ANNTTAIi MEETING. 329 



Iago : Coming down to that. — Mr. Trevail said lie was very 

 much, struck with the sketch which had been exhibited with 

 regard to the contracted position of the burials. It was the 

 favoarite way adopted by the Aztecs long before this. He had 

 lately been examining a great many examples of such burial just 

 brought to Paris (in the Trocadero), and these graves might show 

 a connection between the European and American continents. He 

 imagined that the period to which he was referring was long 

 anterior to 2,000 years ago. But after all, was it not an act of 

 vandalism to pull these graves about as they had been doing ? 

 Would it not have been better to let these poor old people rest in 

 peace as, undoubtedly, their friends hoped they would, and as we 

 hoped our dead would when we buried them to-day ? 



The Eev. D. G-. Whitley said there were two great ques- 

 tions to decide — what was the age of the burials, and what was the 

 character of the human being buried there ? There were several 

 tests that might be applied to pre-historic burials. The first was 

 the animal remains found with the burial. The test of weapons 

 was not so good. In this case he was afraid no animal remains 

 were found, (Mr. Iago : Here they are.) Mr. Whitley said there 

 were one or two which could not be precisely determined. A 

 discovery had been made in France, at the top of a very barren 

 old hill, of various graves, some of which appeared to be of a 

 later period than others. There were bronze bracelets and a few 

 trinkets which might lead them to infer burials of later date, 

 while farther down were stone cists precisely like those of Harlyn. 

 In these graves the skeletons were in a contracted position. 

 Further down, only a few feet, there were others very roughly 

 enclosed in slabs of stone. The animal remains and the imple- 

 ments — the mammoth, the lion, the rhinoceros, the reindeer, the 

 wild horse, the fire and flint instruments of the oldest type — 

 showed it was the burial place of the old stone age. There were 

 children's graves precisely like those at Harlyn, and it was 

 puzzling to know how men with such intellectual heads could 

 have lived in those ancient times. He thought with Mr. Iago 

 that the Harlyn Cemetery was a burial place of the Neolithic age 

 or the Bronze age, though they should not say it was of the 

 bronze age because a few bronze trinkets were found. 



