136 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1905 
classes—the “closed” and the “open.” In the former the 
chamber consists of four stones forming the sides, and the 
front or door-stone always has an opening in it. In the 
second class there is no door-stone, and the dolmen pre- 
sents the character of an open box covered with a stone 
flag. It is admitted on all sides that the “closed” dolmen 
was intended for inhumation. The “open” dolmen presents 
a more difficult problem. In one case, quoted by Mr 
Walhouse,* the “closed” and “open” dolmens appeared 
mixed up together, and here they could never, he thinks, 
have been covered, as they rest upon the bare rock. 
Now in describing the stone monuments of the Khasi 
tribe on the Assam frontier, Major Godwin-Austen figures 
one of these “open” dolmens as an ossuary or bone- 
repository. The Khasis, he tells us,* remove the bones 
after cremation to a structure of this class, which assumes 
various forms, but is always covered with a heavy stone 
slab. In the example of which he gives a drawing he 
thinks that the closing slab in front has fallen on the 
family becoming extinct. Mr C. B. Clarke, writing of the 
same people and describing these “ashes-cists,” says : “So 
long as they contain earthen jars they cannot be mistaken : 
but by the continual collection of family jars the majority 
of the square cists are left with one side broken down and 
empty, and in such a state it is sometimes impossible 
to determine whether the horizontal slab be a monument 
or the lid of an old cist, unless a family can be found 
to claim it as their monument. Where there are no 
upright monumental stones near, I incline to suppose that 
a large majority of these doubtful remains are cists and not 
monuments.” 
On the analogy, then, of these Khasi ossuaries, we may 
find an explanation of the object of some at least of these 
1 “Indian Antiquary,” vii. (1877), p. 30. 
2 “Journal Anthropological Institute,” i. 140; i., 131 f., and see v. 37 ff. 
3 Lbid., iii., 485. 
