren moors. The Low- 

 land always had its attraction for the early migrants, its easy con- 

 tours offered no obstacle. The newcomer had a better chance of 

 settlement than in a difficult mountainous country. Granted that the 

 Salisbury Plain area offered a definite attraction, it would hardly 

 strain the bounds of possibility to suppose that a tribe or clan, 

 making the long journey to what was to them a Land of Promise, 

 would take their Stone Circle with them, and erect it on their arrival, 

 as an almost sacramental act of taking possession of the land. Such 

 a supposition would account for a circle of unhewn Prescelly stones 

 on Salisbury Plain. 



But the tide of immigration to Britain was flowing fast, and within 

 about 500 years of the arrival of the Megalithic Race by the Atlantic 

 route, a new race, known as the Beaker Folk, were arriving on the 

 eastern and southern shores of Britain. The race appears to have 

 moved westward to these islands from the Rhinelands, the breeding 

 ground of those cultures which have affected eastern Britain at all 

 times. Probably in the case of the Beaker Folk, some took a north- 

 erly course down the Rhine, and others a westerly one by way of the 

 Seine or Somme, arriving at the southern estuaries in Britain and 

 spreading inland. 



Why were these people called the Beaker Folk? Wlierever they 

 penetrated into this country they made of the local clay vessels 

 known as "beakers" or "drinking cups." These are probably the 

 most widely distributed of any prehistoric pottery. Beakers vary 

 in shape, but can be divided into classes according to their form. 

 Two forms can be recognized in Wiltshire, type A and type B, both 

 of which occur at Stonehenge. It is generally thought that type A 

 comes from the east coast migrants, and type B from the south coast. 



