By William Long, Lsq. 229 



Ceemation in Wiltshire Long Barrows. 

 (Page 153J 

 Dr. Thumam saw reason, subsequently, to add to this list of three 

 long- barrows presenting imperfect cremation, two, which he had 

 previously considered to be oval barrows. They are " Kill-Barrow," 

 near Tilshead, and No. 3 on Shrewton Down (p. 196). "Both, 

 when excavated at the east and broader end, yielded deposits of burnt 

 bones, covered and intermixed with a substance resembling mortar, 

 many of the bones being tinged of a green colour. ... In 

 both the skirts of the mounds are more or less mutilated, so that 

 the lateral ditches of the true long barrow are not apparent." 

 (" Archaeologia," xliii,, 297, note.) The three long barrows, described 

 in " Archaeologia, xlii., 191, in which the remains of the dead found 

 in them had been burnt, were Knook Long Barrow, Tilshead Old 

 Ditch Barrow, and that in the centre of Bratton Camp. In Knook 

 Long Barrow, in the year 1801, in the usual situation, and instead 

 of the usual pile of skeletons, Mr. Cunnington found a " large 

 quantity of burnt bones." This barrow was re-opened by Dr. 

 Thurnam, in 1806, " when, in digging at the north-east end of the 

 barrow we came to traces of the burnt bones and many scattered 

 brittle flints, some o£ a red and others of a blackish-grey colour, as 

 if scorched by heat. Though no pains were spared in clearing out 

 the base of the barrow, no trace whatever was met with of any 

 unburnt skeleton or skeletons." In 1865 Dr. Thurnam opened 

 the Tilshead Ditch Barrow (perhaps the largest long barrow of 

 "Wiltshire) , and found beneath a pile of large flints, and on a sort of 

 pavement of similar flints, a large pile of burnt bones, being those 

 apparently of one full-grown adult individual. It was observed that 

 the fragments of bone were much larger than those so common in 

 the circular barrows, and that they were far from being so completely 

 incinerated. The skeleton of a small female was found about two 

 feet to the north-west of the burnt bones, closely doubled up, and 

 crouched. The skull presented indisputable marks of having been 

 violently cleft before burial, and no doubt during life. " In this in- 

 stance the skeleton appears clearly to have been that of a slaughtered 

 female victim, and the burnt bones those probably of the chief in 



