458 REPORT— 1902. 



like flint does from exposure and age ; consequently it is often difficult, if 

 not impossible, to decide whether certain fractures are ancient or quite 

 recent. 



In the extension cutting to the west a greyish-brown flint flake with 

 secondary chipping was found at a depth of 36-5 cm. (40 on plan and section) : 

 the bevelled edge on one side near the top is finely worked ; the bulb of 

 percussion is very prominent, on which is a well-marked facet, known in 

 scientific terminology as an eraillure.^ At 4-1 (plan and section) a small 

 chert or flint flake was found, depth 12 cm. This completes the stone 

 implements found in this part of the fosse. Of animal remains a tooth of 

 sheep was found at a depth of 91 cm., portion of a humerus of ox at a 

 depth of 1'"'52, and several small fragments of animal bones at various 

 depths, too minute and friable for identification. Not to omit anything, 

 it should be recorded that a Queen Victoria halfpenny, 1867, was found 

 Iiere near the causeway at a depth of 9 cm. below the surface of the turf. 

 This is not surprising, as a coin trodden into the turf edgeways will 

 gradually work its way downward a few inches during wet weather. 



Four or five photographs of this portion of the re-excavated fosse were 

 taken, and three sections were levelled and plotted. 



This was the deepest portion of the ditch excavated, the maximum 

 depth from the surface being 2™ -04. The bottom presented a very uneven 

 surface ; in fact, no attempt whatever appears to have been made to obtain 

 even a reasonably level track along the bottom of the fosse. The same 

 remark applies to the bottoms of all the other sections, with the excep- 

 tions perhaps of the shallow cuttings at sections 3 and 5 on the west. 

 I was particularly desired to make observations on this point. Mr. S. 

 Jackson recently found a flooring of poles at the bottom of a Bronze Age 

 ditch at Fairsnape Farm, Bleasdale, near Garstang.'^ The bottom of a 

 ditch cut in the chalk of a Bronze Age tumulus dug in 1898 at What- 

 combe, near Blandford, by the late and venerable Mr. J. C. Mansel- 

 Pleydell, for over forty years President of the Dorset Field Club, was 

 observed by Professor Boyd Dawkins to be ' smoothed and polished into 

 a perfectly well-defined track by human feet circling round the burial- 

 mound.' This ' may have been intended for a ceremonial procession at 

 stated times in honour of the dead.' ^ Chalk of course lends itself admir- 

 ably to being smoothed by the constant friction of the feet, or even by 

 means of such primitive tools as were used in the Stone Age ; whereas, 

 in the case of the fosse of Arbor Low, the process of levelling or smoothing 

 the mountain limestone with its veins of chert, calcite, and other hard 

 substances, would have bristled with difficulties. Although General Pitt- 

 Rivers never actually recorded the fact, I am able to testify that the 

 bottoms of several ditches surrounding Stone Age and Bronze Age tumuli 

 which he re-excavated in the chalk in Cranborne Chase were perfectly 

 smooth. Take, for instance, the case of the great Wor Barrow on Handley 

 Down, Dorset : the bottom of the ditch was quite even and polished, 

 especially the S.W. and W. portions, where the fosse was 3™-96 deep 

 and measured 6'" "40 in width at the top.* If the record of these facts 



' ' Worked Flints from the Cromer Forest Bed,' by W. J. Lewis Abbott, F.G.S., 

 Natvral Science, vol. x., pp. 92 and 93. 



^ See Profe.ssor Boyd Dawkins's paper on the subject, Trans. Lave, and Cliesh, 

 Antiq. Soc, vol. xviii. 



^ Same paper, Trans. Lane, and Chesh. Antiq. Soe., vol. xviii. 



* Excavationg in Craniorne Chase, vol, iv., PI. 253, fig. 1, and Pl. 249, 



