XVII. 



APPENDIX TO THE ACCOUNT OF THE CRANIA 

 OBTAINED FROM BRITISH BARROWS. 



I have thought it well to put together in an appendix a few remarks 

 upon the flora and fauna of the prehistoric times with which I have 

 been dealing, with the view of supplementing rather than of summaris- 

 ing the already existing and very extensive literature of this subject. 

 Having had numerous opportunities of examining, not merely the col- 

 lected contents of barrows, but the barrows themselves whilst still con- 

 taining them in situ, I have come to feel that the history of the pre- 

 historic flora and fauna may have been somewhat analogous to that of 

 the barrows themselves, and may therefore receive some elucidation 

 from it. Firstly, the barrows survive mainly in parts of the country 

 into which agricultural improvements with their levelling tendencies 

 have not penetrated as thoroughly as they have into less rugged, less 

 hilly, more arable districts. But the same causes which have allowed 

 these sometimes large masses to remain undisturbed may be reasonably 

 supposed to have been equally favourable to the living organisms which 

 were their contemporaries. Secondly, when we come to look at the 

 structure of the barrows in various parts of this country and the 

 character of their manufactured contents, we are impressed with the 

 existence in them of a similarity and uniformity the more striking as it 

 is not paralleled by any very marked similarity in the analogous human 

 creations of the present day ; whilst it is reproduced more or less closely 

 in the flora and the domesticated fauna of those localities. The sheep, 

 oxen, and swine of the Scotch and Welsh highlands, even if not as closely 

 alike as are the horned cairns of Caithness, of Gloucestershire, and of 

 the Peninsula of Gower (see p. 303 supra and Article XVIII), are never- 

 theless far from dissimilar; vegetable being more dependent upon in- 

 organic influences than animal life, the flora at present in occupation of 

 those districts may perhaps, when we make allowance for very recent 

 disturbances in the way of planting, be held to be even as exact a re- 

 production of that which occupied them in neolithic times as the pottery 

 of that period found at one end of this country is of the contemporaneous 



X 



