ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONGf-BARROW PERIOD. 369 



other nations, but of which the remains, as far as I have been able 

 to judge, from British barrows do not furnish any proof. 



In my account of one of the long barrows (Swell vii.), I shall 

 describe how a skeleton was found lying upon the remains of 

 two others, which had undergone some disturbance when the first 

 was put in ; and there is no need to labour a proof of the statement 

 that the wish 1 of one man to be laid in the same tomb with 

 another, his friend or his patron, is a vera causa for successive inter- 

 ments. But if the arrangement of the bones, the existence of the 

 passages or galleries, and the feelings of human affection, as em- 

 bodied in literature, and detectable, also, in ourselves, all alike 

 speak in favour of the practice of successive interments, evidence of 

 an equally cogent character can be brought forward to show that 

 bodies were stored as they fell in by the death of their owners, and 

 then buried or burnt simultaneously. The description of the struc- 

 ture of a cremation barrow proves the point of simultaneity, but 

 till the theory of human sacrifice be disposed of, the acceptance 

 of the ossuary theory cannot be held to be necessitated. Dr. 

 Thurnam was the principal advocate of the theory 2 which ac- 

 counted for a multiplicity of skeletons, of different sexes and ages, 

 being found aggregated together in these barrows, by supposing 

 that the majority of them were the skeletons of slaves or captives, 

 slain to keep the chief company on his journey to, and in his 

 sojourn in, the other world. That such rites were practised by the 



1 This wish was expressed by the prophet of Bethel in the simple injunction, ' Lay 

 my bones beside his bones ' (i Kings xiii. 31), and is put into the mouth of Patroclus 

 by Homer (Iliad, xxiii. 83, 84), in the beautiful lines — 



M7) kfxa awv airavevOe riOrjuevai bare, 'Ax^ev, 

 'AAA' dfiov, us krpcKprjfjLev \v v/xeTepoKTi dofioiat. 



The imagery of the 32nd chapter of Ezekiel is borrowed from his recollection of 

 successive interments. 



2 See * Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond.,' vol. i., or pp. 28 and 68 of separate publication; 

 •Crania Britannica,' pi. v, 1, lviii, lix; 'Archaeological Journal,' vol. xxii, June, 

 1865; ' Archaeologia,' xxxviii. p. 413, xlii. p. 25 seqq., 1869. In this latter place 

 Dr. Thurnam has collected a large number of passages from ancient and modern 

 writers, in illustration of the practice of immolating victims at funerals. To these 

 passages I would add one from Tertullian, <De Spectaculis,' xii :— • Olira, quoniam 

 animas defunctorum humano sanguine propitiari creditum est, captivos vel mali status 

 servos mercati in exequiis immolabant. Postea placuit impietatem voluptati adum- 

 brare. Itaque quos paraverant armis quibus tunc et qualiter poterant eruditoa 

 tantum ut occidi discerent, mox edito die inferiarum apud tumulos erogabant. Ita 

 mortem homicidiis consolabantur.' 



Bb 



