150 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



^ a. Simple^ with flat area. 

 I b. With one, two, or three 

 3. Disc-shaped barrows. -< small central tumuli. 



/ c. With one low mound nearly 

 covering the area. 



" But though the outer form is important, there can he no satis- 

 factory classification of barrows which does not likewise refer to 

 their internal contents. ... In none of the first class, or long 

 barrows, whether unchambered or chambered, have objects of metal, 

 either bronze or iron, been found ; and so far as we know, they are 

 of the stone period. In the second class, or round barrows, not only 

 are there objects of stone, but also, and chiefly, those of bronze, and 

 in very rare instances of iron also. They may be regarded, therefore, 

 as belonging to the Bronze Period, and to that of Bronze and Iron 

 transition." 



Accepting this classification, let us first see about the long barrows 

 of Wiltshire generally, and of this district in particular. 



Dr. Thurnam counts as many as sixty of these large grave mounds 

 in Wiltshire, of which eleven in the north of the coimty are cham- 

 bered.' "If,^' he says, "we estimate the barrows of all sorts in the 

 county at 2000 in number, this will give a proportion of one long 

 barrow to about thirty-five round barrows. . . . Of the whole 

 number, as many as twenty-four are on that part of Salisbury Plain 

 which lies between the valley of the Salisbury Avon on the east and 

 Warminster on the west, and between the Vale of Pewsey on the 

 north and that of Wily on the south. In no other part of England 

 are long barrows so numerous as on this part of Salisbury Plain, 

 where, in an area of 150 square miles or thereabouts, we have on an 

 average one in every six square miles. . . . It is a very rare 

 circumstance to find two (long baiTows) within sight or even within 

 a mile's distance of each other ; and generally they are two or three 

 miles apart. In Wiltshire I know of only one decided exception to 

 this rule, being that in the parish of Milston, on the very confines 

 of Hampshire, where a small but true long barrow is seen to lie 



' " In this rough estimate I include the barrows levelled since the explora- 

 tions of which there is record in * Ancient Wilts^' " 



