PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB I29 



more of them close at hand."^ I have reason to think 

 that the hut to which Canon Lysons alludes is not the 

 structure which I have described, but one much simpler 

 in shape, now filled or covered in, and I cannot find 

 evidence of any others in the neighbourhood. Canon 

 Greenwell, however, describes two very similar structures 

 in Nether Swell,t where, singularly enough, as already 

 stated, is a round barrow very much like that at Ablington. 

 For what purposes these underground chambers were 

 made is to a large extent a matter of conjecture. Sir 

 John Lubbock describes some whose object was the con- 

 cealment of food or treasure. ijl Dr Tylor, discussing the 

 arts of life, speaks of beehive houses in the Hebrides, 

 covered in with growing turf, which, he says, " remind 

 antiquaries of Tacitus' account of the caves dug by the 

 ancient Germans and heaped over with dirt, where they 

 stored their grain and took refuge from the cold, and in 

 time of war from the enemy." § Mr Robert Damon, of 

 Weymouth, records, among objects found in similar 

 underground structures in the Isle of Portland, a celt, 

 small flint flakes, corn crushers, blackened wheat, and 

 skulls and bones of domestic animals ; and some of the 

 articles, he adds, do not differ from those found in the 

 Swiss Lake dwellings. || Canon Greenwell strongly 

 inclines to the belief that the Nether Swell structures 

 were places of sepulture for bodies .that had not under- 

 gone cremation, and that they belong to a time of 

 transition, when the older manner of burial (in long 

 barrows) w'as being replaced by a later one (in round 

 tumuli). 



* " Our British Ancestors," p, 319. 

 f " British Barrows," p. 447, et seq. 

 J ''Prehistoric Times," 1869, chap. ii. 

 § " Anthropology," p. 232. 

 11 " Geology of Weymouth," p. 166. 



