TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. §23 
10. On the Discovery of a Neolithic Cemetery at La Molte, Jersey.’ 
By R. R. Marert, M.A. 
Owing in part to observations and suggestions made by some of the members 
of the British Association who visited the archeological sites of Jersey last 
year, at the close of the Portsmouth Meeting, it was resolved by the Société 
Jersiaise to excavate the islet of La Motte, which lies a few hundred yards 
away from the mainland at the western horn of St. Clement’s Bay. ‘he shape 
and geological formation of this islet may be roughly described as follows: It 
divides into an eastern and western portion joined by a narrow neck, and consists 
of a basement of diorite, overlaid by about 12 feet of loess, which in turn is 
capped by another 12 feet of more or less sandy soil. Deep down in the loess 
a human cranium had been found in 1861; higher up, at the junction of the loess 
with the lighter soil, neolithic implements had occasionally been discovered in 
the almost vertical sides of the island; finally, in the course of last year, small 
landslips on the south side of the western portion had revealed cist-like struc- 
tures at the border-line between the loess and the upper stratum. Excavations 
begun in October 1911 and completed in April 1912 soon made it clear that the 
cist-like structures belonged to graves, built of largish unhewn blocks o1 the 
local diorite, with their flattest sides inwards, and covered with broad cap- 
stones. Eleven of these graves were from 5 feet 6 inches to 6 feet long. Four 
others were much shorter, one being a mere casket constructed of four blocks 
covered by a capstone a foot long. ‘'he function of the longer graves was 
apparent from one in which enough of the skeleton remained to show it to be 
a crouched burial. In the smaller ones, unfortunately, the bone was in the last 
stage of disintegration, so that it was impossible to say whether these were the 
graves of children, or cists designed to contain a packet of bones the result of 
pre-sepulchral decarnation. Three skulls in all proved more or less measurable, 
one only being well preserved. Their cranial indices were respectively 69.6, 72.6, 
and 73.9, thus displaying uniform dolichocephaly. The artefacts found in the 
graves were of poor quality, consisting of celts that were merely pebbles of 
shale with a ground edge, and sherds of coarse pottery, mostly without pattern. 
The eastern half of the islet turned out to be the site of a large cairn, 
furnished on one side with a supporting wall. Bone detritus was apparent at 
almost every point beneath it, and the same sort of rude stone implements and 
potsherds underlay it here and there. 
At one place in the western half of the islet, and at several in the eastern 
half, especially on the north-eastern side of the cairn, kitchen middens were 
discovered containing a large quantity of charcoal, numerous limpet shells, 
mostly calcined, and bones of ox, pig, and a small variety of sheep. There was 
also a fragment which seemed part of a human ulna. Potsherds were commen, 
and these, unlike those in the graves, were frequently ornamented with incised 
patterns of a simple kind. Their faces were decidedly neolithic, being com- 
parable to that of pottery found in the neighbouring dolmen of Mont Ubé. As 
the middens overlaid the cairn in places, there was reason to think that they 
might belong to a somewhat later date. 
The presence of a neolithic cemetery on the upper surface of the loess mages 
it probable that the skull found deeply imbedded in it (the cranial index of which 
is approximately 75.6) is not coeval with the loess, and hence pleistocene, as was 
hitherto thought, but has somehow slipped down from above. 
An interesting question of geology is how to account for the ceposition of 
12 feet of xolian soil above the neolithic floor. If land and sea stood in their 
present relation to each other this accumulation could not possibly take place, 
the wind nowadays causing the island to lose far more sand ‘than it gains. It 
would seem that La Motte was part of the mainland both during the time when 
neolithic man used it as a burial-ground, and long enough after for wind-borne 
materials to form a deep drift over it. 
1 To be published in full in Archeologia, 
