342 YORKSHIRE. NORTH RIDING. 



pieces of the calcined bones would have been found } if not in situ^ still 

 scattered amongst the material of which the barrow was composed. 

 A stone was found on the east side of the mound having" two 

 grooves upon one face, which quarter it and form a cross ; the 

 grooves appear to have been made by grinding the edge of some 

 sharp implement, and it is possible they may have been used for 

 sharpening the edge of a flint or other stone axe. 



A remarkable feature in this barrow was the very large number 

 of stones (more than twenty), of various sizes, from 5 in. to 18 in. 

 square, and of different and irregular shapes, on which pit or cup- 

 markings had been formed ! . These hollows were both circular and 

 oval, and differed in size from 1 in. in diameter to 3 in., and their 

 depth was about 2 in. The oval pits, as a rule, were not very 

 regular in outline. Some of the stones had only one pit-marking 

 upon them, others had as many as six ; on some they were quite 

 separate from each other, on others they were connected by a shallow 

 but wide groove. They were all formed in a soft and very light 

 oolitic sandstone, and the pits were in most cases as fresh as if only 

 made yesterday, showing most distinctly the marks of the tool, which 

 appeared to have been a sharp-pointed instrument and very probably 

 of flint. It is not easy to attribute any special purpose to these 

 stones or to their markings. The condition of the pits, showing no 

 signs of wear (for had anything been ground or rubbed in them 



1 Colonel A. Lane Fox has two similarly-marked stones, which came from a barrow 

 on Wykeham Moor in the North Riding; and others with circular markings in 

 addition to the pits or cups were found in a barrow on Claughton Moor ; in both these 

 cases the barrows in which they occurred contained interments after cremation. In 

 a barrow at Way Hag on Ayton Moor, also in the North Riding, and in another in the 

 same locality, several stones marked with like pits occurred. The barrows contained 

 burnt bodies, and one had a circular enclosure round it within the mound. See Journ. 

 of Archseol. Assoc., vol. vi. p. 1, where some of the stones are engraved. In a small 

 cairn near Kirk Whelpington, Northumberland, hereafter described [No. ccx], a burnt 

 body enclosed in an urn inverted was* placed upon a small flat stone, upon the under 

 surface of which was cut a shallow pit, exactly like some of these described in the 

 text. Stones with the same pit -markings on them have been found covering inter- 

 ments after cremation, at Black Heddon near Stamfordham, and near Ford, both in 

 Northumberland. In a barrow on Dornoch Links, near the town of Dornoch, Mr. 

 Lawson Tait found upon a cist-cover several pits or cups, which had still in them the 

 marks of the tool. Proc. Soc. of Ant. of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 270. Several cup- 

 marked stones occurred in a cairn on the farm of Greenloan near Belchan, Lower 

 Cabrach, Aberdeenshire. Proc. Soc. of Ant. of London, 2nd Ser., vol. vi. p. 257. 

 Mr. Bateman records the finding of two stones, each with a cup-shaped depression, in 

 barrows, one of them in connection with a deposit of burnt bones. Ten Years* 

 Diggings, pp. 172, 178. Two stones with concentric circular markings upon them 

 were discovered, covering each a burial after cremation, on Came Down, Dorsetshire. 

 Warne, Celtic Tumuli of Dorset, p. 37. 



