18 Hotcs on the Ojiening of a Bronze Age Barrov: at Mavton. 



in Wilts, must have been an object of barter and traded from the 

 distant source of its natural origin. Indeed many interesting 

 inferences may be drawn from the contents of this barrow as to 

 the extent of trading among the people of the bronze age in 

 Britain. The gold, amber, lignite, shale or jet, the tin and copper 

 for the bronze, if not the manufactured bronze itself, must have 

 been brought from varied and widely separated districts. The 

 delicate and beautiful workniansliip of the gold and other orna- 

 ments is in curious contrast with the rude and clumsy art of the 

 home-made pottery of the period, none of which is wheel-turned. 

 The pe)fectly barrel-like bead (Fig. 6), encircled as it is with 

 accurately drawn incised lines, suggests lathe work, and the en- 

 graved concentric circles on the disk (Fig. 7) a compass of some 

 sort. Could the bead be shaped so well without a lathe or wheel 

 of some kind to turn it on ? If not, the presumption is strongly 

 in favour of its having been traded into Britain as a manufactured 

 article, because if the principle of wheel-turning was known to 

 these barrow builders, it seems unlikely that such ingenious people 

 would not have applied its use to some at least of their pottery. 

 It seems at least open to doubt whether these more skilfully 

 worked objects of rarity and value, such as gold, amber, and lignite, 

 were made in Britain. 



It was in one sense disappointing not to find more than one in- 

 terment in the whole of this large barrow, but, on the other hand, 

 the absence of any other is in itself suggestive, and lends itself to 

 much interesting if not very profitable conjecture. It is just possible 

 that there may have been others, and that they have been ploughed 

 out, a fate that not uncommonly overtakes burials in the more 

 superficial parts of barrows ; but as the whole of the centre of the 

 mound was turned over without result, any other burial, if one 

 ever took place within it, could not have been in very close 

 association with the first. 



Professor Fawcett, in conjunction with Professor Reynolds, of 

 University College, Bristol, have kindly identified the bones and 

 teeth of animals found during the excavation of the barrow. The 

 bones are those of the ox, sheep, deer, pig, and fox ; the teeth 



