372 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 



in a small village several old people may be sometimes reported to 

 us as all lying dead within its precincts at one time. If this 

 is the case in modern England, what must have been the case in 

 neolithic Britain ? and in the presence of severe frost, and possibly 

 deep snow, how was such a population as a tribe of the long- 

 barrow period to get rid of its dead out of its sight ? I owe a 

 reference which throws much light on these questions to Dr. Joseph 

 Anderson's paper in the ' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 

 of Scotland,' May 13, 1 872, p. 526. This reference is to a passage 

 in King Alfred's version of Orosius, where we read that it was the 

 custom of the Esthonians to keep the body of any one who died one 

 month, or even two months, or, in the case of kings, even half a 

 year, before burning it. 



In following up this line of illustration, I came upon the follow- 

 ing lines relating to the manners and customs of the Russians, and 

 addressed, from Moscow, to Spenser, by a lesser poet, one G. Turber- 

 ville. They may be verified by a reference to ' Hakluyt's Voyages,' 

 vol. i., ed. 1809, p. 433. Speaking of a Russian winter, Turberville 

 says : — 



' The bodies eke that die unhuried lie they then 

 Laid up in coffins made of firre, as well the poorest men 

 As those of greater state. The cause is lightly found, 

 For that in winter time they cannot come to break the ground.' 



Returning from comparative civilisation to a consideration of 

 what would be likely to happen in still earlier days, we may say 

 that, out of a number of bodies stored up till it should be possible 

 or convenient to deposit them finally in a tumulus, some would 

 become more, some less, some perhaps entirely disjointed ; for the 

 practice of stacking or storing the dead, though originated probably 

 by the necessities of cold weather, would be continued, as well- 

 recognised principles would lead us to expect, irrespectively of 

 times and seasons, when it was once well established. Thus 

 the partial retention and partial loss of the natural connections 

 of the bones observed in these barrows would both alike receive 

 an explanation, and be seen to depend upon the greater or less 

 resistance which their ligaments had offered to the attacks of 

 putrefaction 1 . 



1 M. Arthur de la Borderie, Depute a l'Assemble'e Rationale de France, in his 

 work, ' Les Bretons Insulaires et les Anglo-Saxons du v. au vii. Siecle,' when giving 



