PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB II 



be regarded as indicating the age of the skeleton, the 

 mound is obviously of Roman or post-Roman date. Hut 

 this evidence of age is of little moment compared with 

 that afforded by the plan of the barrow, and by what has 

 been found in it. Its special features are its ovoid-form, 

 and the peculiar horned shape of the walling at the wider 

 end. Tumuli of similar j)lan are found in almost every 

 county between John O'Groats and Land's End, indicating 

 that they are the work of one race. It has been suggested 

 that, as no one race has occupied Great Britain in historic 

 times, this wide-spread occurrence of the burial mounds of 

 one race is very strong proof that that race occupied the 

 country before the arrival of the Roman invaders. The 

 evidence is no doubt very strong, but it is not conclusive, 

 because the distribution may be due to the race being 

 driven, as other races unquestionably have been driven, 

 from one part of the kingdom to another, by powerful 

 and ])ersistent enemies. Still, although the supposed 

 Roman supra-interment and the widespread occurrence of 

 this type of barrow may be insufficient proof, the evidence 

 afforded by the contents is absolutely conclusive that the 

 tumulus is of pre-historic age. Long-chambered barrows 

 have been opened all over the country, and their contents 

 carefully observed ; and in not one of them has there 

 ever been found the slightest trace of metal. Implements 

 and weapons are of constant occurrence, but all are 

 Hint, stone, or bone. When Casar invaded Britain he 

 found to his cost that the natives were armed with metal 

 weapons : the beginning of the Ijronze age, in fact, dates 

 back to a time long before the Roman invasion. The 

 men who made the long barrows lived at a time when the 

 use of metal was to them unknown. They belong, in 

 fact, to that period in the historv of man known as the 

 ase of stone. 



Mr Sawver then pointed out the nature of the evidence 

 bv which the stone aire is divided into older and newer — 



