eS = 
Discoveries at Waddon, Surrey. 47 
easy passage of a human body in or out of the hut, but with 
no superfluous space for unwelcome draughts or excessive venti- 
lation. 
Taking it for granted that the Waddon chambers were really 
of the neolithic age, and intended for sepulchral purposes, it 
may be interesting to compare them with neighbouring struc- 
tures which are unquestionably of this period and purpose. The 
megalithic structures of Kent, particularly Kit’s Coty House, 
near Aylesford, and Coldrum, about two miles N.E. of Wrotham, 
are examples which offer parallel cases of sepulchral underground 
chambers, each entered by a lateral entrance. The form of 
these chambers for the burial of the dead is certainly square or 
oblong in plan, but this is in consequence of the material used 
in their construction. Sarsen stone, of which these sepulchral 
chambers were built, occurs naturally upon the surface of the 
ground in mid Kent. Moreover, the chambers were not con- 
structed below the surface, but covered by artificial mounds of 
earth, which have been subsequently removed by weathering and 
the operations of treasure-seekers: but in reality we find much in 
common in both. 
If we compare the Waddon chambers with well-authenticated 
examples of sepulchral structures known as chambered barrows, 
the parallel is even more remarkable, and particularly in the 
well-marked feature of the entrance restricted at one or more 
points where it may be presumed some sort of door was placed 
as a bar to the entrance of unwelcome intruders. 
It is worthy of note that the same idea of interment within a 
house or a house-like receptacle survived during the bronze age, 
but, as cremation usually preceded the rite of burial among that 
race, a large house was no longer necessary for the remains of 
the dead, and a small earthen vase shaped like a bronze-age 
house, and usually called a hut-urn, was employed as the 
depository of the ashes of the departed. 
The tradition of the hemispherical neolithic hut was carried on 
in the Celtic bee-hive dwellings of Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, 
Ireland, and Gaul; whilst the plan may be regarded as the pro- © 
_ totype of the circular fortresses, such as Chun Castle, &c., and 
the brochs of Scotland, and indeed much of the medieval military 
architecture of England. 
The bronze-age dwellings, on the other hand, whose forms 
have been preserved by hut-urns, display a tendency to square- 
hess and augularity which is clearly due to the employment of 
timber in their construction.* The influence of the use of metal 
was shown, even at that early period, in the form of the domestic 
* In the case of pottery we find that the bronze age forms are a gradual 
_ development and evolution of stone age forms, but with regard to buildings 
the case is strikingly different. 
