476 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



Salisbury Museum. These hand-made vessels are very remarkable 

 examples of primitive potting. Though showing no trace of the 

 potter's wheel, they are beautifully symmetrical. The body consists 

 of a mixture of clay with very fine pebbles, pounded flint, and some- 

 times chalk or shells. For finer work sharp sand has been used. The 

 firing is often imperfect. The decoration is simple, usually consisting 

 of lines or dots, often applied chevronwise, but in the later examples 

 less care seems to have been shown, and the ornament degenerates into 

 lines of thumb marks. At its best period, the cinerary urn was decorated 

 with very clever designs made by the impress of twisted cords, and in 

 still earlier forms, by the use of a comb of points which gave the fine 

 dotted lines found upon the early beakers. No curves, circles, or animal 

 forms appear at all. 



The beaker is always constant in its shape, the cinerary urns vary 

 according to their period, the Middle Bronze Age examples having 

 overhanging rims which disappear in the Late Bronze period. 



Then there are globular cups, and the curious perforated vessels 

 called "incense cups," which might possibly have been small braziers 

 for carrying fire ; certainly they have all the appearance of a modern 

 censer. 



Besides the pottery in the Round Barrows, there are weapons and 

 tools, some of stone, some of bronze, and occasional ornaments of 

 gold, amber, jet, or glassy paste. The presence of these substances 

 used as ornaments suggests the existence of trade in those early days; 

 the gold would have come from Ireland, the amber from the Baltic, 

 and the jet from the north of England. The place of origin of the 

 glassy paste is still a matter of debate. 



Though the age is called the Bronze Age, there was a very con- 

 siderable overlap of stone tools used side by side with the recent 

 metal forms. Stone axes of great beauty, both perforated and unper- 

 forated, have been found, but it is significant that the perforated 

 examples are more numerous. 



Flint arrowheads when found are always finely barbed. The 

 bronze weapons found are usually of an early type, indicating the 

 erection of the Barrows very shortly after the building of Stonehenge. 

 No other Barrows in Wiltshire have been so productive of bronze 

 daggers as those round Stonehenge. In some cases even the sheaths 

 have been found. The handles were of wood, riveted to the blade, 

 and strengthened occasionally by an oval bone pommel. In one case 

 on elaborate arrangement of gold pins hammered into the wood in a 

 zigzag pattern was found. Personal ornaments of gold have been 

 found in seven Barrows; these consisted of wooden cores, the gold 

 being hammered on and fastened by indentation. Amber ornaments 

 were found in 33 Barrows; the quality of the material was usually 



