60 INTRODUCTION. 



must suppose tliat by far the greater number of persons buried 

 in the barrows were possessed of neither weapons, implements, 

 nor ornaments— which it is quite impossible to conceive. The 

 circumstance already mentioned, that a large number of the 

 articles deposited with the dead are quite new, and to all appear- 

 ance made for the occasion, is a fact which also militates very 

 strongly against this explanation of their occurrence. 



Another reason has been adduced for this apparently capricious 

 custom of sometimes placing various articles in the grave, namely, 

 that a pious and affectionate feeling prompted it ; it has been sug- 

 gested that those things which were daily associated with them 

 when living, were laid beside them by their friends when they were 

 buried. Nor, perhaps, is it unnatural or contrary to what we know 

 has been frequently done even in our own days, that promptings 

 like these should have ruled at such a time. The arrow with which 

 the hunter went forth to provide for the sustenance of himself and 

 of his family; the scraper or the awl with which his wife prepared 

 the skins and put together the garments for his clothing; the 

 necklace or other ornament worn to make more pleasing those 

 charms she had by nature's gift; the bright-coloured berries which 

 made a plaything for the child — all had that association with those 

 who were gone as might not unfitly cause them to be placed in the 

 grave by the survivors who mourned their loss. To this explana- 

 tion the same objection applies as has been urged above, that many 

 of the articles are new. The bronze implements and the ornaments 

 indeed appear to have been in use, but by far the greater part of 

 those of flint had almost certainly been made for the occasion of 

 the burial, since they show, in every part of them, such sharpness 

 in the chipping, both of the edges and of the point, as could not 

 have existed if they had ever been subjected to use. It is not 

 possible to speak unhesitatingly upon this interesting but myste- 

 rious suliject ; and though we have made the graves give up their 

 dead, and thereby have unfolded some of the secrets of the life of 

 those who were laid to rest beneath these ancient mounds, yet there 

 are others, still to be unravelled, which a larger assemblage of 

 observed facts and a more ingenious speculation may perhaps 

 hereafter explain. At the same time I think that, taking all the 

 facts into consideration, and having regard to the reason which 

 causes some semi-savage people at the present day to practise the 

 same custom, the probability is strongly in favour of the opinion 

 which considers these articles as having been deposited with the 



