I 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESVVOLD CLUB 69 



suggestive of the form of the entrance to a Cave 

 dwelling. Much more numerous than the long barrows 

 are round tumuli, of which examples may be found 

 within anv two-mile radius in the Middle Cotteswold area. 

 As a rule, the circular barrow consists of a small stone 

 cist (in which the human remains were placed), covered 

 with a mound of loose stones. Besides the long and 

 round barrows, circular mounds of loose earth or gravel 

 are scattered about the district. Whether or not they are 

 burial places is an open question. Canon Greenwell, who 

 has opened a number of similar mounds in the North of 

 England, says that he has never* found the least trace of 

 any burial in them, or the slightest fragment of pottery or 

 chipping of flint. Nevertheless, he thinks that they 

 covered unburnt bodies, interred without vase or imple- 

 ment ; while Professor Rolleston thought the absence of 

 human remains is accounted for by the small size of the 

 mound, which, to quote his words, "would give free 

 access to rain and carbonic acid, to say nothing of rodents 

 and carnivores, and the larvae of insects, all of which 

 animals learn, and act upon the learning, the value of 

 phosphate of calcium."! Canon Greenwell admits that the 

 explanation is not absolutely satisfactory, and the late Mr 

 G. F. Playne, a member of our Club, whose careful 

 examination of a number of Gloucestershire mounds 

 entitles his opinion to considerable weight, dissented from 

 the view that they were ever used as places of sepulture. J 

 Rut it is worthy of note, that at Cubberley there is a 

 circular mound, simply a heap of earth and stones, 

 without any trace of a chamber, yet in the centre of which, 

 Dr. Bird records, there was found a human skull, and with 

 it some flint flakes. § 



* Cottes. Club Proc, Vol. v., p. 289. 



f Trans. Bris. and Glou, Archneo. Soc, Vol. i., p. 57. 



;[ Cottes. Club Proc, Vol. v., p. 290. 



§ Ibid., Vol. vi., p. 332 



