Notes on Bowl’s Barrow. 105 
barrow, was a floor of flints regularly laid, and on it the remains of 
several human bodies deposited in no regular order. It appeared, 
therefore, that they had been thrown together promiscuously, and 
a great pile of stones raised lengthways along the ‘centre of the 
barrow, over them. This pile (in form like the ridge of a house) 
was afterwards covered with marl excavated from the north and 
south sides of the barrow, the two ends being level with the plain.! 
Although four men were employed for three days, they could not 
explore more than the space of about six feet by ten; yet in this 
small portion they found fourteen skulls, one of which appeared to 
have been cut in two by a sword. It is rather singular, that no 
fragments whatever of pottery, charred wood, or animal bones, were 
found in the course of the above operations.” “ At a subsequent 
period Mr. Cunnington made a second attempt on this tumulus by 
opening more ground both on the east as well as the west end; at 
the former he found the heads and horns of seven or more oxen; 
also a large cist close to the skeletons; but owing to the great 
height of the barrow, and the large stones continually rolling down 
upon the labourers, he was obliged to stop his operations.” 
In 1864 excavations were again made by Dr. Thurnam, and an 
account of the results was published by him in the Journal of the 
Anthropological Society (I. 472, &c.). He found the remains of 
the skeletons as left by Mr. Cunnington more than sixty years 
previously, Four skulls were obtained tolerably perfect. Of these 
measurements are given in a table.? There were also fragments of 
the skull of a girl of eight or ten years, and the jaw of a child; the 
Doctor found, altogether, traces of ten or eleven skeletons. There 
were many fragments of cleft skulls, and one of the more perfect 
1 Mr. Wyndham favoured the idea that these large oblong barrows were 
battle barrows. On this subject Mr. Cunnington ecauitied: in reply, “ It ap- 
pears strange that the dead bodies, if of the victorious party, shonld have been 
interred with so little ceremony, and so broken up ; and if they were the bodies 
_ of an enemy, it is remarkable that those who constructed the barrow should have 
_ taken the pains to pave the bottom and to collect such large flints and stones to 
form the ridge over them in the centre.” 
? These, with more than one hundred other skulls, from Wiltshire —— 
were sold, at Dr. Thurnam’s death, to the Cambridge Museum. 
