148 YEARBOOK, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE [Vol. II. 



BARROWS AND MOUNDS OF SALISBURY PLAIN 



Looking in any direction from Stonehenge, one sees barrows or 

 burial mounds. In the immediate vicinity of Stonehenge, Stevens re- 

 ports two long mounds and three hundred round ones, and that one- 

 fourth of the mounds in Wiltshire are to be found within a short dis- 

 tance of this enclosure. This can hardly be accidental, and suggests 

 that these burial places cluster about this ancient temple, as does the 

 graveyard about the European church of today. The relations of at 

 least some of these barrows to Stonehenge are shown in figure 78. The 

 Rev. William Gilpin, writing in 1798, seems to have recognized this 

 fact, for he states, "All the Plain, at least that part of it near Stone- 

 henge, is one vast cemetery" "From many places," he says, "we 



counted above a hundred of them at once ; sometimes as if huddled 

 together, without any design, in other places rising in a kind of order. 

 Most of them are placed on the more elevated parts of the Plain, and 



Fig. 89. — Cross-section of a long barrow near Stonehenge. Drawing by the 



author. 



generally in sight of the great Temple." This observation was made be- 

 fore the Plain was broken by the plow. Many of these mounds have 

 since disappeared. 



The long barrow is regarded as the oldest form and is classed as 

 belonging to the Neolithic Age. In Wiltshire there are seventy-two of 

 these long mounds, fourteen others have been destroyed within the 

 past century. This type of mouiid is usually found on rising ground 

 and distant from each other. They are from three to twelve feet high, 

 thirty to fifty feet wide and from two to four hundred feet long. They 

 usually lie east and west, the eastern end higher than the western. In 

 the highest end and at considerable depth, is found the original inter- 

 ment. Intrusive burials are common in these long ridges, as is the case 

 in our Wisconsin mounds. The earth from which these long mounds 

 are built was dug entirely from either side of the elevation, leaving 

 trenches which, strange to say, do not pass around the ends of the bar- 



