PARISH OF GOODMANHAM. 293 



length, the body has yet been placed quite at one side of the grave, 

 and has occupied but a very small proportion of the entire excavated 

 space. Some other reason then, rather than a mere desire to 

 economise space, must be enquired for as the motive or object 

 aimed at by these people in placing their dead in the grave in the 

 position under notice ; a position, moreover, such as to entail an 

 arrangement of the limbs by no means easy of accomplishment, 

 except when the body was manipulated immediately after death, 

 which assuredly in a great many cases such as death in the heat 

 of battle or at a distance from home could not have been very 

 readily effected. 



Although no proof may have been required, other than the 

 almost unvarying circumstances themselves, under which the 

 inhumed bodies are found, to demonstrate that there must have 

 been some object or reason, quite independent of a desire to save 

 space and consequently labour also, for placing the bodies of the 

 dead in the remarkable position we are discussing, yet it is 

 satisfactory to have the further confirmation afforded us by the 

 arrangement of the body in this most note-worthy instance of 

 cremation. For it enables us to assume with confidence that 

 it was held to be a matter of equal importance, not to say 

 necessity, that the body should be thus contracted even pre- 

 viously to burning, and when no visible evidence of such a dis- 

 position would ordinarily remain. I have thought it right to 

 make these remarks here, though the whole subject is more fully 

 discussed in the Introduction (p. 22), where I have also stated 

 what in my opinion was the motive which induced the adoption 

 of the contracted position referred to. 



LXXXVII. The fifth barrow was 69 ft. in diameter, though only 

 l^ft. high; it had no doubt been considerably ploughed down, 

 but it must always have been of slight elevation in comparison 

 with its area. At the centre, in a hollow, 2 1 ft. in diameter, and 

 sunk below the natural surface to a depth of 3 ft., was a deposit of 

 the burnt bones of an adult, having some flint blocks arranged 

 over them. The body had been burnt on the spot, the hollow 

 having been first made, and the fire must have been very intense, 

 for the ground was much altered in colour by it, and that too 

 over a considerable space. 



LXXXVIII. The next barrow, which was situated within a 



