FOOD VESSELS. 93 



ably ; they are met with before and behind the head ; in front of 

 the chest ; behind the shoulders and back ; in front of the knees ; 

 and at the feet. The most frequent place, however, is near the 

 head. 



Though it is not possible to say with absolute certainty what 

 was the purpose for which they were placed in the grave, a more 

 probable reason of their occurrence there can be assigned than any 

 that has been suggested with regard to the ' incense cup.' The 

 name given to them, there can be little doubt, answers to their 

 use namely, that of containing food for the dead. In several 

 instances a dark-coloured substance has been found in them, and 

 in others a black deposit is to be observed on the inside near to 

 the bottom, which may easily be the remains of animal or vegetable 

 matter: unfortunately, an analysis does no more than show that 

 such is the nature of the deposit. This fact, however, that remains 

 of such a nature are found in them, goes far to prove that they 

 were receptacles of food ; for in what other shape is it likely that 

 any animal or vegetable substance would be placed in connection 

 with the dead? That food, or what could scarcely be anything 

 else, was sometimes deposited with the body, is shown by the occur- 

 rence of the remains of portions of the bones of animals, such as 

 pig and goat, found in the grave together with those of the buried 

 person. Where I have met with such relics in close connection with 

 the body, no vessel of pottery was present. Though I would not 

 insist upon the practices of modern savages as being, except to a 

 limited extent, any illustration of the burial usages of the early 

 people of Britain, they have nevertheless some value. The North 

 American Indian tribes, we know, place a bag of provisions with 

 the dead, and this custom may very well have prevailed in our 

 own country at the time of the erection of the barrows; for 

 there is nothing connected with these people, so far as we have the 

 means of judging, which makes it unlikely that such should have 

 been their custom too 1 . 



Whatever may have been the purpose for which the * food vessel ' 

 was deposited in the grave, the same, there can be little doubt, was 



1 Food, in a very distinctive form, has been met with in graves in different countries. 

 In a cemetery at Oberflacht in Suabia, porridge, pears, and bones of animals were 

 found in many of the coffins. Graves of the Alemanni, by W. M. Wylie, Esq., 

 Archseol. vol. xxxvi. p. 129. The contents of Egyptian tombs bear abundant testimony 

 to the practice, even cooked provisions have occurred therein. Maize and other 

 vegetable products have frequently been discovered in the Peruvian cemeteries, as for 

 instance at Arica. 



