

PARISH OF WILLERBY. 181 



bones however were too much decayed to allow the position of the 

 hands to be ascertained. Near the face lay some remains of a 

 ' drinking cup/ but so disintegrated that it was impossible to 

 decide whether it had been entire when deposited with the body or 

 not ; though, from its relative position to the face, it is reasonable 

 to assume that it was. On the south-east side of the barrow, at a 

 depth of 1 ft. below its surface, was a most beautiful green-coloured 

 honestone adze, almost approaching to a gouge, with a polish upon 

 its surface like that of glass. There is an old fracture at the 

 smaller end, and it is now 6 in. long, and If in. wide at the cutting 

 edge [fig. 11], In the barrow were also found a small knife-like 

 instrument of flint, and a small round flint scraper. 



XXXIII. The second barrow was situated a little to the south-east 

 of the last. It was 64 ft. in diameter, 3 ft. high, and made of earth. 

 At the centre was a grave, of an oval form, lying east and west, 

 8 ft. by 7 ft., and 5 ft. deep. I will commence by describing the 

 contents of this grave, because by doing so it will, I think, be easier 

 to give an intelligible account of the order of the burials in the 

 mound. There had evidently been, as will appear in the course 

 of the account, a good deal of disturbance in the grave, subse- 

 quently to its first application to sepulchral purposes, by the 

 introduction of after interments. At a depth of 2 ft. the remains 

 of what had apparently been a wooden platform were met with : 

 this occurred in the shape of a thin layer of dark-coloured matter, 

 with remains of woody fibre in it, running horizontally through 

 the grave at that part. Upon it, and at the west side of the grave, 

 lay the body of a child, of about 7 or 8 years old, placed on the left 

 side, with the head to N.N.E., and the hands up to the face. This 

 body seemed to have been at some time displaced and then relaid ; 

 for one of the temporal bones was lying at some distance apart 

 from the rest of the head, a circumstance not to be accounted 

 for on the hypothesis of any shrinking of the material which 

 filled in the grave, that being, up to this point, simply earth. 

 At a depth of 1 ft. below the (assumed) wooden platform, a large 

 fragment of the thigh bone of an ox (bos longifrons) was found, 

 and a little lower still, and 1 ft. more to the west, was a mass of 

 charcoal, covering a space of 5 in. square, and in company with 

 it a fragment of an earthenware vase. Below the platform the 

 grave was filled in with earth and chalk, each in separate deposits. 

 At the bottom of the grave, on the north side, was the body of a 



