236 AN ANCIENT PORTLAND INTERMENT. 



indebted for a careful examination of the pottery, thinks that, 

 with the exception of two fragments, the pieces belong to the same 

 vessel, which he calculates to have been 8 inches high, 13 \ inches 

 wide, it is much bulged in the middle ; the mouth 8 inches in 

 diameter. The pottery is of coarse clay, containing comminuted 

 shells, and only half baked, the surface rough with no ornamenta- 

 tion. The two other fragments are parts of one vessel, they are 

 of finer material, and ornamented with boat-shaped indentations. 

 One only of the seven flint-flakes has any pretence to skilful 

 manipulation ; it is three inches long, and one, three-tenth inch 

 broad. The upper face has an elevated ridge, the lower is flat; both 

 of the edges are sharp and cutting. There is one other which 

 seems to be rudely worked, and capable of use ; all are from the 

 Portland beds, and evidently associated with the grave. Prehistoric 

 flint-implements, arrow-heads, axes, &c., are considered in some 

 parts of Italy to be a protection against lightning, epidemics, and 

 cattle disease. The animal-remains favour the supposition that the 

 people with whom they were associated were low in the scale of 

 civilization ; all, with the exception of the dog, appear to have been 

 undomesticated. If the jaws belong to a dog, it is what might be 

 expected to be found in the tomb of a family whose subsistence 

 depended upon the wild animals of the chase. The dog is known 

 to have been domesticated at a very early period ; it was the 

 companion, friend, and servant of man before the Aryan migrations 

 from the parent-stock had commenced. Domestic animals are 

 found in the Danish kitchen-middens, where their remains are 

 found in great quantities, also among the Swiss lake-dwellings ; in 

 these the domestication has been established by Professor Steen- 

 strup, who found that certain bones of birds and quadrupeds which 

 are invariably absent from the refuse-heaps, are precisely those 

 which are eaten by dogs, while on the other hand those which do 

 occur are precisely those which dogs reject habitually. The presence 

 of the roedeer indicates a climate not very different from that of the 

 present day in England. It essentially belongs to the temperate 

 zone, from which extreme heat and cold are absent. The roedeer 



