ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 381 



and intended, as Sir H. Dryden pointed out to me, for use in 

 pot-making, as in Brittany. The pottery was reported to have 

 come from parts west of the middle of the long axis of the barrow, 

 nearer its north than its south wall, and from no very great dis- 

 tance downwards in it. A coin of Constantine was found in the 

 same locality, but very near the surface. 



It may now be well to put distinctly on record what we per- 

 sonally observed in 1874, whilst making certain sections to clear 

 up points left undecided by what had been done in 1867 and 

 1868. 



In clearing out the space already spoken of as the transverse 

 zone, containing the ossiferous chamber, and that part of it which 

 ran southwards from the chamber, parts or the wholes of four 

 skeletons were come upon. And the first points, perhaps, to be 

 noted about them are that they were not laid upon the natural 

 soil, as has sometimes been observed to be the case — as, for ex- 

 ample, in another long barrow in this neighbourhood — but that they 

 always had some slaty rubble interposed between them and the 

 soil, and that two of these bodies lay to the south of the long axis 

 of the barrow. These facts may seem to some to be an argument 

 in favour of Professor Nillson's view 1 of the bodies having been 

 introduced at successive periods into such tumuli, and of explaining 

 thus those marks of disturbance which have induced other writers 

 to have recourse to the hypothesis that these ancient, like certain 

 modern savages, used their tumuli as ossuaries. The first body 

 found was that of an aged woman, lying (on the right side ?) in 

 the contracted position, with the vertebrae in situ, about 4 feet 

 6 inches from the top of the barrow, and from % inches to 4 inches 

 from the natural surface of the ground, which was separated from 

 the skeleton by a layer of stones. In front of the legs of the woman, 

 and quite close to them, was the skeleton of a child, in possession 

 of the full milk dentition. Charcoal lay in small quantities all 

 about the bones of the two human subjects, and mixed up with 

 them were the bones of voles. As the trench was carried up 

 towards the chamber, the bones of another child, considerably 

 younger than the former one, were found scattered about in it; 

 and, finally, in the nearer neighbourhood of the chamber was found 



1 'Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia/ ed. Lubbock, p. 168. 



