342 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 2 



The Barrow is mentioned by Mr G. B. Witts in his " Ar- 

 chaeological Handbook of Gloucestershire "•* and is shown on 

 his map — being number 4 of the Long Barrows — but no 

 details are given ; and also by Dr Bird in a paper on " The 

 Aryan Migrations to Stroud and Neighbourhood "' in which 

 he says — 



" The Barrows opened by Dr Paine at Bisley afforded some evidence 

 of cremation and a mixture of the bones of the thick skulled race with 

 the bones of the Long Barrow race." 



while in the discussion following the paper, Dr Paine said — * 



" As Dr Bird had mentioned him in connection with the opening of 

 a Barrow near Bisley, he (Dr Paine) wished to put himself right to this 

 extent, that there was no evidence of cremation within the Barrow, but 

 there were the burnt bones of a horse near it." 



I regret that this is all the information I have been able 

 to gather regarding the Barrow, as the remains found in it 

 are of considerable interest as shewing a mixture of races in 

 the primary interment — at least two individuals, though found 

 in a chambered long barrow, being of a round headed Bronze 

 Age race — and from the fact that one of the skull bones shows 

 evidence of an attempt at trepanning (Plate XLI). I shewed this 

 bone to Dr Keith, who described it to me as the frontal bone 

 of an old man of a Bronze Age race, and wrote me as follows 

 respecting it : — 



" Both Mr Shattock the pathologist and I are puzzled 

 over that specimen. The circular trephine ? The trepan 

 opening is designedly made — but when ? We think at, or 

 soon after death, but there is no mark of inflammation or dis- 

 ease on the bone. I think it was probably done just before 

 death." 



The attempted trephine is a circular ring just over an 

 inch in diameter, roughly pecked or chipped out by some 

 blunt instrument, probably of flint. The width of the ring 

 varies from | to -fi^ of an inch, and it penetrates, on the average, 

 about one-third the thickness of the bone, though in one place 

 it nearly pierces it. 



The other bones in my possession, which belong to at 

 least three individuals, a man, a woman and a child, consist 



4 Page 75. 5 Trans. Bristol and Glos. Archaol. Soc., vol. v., p. 31. 6 Ibid, p. 33. 



