42 Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 
Then as regards pottery of an earlier date, the discovery of a 
thuribulum 3 feet below the ground, recorded by Inigo Jones, 
affords no evidence either as to the age or purpose of the monument, 
as the nature of the ground and the conditions under which it was 
found are not given, and without these, in a place so honeycombed 
in part by rabbit burrows, no scientific value can be attached to 
the occurrence of any object. It may be of very much later date 
than Stonehenge, even if it were found at a greater depth, for in 
Excavation VI. I dug up a modern preserved meat tin from a 
much lower layer than the stone implements in the neighbouring 
undisturbed ground. 
As regards the stone implements, I have already partially dealt 
with their character and approximate age. More, however, remains 
to be said about them. The larger number of these implements, 
their rudeness, and the complete absence of any of bronze might 
be considered to indicate without doubt that they belonged to an 
early part of the neolithic age, and hence that Stonehenge was of 
that date. But, as I have previously shown, bronze tools were by 
no means necessary for any of the operations required, either for 
shaping the stones or for erecting them, and it is possible that if 
the early bronze age people found that stone tools were the most 
suitable implements to employ they would certainly have used 
them. So that the occurrence of stone tools does not alone prove 
with absolute certainty that Stonehenge belongs to the neolithic 
age, although it affords a strong presumption in favour of that view. 
But, and this is important, had bronze been in general or even 
moderately extensive use when the stones were set up, it is in the 
highest degree probable that some implement of that metal would 

+ 
1801, and is now in my possession. He writes as follows: ‘I think you 
should correct the statement respecting the Roman pottery found at Stone- 
henge. Your paragraph conveys what I never meant it to convey, namely, 
that the pottery was deposited before the erection of the stones. I conceive 
it to have been in the earth surrounding the stones, and after the fall of the 
trilithon the earth containing these fragments would naturally moulder into 
the hollows, for in this loose earth recently fallen into the cavity, the bits of 
pottery were found.’”—Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History 
Magazine, xxi., 149. 

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