60 ON THE INTERMENTS OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 



portions of an earthen cup, a variety of animal bones and 

 teeth, some of them calcined, and three fragments of flint. 

 Two of these are the remains of implements of the sim- 

 plest and rudest kinds. One, only three quarters of an 

 inch in length, presents a neatly chipped, narrow, rounded 

 point, the other likewise has an irregular pointed extremity 

 twice as long, and the third is a longer thin flake. 

 Although this latter is unchipped? into any useful form, it 

 has still retained a value sufficient to express the senti- 

 ment of honour considered due to the dead, and to supply 

 his anticipated wants in the chase of a future life. All 

 these fragments of silex present the dull blanched aspect 

 so general in the barrow flints, the result of calcination. 

 The body had been rudely enclosed in its last resting 

 place by three large flat stones, reaching quite over the 

 sides of the fissure, one piled upon the other ; and, the 

 more effectually to ensure security, long flat stones had 

 been inclined over these on either side." 



This skeleton in the natural cist may be designated the 

 primary interment, for upon the top of the large flat 

 stones another body had been buried, no doubt at a much 

 later period. This is at once determined by the relics. 

 The objects met with in the cist were all of flint, there- 

 fore the burial belonged to the early stone period. With the 

 remains of the second body placed near the surface, which 

 had greatly perished, and had been buried in the primitive 

 flexed or crouching position, were found a finely shaped 

 stone axe, made of granite with the utmost care and 

 skill, pierced with a perfectly round hole nicely drilled 

 through the stone, for a haft, which instrument is of 

 elegant form. Besides this stone axe, there was a dagger 

 blade of bronze covered with verdigris, the handle, pro- 

 bably of wood or bone, having entirely perished, but 



