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the most ancient allusions to burial ceremonies, and we see that c Mound 

 burial ' was prevalent in the earliest times of which we have any historical 

 record. Achan and his whole family were stoned with stones and burned with 

 fire, after which we are told that Israel ' raised over him a great heap of stones 

 unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger.' Again, 

 the king of Ai was buried under a heap of stones. 



" According to Diodorus, Semrramis, the widow of Nirius, buried her 

 husband within the precincts of the palace, and raised over him a large mound 

 of earth. Some of the tumuli in Greece were old, even in the time of Homer, 

 and were considered by him to be the burial places of the heroes. Paxisanias 

 mentions that stones were collected together, and heaped up over the tomb of 

 Laius, the father of CEdipus. In the time- of the Trojan war, Tydeus and 

 Lycus are mentioned as having been buried under two earthen barrows. 

 Hector's barrow was of stones and earth. Achilles erected a tumulus 

 upwards of one hundred feet in diameter, over the remains of his friend 

 Patroclus. The mound supposed by Xenophen to contain the remains of 

 Alyattes, father of Croesus, king of Lydia, was of stone and earth, and more 

 than a quarter of a league in circumference. In later times, Alexander the 

 Great caused a tumulus to be heaped over his friend Hephcestion, at the 

 cost of 1200 talents, no mean sum, even for a conqueror like Alexander, it 

 being £232,500 sterling. Virgil tells us that Dercennus, King of Latium, was 

 buried under an earthen mound ; and, according to the earliest historians, 

 whose statements are confirmed by the researches of archaeologists, mound 

 burial was practised in ancient times by the Scytheans, Greeks, Etruscans, 

 Germans, and many other nations. The size of the tumulus may be taken as 

 a rude indication of the estimation in which the deceased was held ; the Scotch 

 Highlanders have still a complimentary proverb, ' Curri mi clach er do cuirn,' 

 i.e., 'I will add a stone to your cairn.' 



" What Schoolcraft says of the North American Indians is applicable to 

 many savage tribes. ' Nothing that the dead possessed was deemed too 

 valuable to be interred with the body. The most costly dress, arms, ornaments 

 and implements, are deposited in the grave ; ' which is always placed in 

 the choicest scenic situations, on some crowning hill or gentle eminence in a 

 secluded valley.' And the North American Indians are said, even until 

 within the last few years, to have cherished a friendly feeling for the French, 

 because, in the time of their supremacy, they had at least this one great merit, 

 that they never disturbed the resting-places of the dead." 



Now it is somewhat remarkable, (and parenthetically I may say the fact 

 speaks strongly for the more extreme antiquity of the cavemen,) that although 

 in these ancient burial monuments the bones of animals are constantly found asso- 

 ciated with those of men, yet most of the species to which such bones belonged had 

 then undoubtedly been domesticated, and we no longer find the bones of the 

 elephant or rhinoceros, of the bear, hyaena, or reindeer, with which the remains 

 of the earlier men were constantly associated. These animals had evidently 

 all disappeared, and in the meantime great advances had been made in 

 various branches of art and civilization. No longer dependent upon spon- 

 taneous animal and vegetable growth for food and clothing, we find the 

 people of this age protecting and propagating numerous forms of animal life, 

 and we may assume that they warred upon such rival organisms as might have 

 preyed upon these objects of their care, or might have obstructed the increase 

 of their numbers. We may suppose too that these people carried on consider- 

 able agricultural pursuits, and that in doing so they encroached upon the 

 forests which had covered the greater part of the surface of the countries they 

 inhabited. We have, therefore, in our investigations of these early monuments, 

 evidence of the first great modifications effected in the physical character and 



