238 THE RITUAL OF BARROWS AND CIRCLES. 



Of a large round barrow, looft. in diameter and gft. high, 

 Canon Greenwell,* after mentioning late burials, writes, "the 

 original interment was that of a child, scarcely a year old, on its 

 left side. Close to this were some of the bones of a young 

 woman, possibly the child's mother. The head was on its left 

 side, but without its lower jaw. There was no left femur, and 

 none of the bones of the arms except the left humerus. The 

 portions of the skeleton that remained were sound as to show 

 that those which were wanting could not have perished by 

 decay." 



Of a barrow 56ft. in diameter and 6ft. high which contained 

 pottery and flint implements, but no metal, the same writer says, 

 " The number of interments here discovered was large. Some 

 bones of the skeletons were wanting, and others were displaced. 

 There was no reason for supposing that these evidences of 

 disturbance had originated in any opening made, whether from 

 curiosity or other motives, in modern times. The appearances 

 may be accounted for on the supposition that the barrow was an 

 ossuary." "Similar conditions with regard to the bones have 

 been met with in other barrows." f 



Mr. W. C. BorlaseJ after remarking that "the remains of as 

 many as five bodies, all of them being in a disjointed condition, 

 have been found upon the central area of long barrows in 

 Yorkshire," adds that "this phenomenon is not confined to 

 barrows of the ruder sort, but is observable also in the elaborate 

 chambered tumuli of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somerset." 



The peculiar crouched position of the skeleton, with the knees 

 drawn up to the chin, is to be found both in long barrows, and 

 in the circular tumuli of the Bronze Age ; and not in Britain 

 only, but in all quarters of the globe. It is the position in which 

 Greenlanders sleep : in which, perhaps they die. But the fact 

 that barrows contain crouched skeletons, lying on the left side, 



* Ib. p. 26. 



t Ib. p. 221. 

 Dolmens of Ireland, p. 454. 



