548 LONG BARROWS. 



but in the cases where some bones remain they are those which from 

 the nature of their structure might be expected to resist decay the 

 longest, whereas in the long barrows, on the contrary, such bones 

 as those of the thigh and leg are sometimes wanting, whilst the 

 skull is found almost complete, even in its thinner and most perish- 

 able parts. At the same time it cannot be doubted that successive 

 interments may frequently have taken place in the chambered long 

 barrows, and that the very act of a new burial must have more or 

 less disturbed the bones of the bodies previously interred therein. 

 Indeed, the nature of a chamber having an entrance into it implies 

 in itself a provision for the deposition of successive interments. 

 It is probable however that in the disturbed, disjointed, and incom- 

 plete skeletons we have the result of more than one practice. 



It is almost certain, as has been stated already, that in the long 

 barrows we have the earliest sepulchral mounds to be met with in 

 England. The great extent of the barrow itself, and the dispro- 

 portion between the size of the mound and that part of it to which 

 the primary burials seem to be confined, though not perhaps a 

 certain evidence of high antiquity, yet is more in accord with an 

 early than a later time. But other proofs tending to show the 

 great age of this class of places of burial are not wanting. It has 

 been observed before that weapons, implements, and ornaments of 

 any kind are extremely rare in the long barrows ; but no trace 

 whatever of metal has been found associated with the primary in- 

 terments contained in them. The presumption then is, that the 

 long barrows were constructed by a people to whom metal was 

 unknown. At the same time I fully admit that the absence of 

 metal in any given set of barrows is not in itself a proof that the 

 persons who erected them were ignorant of its use ; for it is not 

 an infrequent occurrence to find a number of round barrows con- 

 taining nothing of metal, when from many other circumstances 

 connected with them we can have no doubt that it was known at 

 the time when they were made. The case of the long barrows, 

 however, is quite a different one, since the absence of metal in 

 them is an universal, not an exceptional, feature ; and so many of 

 them have been examined as to make that fact one of very great 

 value. Indeed it seems scarcely possible to believe that, had 

 metal been known, it should never have occurred in any of the 

 numerous long barrows which have been explored with great care 

 in different parts of England. The evidence afforded by the cham- 

 bered barrows of Scandinavia, France, and other countries, places 



