546 LONG BARROWS. 



the grave when still held together by ligaments if not by the 

 flesh itself. 



There is, however, as I have more than once stated before, 

 another and equally probable explanation of the fragmentary and 

 dislocated condition in which on certain occasions the remains of 

 the bodies are found in the long barrows. These sepulchral mounds 

 may not be the primary place of burial of all the bodies discovered 

 in them. In some cases all the bodies may previously have been 

 kept in another place of deposit, for more reasons than one; in 

 other cases, one or more bodies may, in the first instance, have been 

 buried in the barrow, whilst others, those of relations, friends, or 

 dependants, may, on the occasion of the funeral, have been trans- 

 ferred to the barrow from the place where up to that time they had 

 been preserved. 



This explanation seems to me to account for all the appearances 

 which present themselves in the sepulchral deposits in the long 

 barrows, whether the bodies have been burnt or not. Nor is the 

 practice one which has not recommended itself to many and widely 

 separated peoples. The custom of burying in ossuaries the remains 

 of bodies in the first instance deposited elsewhere, is so well known, 

 and has been so fully considered in other places in this volume, 

 that I need but refer to it here. 



Another explanation has been given of the way in which the 

 bones in the long barrows have been found to be disturbed, and 

 of their incomplete and even fragmentary condition. Professor 

 Rolleston appears, from an estimate of the numerical proportions 

 in which many of the bones, and notably the lower jaws and some 

 of the long bones, are present in at least one of these barrows, to 

 have convinced himself that the Successive Interments Theory, 

 advocated by Professor Nilsson 1 , must be accepted at all events for 

 that barrow. He thinks, however, that inclemencies of weather and 

 the accidents of war must, in the very nature of things, have occa- 

 sionally necessitated the practice of storing away dead bodies in 

 temporary receptacles, and have thus given rise to the establish- 

 ment of ossuaries. It appears to these authorities that the suc- 

 cessive deposition of bodies in the chambers will account for all the 

 appearances met with, the bones of the earlier buried bodies having 

 been disturbed by the introduction of later interments, made from 

 time to time. Against the theory of these receptacles being of the 



1 Stone Age of Scandinavia, ed. Lubbock, p. 163. 



