By William Long, Esq. 231 



the ashes ot the dead were secured, was the refinement of a later 

 age. The bones, when burnt, were collected and placed within the 

 urn, which was deposited with its mouth downioards, in a cist cut 

 in the chalk. Sometimes we have found them with their mouth 

 upwards, but these instances are not very common : we have also 

 found remains of the linen cloth which enveloped the bones, and a 

 little brass pin which secured them. 



" Of these different modes of interment, I am of opinion that the 

 one of burying the body entire, with the legs gathered up, was the 

 most ancient : that the custom of cremation succeeded, and prevailed 

 with the former; and that the mode of burying the body entire, 

 and extended at full length, was of the latest adoption.''^ 



" The crouched position of the skeleton,'^ says Dr. Thurnam, 

 "' with the knees drawn up more or less closely to the breast, is not 

 confined to the long barrows, or to tombs of the stone age ; but is 

 also observed, almost, if not quite, to the exclusion of the extended 

 posture, in the circular barrows of the bronze age. It is a very 

 singular, though well-known circumstance, that this contracted or 

 crouched position of the remains is by no means peculiar to ancient 

 British tombs, but is found to have been and still to be very 

 generally resorted to by primitive and barbarous peoples in both 

 hemispheres and in all the quarters of the globe. The earliest 

 notice of it seems to be in Herodotus, who tells us (iv., 190) that 

 the Nasamones of Lybia buried their dead in a sitting posture, 

 watching when one is about to expire, that they may set him up, 

 that he may not die supine/' The secondary interments found by 

 Mr. W. Cunnington, Sir R. C. Hoare, and Dr. Thurnam, near the 

 summits of barrows, with iron weapons accompanying them of an 

 Anglo-Saxon character, were all in a extended position. In a 

 barrow opened in 1802 by Mr. Cunnington, the contracted position 

 is described more specifically as the " sitting posture." Such a 

 posture, and more rarely a kneeling and standing one, have occasion- 

 ally been pointed out in other British barrows. !Most of the devia- 

 tions, however, from a simple crouched position are probably the 

 result of accidental circumstances. We may infer, from the example 

 of numerous barbarous and savage peoples at the present day amongst 



