f 



NOTE. 457 



vehicle of that kind could not have been put together without bolts, 

 rings, and other such like things being used in its construction. In two 

 cases the bits of the horses were placed in the grave without the animals 

 themselves, and this being so, why may not a part of the chariot have 

 been put in, as representing the whole vehicle, equally with the bits, as 

 representing the horses ] Mirrors have been found in Etruscan tombs 

 as well as in Egyptian, and in the latter associated with male interments. 

 In the barrow under notice it is not absolutely certain whether the 

 buried person had been a man or woman, though the remains of the 

 body seem to indicate the latter, and it would therefore be rash to enter 

 into any consideration of the occurrence of a chariot with a female or 

 of a mirror with a male. 



I have received the accompanying note as to the character of the 

 skeleton, together with some remarks relative to the animal bones, from 

 Professor Rolleston : — 



' On the whole there is no doubt, after an examination of all the bones, 

 that we have here the skeleton of a woman probably between 35 and 40, 

 of about 5 ft. in height, of small cranial capacity, but considerable mus- 

 cular strength. Similar skeletons, about the sex and the ownership of 

 which there is no question, are not rare in modern times. 



' The animal bones found with this skeleton were the entire left half 

 of the skull, together with part of the right half of a skull of a domestic 

 pig {sus scrqfa female) about 1 8 months old, the left half of a lower jaw 

 probably belonging to the same pig ; another left half of a lower jaw, and 

 part of the occipital and parietal region of a second pig of the same age ; 

 a left scapula, two left humeri, two left radii, two left ulnae, and some 

 phalanges. Portions of the skulls, therefore, and of the left forelegs of 

 two pigs, certainly or nearly certainly domestic animals, were found in 

 the interment. The nearly perfect half skull enables us to be as nearly 

 certain as it is possible to be that we are dealing here with tame animals ; 

 and this renders it probable that the remains of swine found in other late 

 Keltic interments from this district were not trophies or relics or imple- 

 ments from wild animals, but simply the remains of tame animals eaten 

 at the grave. — Oxford, May 13, 1876.' 



