By William Long, Esq. 159 



The long baiTow at Winterbourne Stoke has led us into a lengthy 

 (but it is hoped, not an uninteresting,) notice of the characteristics 

 of barrows of this description, and of the ethnological theories 

 respecting those interred in them, which have been formed by some 

 of the most careful and scientific of the antiquarians of our age. 

 The account given by Dr. Thurnam of the opening of this barrow 

 (at which the writer was present,) shall be given in a notej ' and 



' " About a tnile-aad-a-half to the west of Stoneheuge, on the boundary of 

 the parishes of Winterbourne Stoke and Wilsford, is a cluster of circular 

 barrows, which, as in many other instances, are grouped around an immensely 

 long tumulus. The twenty -six tumuli, which, in addition to the long barrow, 

 form this group, are mostly of the more elegant, and probably less ancient, 

 forms. In five, the interment has not been found ; two, however, are those 

 absurdly called ' pond barrows,' and probably not sepulchral. Of the twenty- 

 one, seven have been raised over the entire body, and fourteen over the burnt 

 remains. All are probably of the ' bronze period ; ' and in three, containing 

 skeletons, and one, burnt bones, there were fine blades or pins of that metal, 

 one of the last with an ivory handle. Drinking cups, or other earthen vases, 

 were obtained from four of the barrows; and there was a bone pin with another 

 of the deposits after cremation. The tumulus is about 240 feet in length, and 

 nine in height at the north east end, where it has a breadth of about 65 feet; 

 at the other extremity it is not quite so high or broad. The summit is thrown 

 up almost to an acute ridge, but at the two ends the surface is more rounded. 

 On each side is a trench stretching the whole length of the barrow, but, as 

 usual, not continued round either end. A large excavation at the south- 

 west extremity, disclosed no sepulchral traces; and this immense mound, 

 with an interment only at one end, was no doubt intended as much for a monu- 

 ment as a tomb. At the north-eastern end,, about two feet below the highest 

 part of the tumulus were six skeletons, viz ; one of a man of about sixty years, 

 one of a young woman under twenty, one of a child about seven, and three of 

 infants of less than two years, the youngest, perhaps, fsetal. The skull of the 

 man lay to the north-east, that of the woman to the south-west. Secondary 

 interments of the Anglo-Saxon period have been found near the summit of long 

 barrows ; but these were obviously British, as shown by the flexed position of 

 the skeletons, by an empty vase of very coarse British pottery, and an oval flint 

 knife. The male skull is well preserved, and of extremely brachy cephalic 

 type; the skulls of the woman and children were obtained in a fragmentary 

 condition, but the latter present the same well-marked type, with the occiput 

 flattened. These interments can hardly have been other than secondary, and of 

 a later date than that for which the tumulus was erected ; and it became a 

 question whether, on the primary interments being reached, the skull would 

 prove of the same, or of dolichocephalic type. Continuing the excavation, the 

 chalk rubble was dug through, to a depth of six feet, into a stratum of black 

 unctuous earth, of which the lower third of the barrow through its entire length 

 seems to have been formed. At a further depth of three feet, the chalk rock 



