690 GENERAL REMAKKS 



and extent of the fissures, which pass sometimes more than half 

 over their transverse arcs, will be slowest to accept Dr. Thurnam's 

 interpretation of the fractured skulls in question. Until the frac- 

 tures of which Dr. Thurnam has written are shown to me in a skull 

 with its basi-cranial bones left, as they might be in a sacrificed 

 victim, uninjured and in situ, I shall hesitate to refer them to the 

 working of any but one of the two following verte causa, viz. (a) 

 settling or sinking of the soil or stones in which the skulls have 

 been laid ; (b) the disturbance and violence necessitated by succes- 

 sive interments, and resulting, as has often been said, in a 'strangely 

 huddled,' 'irregular confused' packing together of a great many 

 skeletons in a very small space. The first of these causes I believe 

 to have been the most frequent ; the second, I am well assured, 

 accounts for the injuries observable in the Rodmarton 1 and the 

 Swell crania. Desiccation and other alterations of various kinds 

 may often have powerfully co-operated towards the production of 

 fissures in these skulls ; but whilst the cracking of other organic 

 bodies forbids us to forget the influence of drying, the way in 

 which skulls are often found almost entirely ' perished ' makes it 

 clear that we must not leave chemical activities out of sight. These 

 however would not be competent alone to produce lesions which 

 could anyhow be mistaken for wounds. 



There can, I allow, be no doubt that skeletons, burnt and un- 

 burnt, are frequently found so buried together as to leave no doubt 

 that they were interred simultaneously. The very structure of 

 a cremation long barrow as described above (p. 495) by Canon 

 Greenwell shows that all the bodies it contains must have been 

 subjected at one and the same time to the action of fire. Burnt 

 bones again are not rarely found 2 in the cists and also in the urns 



1 Of the chamber in the Rodmarton barrow, which contained no less than thirteen 

 skeletons, Canon Lysons wrote thus : ' Although most of the human bones exhibited 

 no traces of cremation, some few had been burnt. The bones were all in great con- 

 fusion, and some had been dragged into a corner/ Proc. Soc. Ant. Lond., 1863, 

 vol. ii. p. 278. 



2 Interments in urns giving proof of the presence in them of more than one body 

 are recorded in the accounts given above of 



Barrow cxlv. 2. Two skeletons in one urn. 

 Barrow clxxxii. Woman and child in one urn. 

 Barrow cxcvii. Two adults in one urn. 

 Barrow ccv. 1. Two women and child. 

 Barrow ccv. 2. Two or three adults. 

 Interments in cists giving similar proof of the presence in them of more than one 

 burnt body are recorded in the accounts given above of 

 Barrow Ixii. Two bodies. 



