LONG BARROWS. 



547 



1 



nature of ossuaries, Nilsson objects that the association of weapons, 

 implements, and ornaments with the bodies is inconsistent with 

 their having been first deposited in some other spot, and only after- 

 wards brought to their final place of burial. Fully admitting the 

 force of this objection, I think it is, nevertheless, quite possible 

 that such articles may have been buried with the removed bones, 

 either as having been brought with them from their first burial- 

 place, or as having been deposited with them anew when they were 

 finally laid in the grave. But the case of the long barrows is a 

 diflPerent one in several respects. 



As has already been stated, weapons, implements, and orna- 

 ments are only of the rarest occurrence, and so the objection of 

 Nilsson on this ground scarcely seems to apply, so far at least as 

 England is concerned. Again, the bodies in many of the long 

 barrows have not been placed in chambers, but laid on the surface 

 of the ground, and then covered with earth. In cases such as these 

 it is evident that, when no signs of disturbance are visible in the 

 mound, the dislocation and fragmentary state of the bones cannot 

 have been caused by anything like successive interments, but that 

 they must have been in the same incomplete state, in which they 

 are found, when they were first deposited in the barrow. The case 

 of the long barrows where cremation has been practised is equally 

 strong, for there again the burning of the bodies must have taken 

 place at one and the same time, and yet w^e unquestionably find 

 imperfect and disconnected bones in the burial deposits contained 

 in them. If the chambered long barrows containing burials by 

 inhumation separated themselves, in other particulars than that, 

 from the unchambered ones of the same class, and also from the 

 barrows containing burials after cremation, it might perhaps be 

 possible to explain the displacement and imperfection of the skele- 

 tons in the chambers by the theory above referred to, though then, 

 I think, scarcely with much probability. But when the whole 

 resolve themselves into one class, and cannot certainly be demon- 

 strably separated from each other either with reference to time or 

 people, I cannot admit that the practice of successive interments 

 will adequately account for all the appearances presented. Nor will 

 this theory explain the occurrence of skeletons which are wanting 

 in some of the principal and in many cases the least perishable 

 bones. It is true that in the round barrows the remains of what 

 have been, when placed in the grave, complete bodies are found in 

 every stage of decay, even to a total disappearance of the bones ; 



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