24 INTRODUCTION. 



claim a doubtful acceptance, for it is one which supposes a mental 

 process beyond the power of the persons who originated the custom, 

 and also would show a knowledge of the human frame such as 

 these people, though they might be considerably advanced beyond 

 the savage state, were not likely to possess. A more simple and, at 

 the same time, a more probable explanation of this custom has 

 however been offered, and w r hich cannot be considered an unnatural 

 or unlikely one l . Where the sleeping-place was not well protected 

 against the cold, and when covering for the body at night was 

 scanty and limited, the contracted position was that which was best 

 adapted to afford warmth and comfort. In fact it has been observed 

 that most savages sleep after that fashion. What was more 

 natural then than that the body should be interred in the same 

 posture in which the person was accustomed to rest in sleep, and in 

 which, in many cases, he probably may have died 2 ? 



Bodies are said to have been found in Britain buried in a sitting 

 position 3 . This is probably a mistaken view of the contracted 

 body taken by persons who, seeing the head lying close to the 

 knees, have come to the conclusion that it had fallen down upon 

 the knees when the ligaments decayed. There seems, however, 

 reason to suppose that they were sometimes placed in a sitting 

 position in the chambered barrows of Scandinavia, where, in some 

 cases, they appear to have been arranged in stone cells or stalls 

 running round the chamber 4 . 



A very remarkable discovery by Mr. Lukis shows that, in 

 the Channel Islands, bodies were in some cases interred in a 

 kneeling posture. He found in a cist, within the dolmen called 

 Du Tus in Guernsey, two skeletons amongst sand, with the 



Serie, ix. 288. He mentions, p. 294, f la momie d'un oiseau provenant aussi de ces 

 tombeaux Peruviens ; c'etait un perroquet, les pattes repliees sur le thorax et la tete 

 ramenee vers 1'aile gauche. Cette position etant evidemment celle du petit oiseau dans 

 la coquille.' 



1 Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, p. 135. 



2 I have learnt, on good authority, that the greater number of persons die in a more 

 or less contracted position, and with the hands towards the chest or head. 



3 Mr. Bateman says, ' We found the primary interment ... in a small oval excava- 

 tion in the rock . . . about 3 feet in depth, and not exceeding the same in its greatest 

 diameter, consequently the body had been placed upright in a sitting or crouching 

 posture, as was abundantly evident from the order in which the bones were found/ 

 Ten Years' Diggings, p. 23. It seems from his using the word consequently in the 

 way he does, that the principal reason for this supposition of Mr. Bateman was the 

 small size of the grave, the order of the bones filling up the picture he had already 

 formed. But the contracted body of this, not a very large, man might have been 

 placed in the grave in question in the ordinary form without any difficulty whatever. 



1 Nilsson, Stone Age, ed. Lubbock, p. 128. 



