~~ =~ 
By John Thurnam, Esq. 841 
fifteen of those in South Wiltshire were excavated by the elder 
Cunnington and Sir Richard Hoare, and more recently rather more 
than that number by Dr. Thurnam. From these data a tolerably 
complete view of the character of these barrows has been obtained.! 
Usually—in at least six cases out of seven—the interments consist of 
unburnt bodies. Sometimes, there is a single skeleton doubled up ; 
but more commonly a pile of many skeletons, as many perhaps as 
ten’ or twenty in number, the bones mixed promiscuously, as if 
removed from some prior place of burial. The greater part of the 
skulls are cleft, and many of the long bones split, as if the majority 
of those interred had been immolated, in honour perhaps of a de- 
‘ 
ceased chieftain, and as if not alone human sacrifice, but cannibalism 
likewise, had been resorted to. In rare cases (and the Long Barrow 
round which they were now gathered was one), the body or bodies had 
been burnt, but the cremation was of a peculiar and imperfect sort, 
the bones being charred, rather than completely burnt like those in 
the Round Barrows. In one instance, that of the largest Long 
Barrow in South Wilts, that of Tilshead Old Ditch, which measures 
380ft. in length, and was imperfectly explored in 1802, Dr. Thurnam 
in 1865, found the true primary interment, at a depth of ten feet, 
consisting of one imperfectly burnt body, and immediately adjacent 
a doubled-up unburnt skeleton, that of a woman of small stature, 
the skull bearing indisputable marks of having been violently cleft 
before burial, and doubtless during life. The burnt body must be 
regarded as that of the chief, the unburnt one as that of the wife 
or female slave, slaughtered that she might accompany her lord to the 
land of spirits. 
In the Long Barrow at Bratton, however, the primary interment 
consisted of burnt remains alone. At the beginning of this century, 
Mr. Cunnington made two attempts on this tumulus. “ At first he 
cut a section nine feet long and five wide, and found black vegetable 
earth for the depth of five feet intermixed with pottery and animal 
bones. On one side of the section, at the depth of four feet, he 
discovered a pile of pebble stones (probably brought from Codford, 
1 Archeologia. Vol. xlii., p. 169. 
