152 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



orientation, being placed pretty nearly north and south, and this is 

 an arrangement which I find obtains in about one out of six of our 

 Wiltshire long barrows. In this case, as I have found by excavations, 

 sometimes the south and sometimes the north end is the higher and 

 broader of the two, and covers the sepulchral deposit. They vary 

 in size from one or two hundred to three and even nearly four 

 hundred feet in length, from thirty to fifty feet in breadth or upwards, 

 and from three to ten or even twelve feet in elevation. Along each 

 side of the whole length of the tumulus is a somewhat deep and wide 

 trench or ditch, from which trenches no doubt a great part, or some- 

 times even the whole, of the material of the mound was dug, but which 

 it is very remarkable are not continued round the ends of the barrow. 



"The absence of chambered long barrows inSouth Wiltshire appears 

 to be due to the fact that in those chalk regions there is an absence 

 of stone suitable for the construction of chambers. In North Wilts 

 the case is different ; and sarsen stones of large dimensions and in 

 great numbers are found in the hollows of the higher chalk downs. 

 Of the chambered barrows of Wiltshire, which inclusive of Way- 

 land's Snaithy, just over the border are twelve in number, nine, all 

 in the chalk district, have, the chambers formed of the hard silicious 

 or sarsen stones." 



Usually the human remains in the long barrows comprise numerous 

 skeletons, which are described by Sir R, C. Hoare as "strangely 

 huddled " or " thrown promiscuously together," or "as lying in a con- 

 fused and irregular manner," In a large proportion of the long 

 barrows opened by Dr. Thurnam, many of the skulls exhumed have 

 been found to be cleft, apparently by a blunt weapon, such 

 as a club or stone axe. From a minute examination of the 

 fractures he thinks it evident that the violence was inflicted prior to 

 burial, and in all probability during life. He hence concludes that 

 the skeletons with cleft skulls are those of human victims immolated 

 on the burial of a chief,* The body of the chief would be as a rule 

 unmutilated, whilst marks of violence might be expected to be met 



' On the " Ossuary " theory in opposition to the " Human Sacrifice theory" 

 of Dr. Thurnam, see Piofessor Rolleston's paper "On the People of the Long 

 Barrow Period," Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, vol. v., No, ii,, pp. 134, 5, 6. 



