PARISH OF EBBZESTOy. NORTH KIDIXG. 485 



barrows of Wilts and Gloucestei'sbire. brought no signs of an in- 

 terment to light ^. About 5 ft. from the exterior, on the north 

 side, was found a regularly-built wall of limestone flags, carefully 

 embedded in clay. This wall was 8 ft. in thickness, and on reaching 

 its inner side the rubble and clay, of which the mound was mainly 

 formed, was ag-ain reached. I am unable to s;iy how far this wall 

 extended along the side of the mound ; but it stretehed beyond the 

 cut on either side, and may very possibly have been carried along 

 the entire length of the barrow -. A second cut was next made at 

 about 20 ft. from the east end and on the south side, at a place 

 where a slight opening had been made on some previous occasion. 

 Just beyond the limit of this former cutting (which extended to a 

 distance of 15 ft. from the outside) and disturbed to some extent by 

 the falling down of the rubble at the end of it, was an imburnt 

 body, laid 2 ft. below the surface of the mound. On account of this 

 disturbance it could not be ascertained '«4th certainty whether the 

 body had been interred at full length or in a contracted position ; 

 but I think, from the narrow compass within which the bones were 

 placed, it is scarcely possible that it had been laid at full length. 

 There can be no doubt, however, that it was a secondary interment, 

 and, probably, not made by the people who originally raised the 

 mound. It was quite apart from the rest of the bodies, and at 

 some distance from the central line of the barrow where the prin- 

 cipal deposit of bones was found. The skull, also, is of quite a 

 different type from all the other skulls met with in the liarrow. this 

 ha^^ng a cephalic index of 80, whilst the rest are all markedly 

 dolicho-cephalic. 



On coming near the central line of the liarrow a difference in the 

 material was observed ; the mixed rubble, clay, ajid earth, closely 



* I am here speaking of the experience of other explorers. Since I openeil the 

 Ebbei-ston long barrow I have, in examining some others in North Gloucestershire, 

 found that the rule of the primary interment having been made at the larger end 

 of the mound by no means holds good in all eases. 



- The long barrows at Stoney Littleton, Somersetshire, and Uley, Gloucestershire, 

 described in the Arch. Journal, vol. \i. p. 315, had round them a dry wall of hori- 

 zontal courses of stone, from 2 ft. to 3 ft. in height. The barrow at West Keimet, 

 Wiltshire, seems to have had a similar wall of horizontal courses, with large upright 

 stones at intervals. See paper on Long Barrows, by Dr. Tlun-nam, ArchuHilogia, vol. 

 xxx^•iii. Dry walling, running throughout a great extent of the mound, was met 

 with in the long barrows at Rodmarton and Ablington, Gloucestershire. It will be 

 seen from the account, in the sequel, of the examination of three barrows at Upper 

 and Nether Swell, Gloucestershire, that a wall surrounded the numnd. Similar 

 features have occurred in the chambered cairns of Caithness. See Proc. Soc. of Ant. 

 of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 442 j vol. vii. p. 4'80. 



