ON THE AGE OF STONE CIRCLES, 459 



has no other use, it will at least tend to impress upon exploring archseo- 

 logists that there is yet another field of inquiry obtainable in ditch- 

 digging. 



But to return to the Fosse of Arbor Low. From the western edge of 

 the original cutting, Section 4, to the end of the excavation, called ' Ditch 

 Extension, Section 4 ' (which was extended to the westward in search of 

 the solid limestone causeway), the rock sides shelved up very gradually, as 

 seen in one of the plotted sections. From the S.E. corner of the cutting 

 and within 46 cm. from the surface, a 'spur ' of solid limestone extended 

 in a N.W. direction, sloping gradually and meeting in the middle of the 

 cutting the limestone shelving up towards the middle of the causeway, 

 on which long irregular ledges could be clearly traced which might well 

 have served as steps to facilitate the process of ingress and egress to and 

 from the bottom of the fosse before it became filled or partly filled with 

 silting. 



In the N.W. side of this cutting through the fosse, miniature caverns 

 occurred in the solid limestone sides of the ditch. Careful search was made 

 here for any objects that might have been hidden at the time the ditch was 

 open to the bottom ; our efforts, however, were unrewarded. 



Although the photographs of this part were mostly taken in the rain, 

 they well show the form and irregularities of the sides and bottom of the 

 re-excavated ditch. Considerable traces of fire were observed at the 

 bottom near the point where the barbed arrow-head^ 43, was discovered, 

 and also in the corner of the cutting on the S.E.^ The silting, as before 

 stated, was of the same nature as in Section 6 on the east. 



This completed the examination of the fosse, 26 metres having been 

 excavated in all, of the total length of 165 metres. In other words, nearly 

 one-sixth of the fosse of Arbor Low has been re-excavated, and flint im- 

 plements only have been found from top to bottom of the silting. The 

 mean depth of the whole fosse excavated is 1">-19. 



As regards the arrow-heads, it is worthy of notice that the barbed- 

 and-tanged specimen, a form generally considered to be the most highly 

 developed, was found 82 cm. lower down in the silting than the arrow-head 

 of leaf-shaped form, but approximating closely to the lozenge-shaped, a 

 form which has generally been regarded as an earlier form than the barbed 

 variety. It has not, however, yet been clearly ascertained which form of 

 arrow-head was first manufactured, and the matter is at present surrounded 

 with the greatest difficulty, inasmuch as the triangular, the stemmed, and 

 the leaf -shaped varieties are recorded as having been found together in 

 the same locality and in the same deposits. One form is easily evolved 

 from another, and although General Pitt-Rivers' method '^ of arranging 

 arrow-heads, showing the theoretical transition from one form to another 

 is excellent in museum arrangement, until something more definite is 

 arrived at, yet, bearing in mind the records of the circumstances of the 

 finding of flint arrow-heads during the last thirty-five years, it would be, 

 as Sir John Evans has said long ago, ' unwarrantable to attempt any 

 chronological arrangement founded upon mere form, as there is little 



• Dr. Garson has .suggested that the traces of fire at this point may possibly indi- 

 cate that this portion of the ditch, which is deep and would therefore aflford some 

 shelter from wind and storm, was occupied by persons employed in guarding the 

 circle ; hence the greater number of implements in this section and in the corre- 

 sponding section excavated last year on the other side of the causeway. — H. B. 



= Colonel A. Lane Fox's second lecture on ' Primitive Warfare,' Journ. R. V. Sen: 

 Imt„ 1868, vol. xii., No, LI. 



