150 EEPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



The finely chipped flint knife, No. 154, already described, has every 

 appearance of great age, and is of typical Neolithic form. It is similar 

 in shape to the knife found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Wyke- 

 ham Moor, Yorkshire, but smaller. 12 



Perhaps the most important discovery made this season is that of 

 prehistoric pottery, Nos. 163 and 167 (previously described in detail), 

 found at depths of only 5'8 feet and 5 feet respectively below the sur- 

 face of the silting. The presence of ornament of a definite type renders 

 them the easier of identification. Sufficient remains of the rim and 

 sides of No. 167 to identify the typical ' shoulder, ' with hollow mould- 

 ing below it, but unfortunately there are no fragments of bottom, and 

 therefore it is impossible to say whether the vessels had round or flat 

 bases. The upper part of the vessels may be described as having 

 straight rims with a slight bevelling of the lips on both sides. The 

 rim piece, No. 163, with twisted cord pattern on the external surface, 

 can be matched exactly by a fragment of pottery (not figured) found in 

 the West Kennet Long-barrow, and now in the British Museum. 



The pattern on the several fragments comprising No. 167 has 

 already been described, and it only remains to say here that the orna- 

 mentation is of the same kind as that which embellishes the well-known 

 pieces of pottery found in the Long-barrow at West Kennet, near Ave- 

 bury, of which a few fragments may be seen in the British Museum, 

 and a larger series in Devizes Museum. One of these fragments with 

 the grooved herring-bone design, the depressions being ornamented 

 by transverse notches, has frequently been figured as a specimen of 

 Stone Age pottery. 13 



Ornament precisely similar to that on the Avebury fragments (No. 

 167) is seen on the Neolithic bowls from Peterborough and the Thames 

 at Mortlake (but the ribbing across the grooves is not clear in the latter 

 specimen). 14 Similar decoration is also seen on a fragment of prehis- 

 toric pottery found in association with Boman remains only l'l foot 

 deep in the silting of the ditch of Wor Barrow (long-barrow), Handley, 

 Dorset. Its position in the ditch was of no datable value, and the 

 fragment must have been mixed with the soil when deposited in the 

 position in which it was found. 15 Two round barrows near Handley 

 (Barrow 24 16 and Barrow 29 17 ) also produced prehistoric pottery bear- 

 ing the same type of ornament as these Avebury shards. That in the 

 first barrow was found at a depth of a foot on the chalk floor; the 

 mound was small, with encircling ditch, outside which no fewer than 

 fifty-two cremated interments were discovered. That in the second 

 was found in the body of the mound, depth 1*8 foot. These fragments 

 were probably in the soil originally thrown up to form the barrows, 

 and as Neolithic man is known to have used Handley Downs for 



12 Evans' ' Stone Implements,' first ed., p. 297, fig. 242 ; Archceol. Journ., xxii., 243. 



13 Archceologia, xxxviii., 405, fig. 15 ; lxii., 343, bottom right-hand fig. ; Lord 

 Avebury's Prehistoric Times, sixth ed., p. 152, fig. 160 ; Stone Age Guide, Brit. Mus., 

 1902, p. 114, fig. 139. 



14 Archceologia, lxii., 336, fig. 3, and plate xxxvii., fig. 3. 



15 Excavations in Cranbome Chase, iv., plate 261, fig. 17. 



16 Ibid., plate 298, fig. 8 ; see remarks also on pp. 147, 163. 

 1T Ibid., plate 304, fig. 7. 



