376 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 



arranged by the original builders of the barrow for purposes of 

 self-protection against the slipping and sliding of the rubble ; just 

 as we often observed our modern labourers arranging the stones of 

 these barrows while we were exploring them, the same considera- 

 tions of personal convenience having operated upon neolithic, as 

 they do upon modern, stone-heavers l . 



This supposition would remove the stumbling-block constituted 

 by the representation of a long barrow tapering towards its east- 

 ward end. A ground-plan which we made represented, in con- 

 tinuous lines, the actual facts, as seen and measured by us; and 

 a plan of a barrow with a double wall at its east end, such as 

 the Uley barrow appears to have been 2 , may represent those facts 

 as they were previously to interference 3 . The wall of the passage 

 which ran outside the eastward wall of the skeleton-containing 

 chamber, I think, from a comparison of my own notes taken on 

 the spot in 1867 with my observations made in 1874, must 

 originally have been continued southwards as far as the south wall 

 of the barrow. Looking at the barrow in 1867, I noted that a 

 single wall, starting from the south side, ' crossed the width of 

 the heap to the opposite side, where the "cist" was;' and a MS. 

 note of Mr. Royce is to very nearly the same effect, viz. that 

 ' there was an appearance of walling in the very centre of the 

 barrow, and almost through it in a line with the east end of 

 the cist; the face of the wall was towards the west, not east.' 

 A segment of this wall, about 4 feet long, existed in 1874, in 

 continuation of the passage wall southwards from the chamber it 

 bounded ; and another segment, about 1 feet long, took origin 

 opposite this segment, and was prolonged northwards from the 



1 This observation of the practice of modern labourers should put us on our guard 

 against assigning too much importance to, or searching too curiously for, a meaning 

 for every line of walling met with in barrows made of slate-shaped stones. As 

 regards the outer boundary walls even, the mere necessities of the case will account 

 for the greater definiteness which they possess at the sides and west ends ; though, it 

 is true, they do not account for the peculiar heart-shape which they assume at the 

 east ends of such barrows. For the double curve thus described, the fact that an 

 entrance to a doorway, or gallery, or passage could thus be made with facility, may 

 possibly account. And this contour might, on the well-known principle of 'survival,' 

 be retained even when, as in the Swell barrows, there was no gallery nor chamber at 

 the east end. 



2 See 'Crania Britannica,' PI. v; 'Archaeologia,' xlii. p. 49, ibique citata. 



3 Compare Dr. Anderson's Plan, vii, 'Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot.,' I.e. 



