PARISH OF G ANTON. 177 



a hammer-stone. These all appeared to be associated with the body 

 under notice, but they may have been originally placed with one or 

 other of those which had been disturbed, as had certainly been 

 the case with a pin 5^ in. long 1 , made from the leg-bone of a 

 heron or bittern [fig. 8], and several pieces of a ' drinking cup/ 

 found at a little distance from the body, just to the east of 

 which was the lower jaw of a child, together with its right femur 

 and a part of the sacrum. At a point 7^ ft. south-west of the 

 centre was a hole, 2 ft. in diameter and 1 J ft. deep ; it was just south- 

 west of the bodies above described. Over all the central part of 

 the barrow, and above the interments, were placed, with obvious 

 intention, a number of large flints. In the substance of the 

 barrow just north of the centre was found a large part of a 

 red-deer's antler. 



The central, and what may be considered the primary, interments 

 must have comprised, inclusive of the remains of a child, no 

 less than seven bodies, four being so far uninjured by the disturbance 

 due to the secondary central burial, that the way in which they 

 had been placed in the grave could be ascertained with fair 

 precision. They had all evidently been buried at one time, for 

 it is impossible that, lying in such close proximity, in one case 

 actually overlying one another, they could have been interred at 

 different times : because, as is obvious, had the barrow been opened 

 in order to lay a fresh body or bodies alongside or upon those 

 already in the grave, some disturbance of the latter must have 

 taken place during the operation. I conclude then that these 

 several persons had all been interred at the same time ; and the 

 question arises to what cause or causes was the circumstance 

 due? It is of course possible that they may have died simul- 

 taneously of some epidemic, or have been killed in an onslaught 

 of an enemy. But there is a third supposition, which to my 

 mind possesses greater probability, as being fully in accordance 

 with funeral customs which we believe to have prevailed amongst 

 the primitive inhabitants of the country. I mean that the greater 

 number of the bodies were those of victims slain at the funeral of 

 the chief or other important person in whose honour the barrow 

 was erected. I have already noticed some facts which seem at 

 least to imply that a custom of this kind was actually prevalent, 

 and I shall have occasion to draw the same inference from other 

 barrows situated in the same locality. It is of course a matter of 

 simple conjecture in the main ; but in the questions which arise 



N 



