210 ■ Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



an interment of burnt bones and No. 1G9 did not prove sepulchral.' 

 No. 170 2 is a long barrow, not opened. No. 171 denotes a group 

 of various tumuli of different sizes, the largest of which produced a 

 rude urn, some jet heads, and a brass pin. In another, which had 

 been opened before, was found the fragments of a large urn, and a 

 piece of granite similar to one found in a barrow at Upton Lovel. 

 Nearly all the smaller barrows in this group contained simple in- 

 terments of burnt bones. In No. 172 was at first discovered a 

 circular cist, containing a vast quantity of black ashes, with a few 

 fragments of burnt bones ; but the interment was placed on the 

 floor, by the side of the cist. With the bones was a large ring and 



Eev. J. H. Austen one in Purbeck, Dorset, and found nothing. I have also 

 dug into two or three (including that marked No. 14 on Winterbourn Stoke 

 Down) with the same negative result ; save only that in one (94 or 97 'Ancient 

 Wilts,' i., 168), a mile to the north of Stonehenge, I found Uie skull and bones 

 of the right arm of a woman in situ. The absence of the left arm and of the 

 lower part of the skeleton was remarkable, and showed that the body had been 

 dismembered before burial, which was probably long subsequently to the 

 formation of the cavity. Stukeley opened one near Stonehenge (p. 45), and 

 found nothing but a bit of red pottery. He speaks of them as ' circular dish- 

 like cavities dug in the chalk, like a barrow reversed ; ' and elsewhere calls 

 them ' barrows inverted.' ('Abury,' p. 12.) His view of their use as 'places 

 for sacridcing and feasting in memory of the dead' is not unlikely. The 

 earth and chalk excavated from them would be employed, we may suppose, in 

 the completion of one or more of the adjacent barrows." Dr. Thurnam, 

 " Archseologia," xlii., p. 167. 



* " The primary interments are sometimes at a not inconsiderable dis- 

 tance from the centre of the tumulus. Such an irregularity may be inferred 

 to be accidental, dependent probably on the carelessness of those who raised 

 the sepulchral mound. In one barrow near CoUingbourn, the Rev. W. 

 C. Lukis found the grave containing the prnioipal interment as much 

 as 12 feet to the south of the centre. As the deviation is as likely to be in one 

 direction as the other, the difficulty of finding the interment is immensely 

 increased. Hence may be explained the fact that of the barrows explored by 

 Hoare and Cunnington, nearly one-fifth Ceighty-six out of four huudred and 

 sixty-five) were ' unproductive ; ' not that, unless in rare instances, they were 

 mere cenotaphs, but that zeal failed in what seemed a hopeless search." Dr. 

 Thurnam, " Archseologia," xliii., p. 330. 



^No. 170 was opened by Dr. Thurnam, but not successfully. There were 

 important secondary interments. In this barrow Dr. Thurnam obtained the 

 piece of stone spoken of in note at p. 93 of this paper. 



