ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BAKKOW PERIOD. 371 



Museum I have been, by the kindness of Professor Humphry, 

 allowed to inspect and examine. I have to say that, after repeated 

 and careful examination of these bones, with the assistance of 

 skilled anatomists, I am entirely convinced that they do not fairly 

 bear the interpretation which Dr. Thurnam has put upon them. 

 The 'perfectly sharp and clean' edges of the broken bones, and the 

 'porcellaneous character' of the fragments themselves, I happened 

 one day to see reproduced by an accidental breakage which occurred 

 in one of the skull-bones from the Market Weighton long barrow, 

 and my eyes were opened to the necessity of no longer taking the 

 theory in question for granted. On further examination, and after 

 repeatedly submitting the Ebberston series, of which Dr. Thurnam 

 wrote, 1. c, to the inspection of others in whose judgment I had 

 confidence, I was compelled to give the theory up l . 



What has compelled me to the acceptance of the Ossuary theory, 

 is, firstly, its all but absolute indispensability for the explanation 

 of the appearances met with in cremation long barrows ; secondly, 

 the fact that, in many receptacles for unburnt bodies, the arrange- 

 ment which those bodies present is not that which they would 

 have if they had been, one after the other, disturbed to make room 

 for fresh immigrants ; thirdly, the fact that the practice of storing 

 bodies in provisional receptacles, en atteridant a final sepulture, 

 is one which has been practised all over the world ; and, fourthly, 

 a consideration of the circumstances which would be likely to throw 

 a number of corpses upon the hands of a tribe in the Neolithic age, 

 and the difficulties which those very circumstances would put in 

 the way of their disposing of them at once. 



The first three points need no further explanation; upon the 

 fourth I will say a few words. At the present day, with all our 

 means and appliances, severe cold produces a high mortality ; even 



1 So, I think, has been Dr. Engelhardt, who has been quoted in favour of it. His 

 last account of the great Tumulus at Borreby, in the 1872 edition of his « Catalogue of 

 the Danish Antiquarian Museum,' runs thus, p. 10 :— ■ 43 G. Inhalt einer Stein- 

 kammer bei Borreby auf Seeland, welche bis an die Decksteine mit unordentlich 

 durcheinander gemischten Skelett-theilen von wenigstens 70 Individuen angefullt 

 war; mitten im Begrabnissraume fand man mehre gespaltene, und vom Feuer 

 angebrannte Menschenknochen, und auf dem Steinpflaster des Bodens, unter Kohlen 

 und Asche, gebrannte Menschenknochen und das Geweih eines Rehbock's, welches 

 letztere vielleicht vom Opfermale bei der Einweihung der Grabstatte herruhrt. Neben 

 den Knochen im Grabe lagen Werkzeuge von Stein und Bein, Perlen und Topf- 

 scherben.' 



Bb2 



