CHAP, x.] TEMPLES OF BRONZE AGE. 371 



is found to contain examples of both modes of disposing 

 of the dead. Generally the primary interment is that 

 by inhumation ; and the secondary, as in the accom- 

 panying Fig. 141, by cremation. In some cases, how- 

 ever, this arrangement is reversed. 



If the articles found in the barrows in the above 

 table (p. 346) be examined, it will be seen that the in- 

 habitants of the southern counties, in the Bronze age, 

 were richer and more civilised than those of the midland 

 and of the north. This would inevitably follow from 

 the introduction of the Bronze civilisation from the 

 Continent : the nearest portions of Britain to France 

 must then, as later in the days of Caesar, have been 

 greatly influenced by contact with the inhabitants of 

 northern Gaul. 



Temples of Bronze Age Avebury Stonelienge. 



The numerous circles of stone or of earth in Britain 

 and Ireland, varying in diameter from 30 or 40 feet 

 up to 1200, are to be viewed as temples standing in 

 the closest possible relation to the burial-places of the 

 dead. The most imposing group of remains of this 

 kind in this country is that of Avebury (Fig. 142), 

 near Devizes, in Wiltshire, referred by Sir John Lubbock 

 to a late stage in the Neolithic or to the beginning of the 

 Bronze period. It consists of a large circle of unworked 

 upright stones 1200 feet in diameter, surrounded by a 

 fosse, which in turn is also surrounded by a rampart of 

 earth. Inside are the remains of two concentric circles 

 of stone, and from the two entrances in the rampart pro- 

 ceeded long avenues flanked by stones, one leading 

 to Beckhampton, and the other to West Kennet, where 



