862 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 



tumuli, so far as Great Britain is concerned, though they have been 

 found in such structures both in Denmark and in Brittany 1 ; thirdly, 

 that when they do contain burnt bones, those burnt bones are never 

 found in urns ; and, fourthly, that a very much larger proportion 

 of the bones from these tumuli present the manganic oxide dis- 

 colouration, so characteristic of antiquity, than has been observed in 

 the series of bones from any other ancient burial-places. 



If it is easy and safe to speak of the long barrows en masse as 

 being undoubtedly the oldest sepulchral monuments with which we 

 are acquainted, much difficulty and danger attaches to any attempt 

 at dividing the long-barrow period into different epochs. If we 

 know, as we do know on irrefragable evidence 2 , that two modes of 

 disposing of the dead so diametrically different as inhumation and 

 cremation have been practised contemporaneously, and by the same 

 people, on the same area, it is impossible, it may be thought, to lay 

 weight on any differences in sepulchral details for proving dif- 

 ferences of date. Again, it may be urged, and should be borne in 

 mind, that, in a country intersected by woods and water as Great 

 Britain was in and long after the period we are dealing with, 

 tribes living at what we now consider but short distances from each 

 other might be practically quite isolated, and develop thus entirely 

 independent manners and customs. And, thirdly, though Diodorus 

 Siculus has told us 3 that peace ordinarily prevailed between the 

 multitudinous kings and chiefs in this island, we may set our 

 knowledge of the condition of things, as to war and peace, prevailing 

 among savages of the present day against this statement. I have 

 been informed by the Bev. W. G. Lawes, who was for many years 

 a missionary in Savage (Niue) Island, that he found that very few 

 of the natives had ever been more than two or three miles from the 

 place they were born in, the condition of blood-feuds which prevailed 

 between the various septs and clans rendering it unsafe to do so. 

 Analogous accounts are given to us by Australian travellers, which 

 enable us to understand that very complete separation of one tribe 

 from another may be compatible with this living in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of, and contemporaneously with, each other. On 



1 See Thurnam, 'Ancient British Barrows,' * Archaeologia,' vol. xlii. pp. 34 and 71, 

 separate publication. 



2 See ' Archaeologia,' xlii. p. 434. 



3 ' Biblioth. Hist.,' v. 31. 



