404 KEPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



across, were uncovered ; ' they were evidently placed there, and rammed 

 in for the purpose of propping the massive stones in their upright position.' 

 ' Black charred matter ' is recorded to have been found, and numerous 

 chips of sarsen. It was thought that fires had been lit here for the 

 breaking up of the stones. ' A good deal of British pottery and many 

 animal bones were found in these holes, but no human bones whatever.' 

 To the S.E. of ' The Cove ' a low embankment was cut through from 

 W. to E., the 'finds' being a portion of a stag's horn and some fragments 

 of pottery. An excavation was also made into the W. face of the E.N.E. 

 vallum, but nothing was found. Another was made on the S.W. at a 

 place where the vallum had been mutilated for the requirements of the 

 modern village ; only one fragment of pottery was found here. A third 

 excavation into the vallum was made to the W.N.W. side of the W. gap 

 without any result in the way of relics. The excavations made in all 

 numbered fourteen, and the fragments of pottery brought to light from 

 the deeper cuttings ' were invariably of the British type.' This latter 

 remark is vague, and without seeing the pottery it would be unsafe to 

 regard the shards as all being of the Bronze Age. Some Norman pottery, 

 although much harder baked, has often, in its coarseness and texture, 

 much about the same appearance as ancient British pottery, containing 

 grains of quartz, ifec, and it is only during the last decade or eo that we 

 have been able to identify shards of pottery with any degree of certainty. 

 Those responsible for the excavations of 1865 claim to have fairly upset 

 James Fergusson's view that Avebury was a vast graveyard, and that 

 human bones would be disinterred if search were made.^ 



When the Rev. W. C. Lukis was making a plan ^ of Aveburyin 1881, 

 his colleague, the Rev. A. C. Smith, rector of Yatesbury, resolved to 

 examine the ground with a hope of discovering some buried stones. 

 This was carried out by five workmen, and the spots specially observed 

 were the places where Stukeley and Aubrey showed that stones had 

 stood. The result was that sixteen large sarsens of the outer circle were 

 discovered, some buried at a considerable depth. It was Mr. Smith's 

 opinion that these stones had been sunk deep in tlie ground by means 

 of pits dug beneath them, doubtless to be no longer a hindrance to the 

 plough or for other agricultural reasons. They were covered up again 

 after Mr, Lukis had made his plan, the spots being marked by numbered 

 pegs, which have probably for the most part now disappeared. Lukis 

 and Smith also noted and planned several pits in which stones originally 

 stood. Hoare noted eight of the.se depressions, but Smith and Lukis 

 were able to add twenty-five others not previously recorded. Smith did 

 not find many relics during the work of 1881, but some of the pottery 

 was, I believe, regarded as being of early date.^ 



In July 1894 excavations were made into the vallum and fosse on the 

 S.E. at the expense of the then owner, Sir Henry Meux, Bart., under 

 the general direction of Mr. E. C Trepplin, steward of the estate, and 



' Fergusson's Rude Stone Monuments. 



■ This plan is Plate V. in Smith's Guide to the British and Soman Antiquities of 

 the North Wilts Downs. 



' Since writing this report I have had sent me by the Wiltshire Arch^ological 

 Society for examination fifty fragments of pottery found by Mr. Smith in 1881, and 

 now deposited in Devizes Museum. All of the shards appear to me to be post-Roman, 

 mostly of Norman date. There is certainly no fragment among them that can be 

 regarded as pre-Roman. It is all of the same general character as the pottery found 

 in my excavations in the S. fosse above the depth of 4'5 feet from the surface. 



