104 EXCAVATIONS AT MAUMBURY RINGS. 



flint nodules were found thrown away in the filling which 

 would have been of any value to the flint-knapper. Indeed, 

 all the nodules remaining and they are by no means plentiful 

 appear to have been " tried," i.e., struck by the hand of 

 man, and being found unsuitable for implement-making were 

 discarded. There can be little doubt that these shafts were 

 filled in to the top, or almost to the top, at one time, judging 

 from the fact that the chalk rubble which for the most part 

 is large is found on re-excavation to be very loosely 

 compacted. 



If the shafts at Maumbury are ftmi-mines, why are there 

 no galleries of the kind so common at Cissbury and at Grime's 

 Graves ? * At Maumbury the pits are in close order, and 

 indeed in many cases hardly a foot separates them at the top. 

 It is difficult to conceive prehistoric man's reason for digging 

 so many shafts if intended for mines, as one or two would 

 have sufficed to test the quality and quantity of the flint ; 

 the material of course abounds in Dorset, though the best 

 qualities are in some places not easily obtainable. If, in any 

 of these shafts, flint of the desired quality had been found, he 

 might then have cut galleries, and the trial-shafts would 

 have become mines. 



VI. ANIMAL BONES. 



All the bones and fragments found in the Prehistoric 

 Shafts at Maumbury have been preserved ; also a selection 

 from the Roman deposits. The greater number of those 

 found in 1912 have been kindly identified by Mr. E. T. 



* A paper by Mr. Reginald A. Smith, F.S.A., has recently been 

 published on " The Date of Grime's Graves and Cissbury Flint- 

 Mines," where a resume of the records of the various excavations 

 which have been conducted at these places is given (Archaeologia, 

 LXIIL, 109-158). 



