A HISTORY OF SURREY 



the interment belonged to the transition period between the neolithic 

 and bronze ages. Judging from the character of the pottery, it is not 

 difficult to identify several fragments which have been found in other 

 parts of Surrey as belonging to the same period. 



Other tumuli of the neolithic age, or possibly of that of bronze, 

 have been noted at Crooksbury Hill, in Farnham parish, Scale, Elstead, 

 Tatsfield and Whitmore Common, in Worplesdon parish. 



The tumuli at Whitmore Common which were excavated by the 

 late Lieut. -Gen. Pitt-Rivers were of the bronze age, and yielded several 

 interesting urns, which are now preserved in the Pitt-Rivers Museum 

 at Oxford. One of these, by the courtesy of Mr. Henry Balfour, is here 

 figured. 



Remains, or rather traces, of neolithic dwellings have been dis- 

 covered at more than one locality in Surrey, and as examples of the very 

 earliest evidences of artificially constructed dwellings in the kingdom 

 and for many other reasons they are of very great interest. 



The sites selected for habitation in the neolithic age seem to have 

 been always such as were naturally well drained. The summits of hills 

 or the sides of valleys were the favourite situations. In the numerous 

 small depressions called hut circles, which are now found on the surface 

 of the ground in Surrey and other parts of England, we see all that 

 remains of the dwellings in which neolithic families lived. These hut 

 circles generally occur in clusters, but sometimes singly. The depres- 

 sion in the ground is surrounded by an annular mound composed of the 

 removed earth, and is generally broken at one point where the entrance 

 to the hut was situated. The construction of this mound was probably 

 the first step towards making a neolithic house. The next step was to 

 build over the hollow a kind of beehive hut made of intertwined 

 branches. In the case of the smaller dwellings this was accomplished 

 without difficulty, but where the hut was made upon a large scale with 

 a diameter of 20 feet or upwards, a conical mound in the centre is 

 generally found, and this was apparently intended to receive a central 

 support, such as the stem of an uprooted tree. 



The object of making the depression in the surface of the ground 

 was obviously to procure sufficient headroom and some degree of 

 warmth, and the encircling mound was evidently intended to throw off 

 the rain which fell upon the roof of the hut. 



The inflammable character of such a structure as this rendered it 

 impossible to have within the hut such a fire as would be necessary for 

 cooking purposes without incurring a great danger of setting the whole 

 dwelling alight. The cooking fire was therefore made outside the hut 1 

 at a convenient and safe distance from it. Remains of such fires have 

 been found in exactly this relation to the floors of neolithic dwellings, 2 

 and from the marks of great heat and the amount of charcoal found 



1 W. Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 273. 



8 G. Clinch, ' Prehistoric Man in the Neighbourhood of the Kent and Surrey Border, Neolithic 

 Age,' Journal of the Anthrofihgical Institute, n.s. ii. 127, 134. 



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