284 



EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. 



[CHAP. vin. 



Burial of the Dead. 



The Neolithic tribes in Britain buried their dead 

 sometimes in caves which had previously been used by 

 them for dwellings, and sometimes 

 in chambered tombs, which probably 

 represent the huts of the living. 

 Each of these was generally used as 

 a vault common to the family or 

 tribe, and contained skeletons of all 

 ages. The interments are shown to 

 have been successive and not simul- 

 taneous, from the bones being in 

 various stages of decay, as well as 

 from the fact that the bodies could 

 not have been crowded together in 

 the space in which the skeletons are 

 found. 



The Neolithic tombs consist of 

 barrows or cairns, varying in size, 

 and long, oval, or circular in plan. 

 The more important contain a stone 

 chamber, built of slabs of stone set 

 on edge, and very frequently with 

 a narrow passage leading into it, 

 which was also used for interments 

 after the chamber was filled. The 

 long barrows of Wiltshire, Somerset, 

 and Gloucestershire are the most 

 elaborate in this country; and some, 

 as, for example, that of West Kennet 

 (Fig. 103), are as much as 350 feet 

 long. In this, as may be seen in the restoration by Dr. 



