202 YORKSHIRE. EAST RIDING. 



part been excavated with it 1 . Near to the same place were some 

 of the teeth and the lower jaw of an adult ox (bos longifrons) ; while 

 in other parts of the trench charcoal was met with. In the sub- 

 stance of the barrow, and nearly throughout its whole extent, 

 were numerous flint chippings, together with a flint saw and a 

 great many round scrapers, sixteen in all, several of them quite 

 small. There were also a very large number of fragments of plain 

 dark-coloured pottery, amongst which were two pierced ears or 

 handles of a vessel. The bones of several oxen, of one goat or 

 sheep, and of one red-deer were also found in the substance of the 

 mound. About the centre, for a foot in height above the natural 

 surface, the earth was exceedingly hard, with an appearance sug- 

 gesting the idea of its having been puddled. I have met with the 

 same kind of compact earth in two barrows at Rudstone [Nos. Ixiii, 

 Ixviii], and I have conjectured that it might be due to the mound 

 having been thrown up in very wet weather, when the soil in a 

 moist condition became puddled by the constant treading of the 

 people employed upon it. No trace whatever of an interment 

 could be discovered, although the whole mound, except the com- 

 paratively small portion cut off" by the road, was turned over down 

 to the chalk rock, the labour of six men and of two hard-working 

 volunteers having been expended on it through a period of five 

 days. 



It was the most perplexing barrow I have ever met with ; and 

 but for my complete disbelief that monuments of a more artificial 

 age, such as cenotaphs, had any existence during the era of these 

 burial mounds, I should feel that it offers a problem very difficult 

 to solve on any other supposition. It is certainly impossible that 

 the site of a burial could have been overlooked in the exhaustive 

 examination to which the barrow was subjected; and the part 

 left unopened, through necessity, was so small and so remote from 

 the centre, that nothing except a secondary burial could have been 

 looked for there. The only conjecture which seems to me admis- 

 sible is, that a body had been deposited upon the natural surface, 

 without any vase, weapon, implement, or ornament accompanying 

 it, and that every trace of the human remains had perished. 

 That, under certain circumstances, the bones themselves go entirely 

 to decay leaving no trace whatever behind them, I have ample 



1 A somewhat similar portion of a deer's antler, but more evidently an instrument, 

 was found in a grave at Rudstone [No. Ixi], described in the sequel; to which 

 description and the accompanying note the reader is referred. 



