ARBOR LOW EXCAVATIONS IN 1901 AND I9O2. 55 



Blandford, by the late and venerable Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell, 

 was observed by Professor Boyd Dawkins to be " smoothed 

 and polished into a perfectly well-defined track by human feet 

 circling round the burial mound." This, he adds, " may have 

 been intended for a ceremonial procession at stated times in 

 honour of the dead."* Chalk of course lends itself admirably 

 to being smoothed by constant contact with the feet, or even 

 by means of such primitive tools as obtained in the Stone 

 and early Bronze Ages ; whereas, in the case of the fosse of 

 Arbor Low, the process of levelling or smoothing the mountain 

 limestone with its veins of chert, calcite, and other hard sub- 

 stances would have bristled with difficulties. Although 

 General Pitt-Rivers never actually recorded the fact, I am 

 able to testify that the bottoms of some of the ditches surround- 

 ing Stone and Bronze Age tumuli that he re-excavated in 

 the chalk in Cranborne Chase were perfectly smooth. Take, 

 for instance, the case of the great Wor Barrow on Handley 

 Down, Dorset ;\ the bottom of the ditch was quite even and 

 polished, especially on the western side, where the fosse was 

 13 feet (3'96 m.) deep, and some 21 feet (6"4 m.) in width 

 at the top. 



But to return to the fosse of Arbor Low. From the western 

 edge of Section 4, the excavation called " Ditch Extension, 

 Section 4," was extended to the westward in search of the 

 solid limestone causeway, the rock-sides of which shelved up 

 very gradually, as shown in the photograph (left-hand side), 

 plate IV. From the south-east corner of Section 4, and within 

 1 J foot (457 cm.) from the surface, a "spur" of limestone 

 extended in a north-west direction, sloping down gradually and 

 meeting in the centre of the cutting, the limestone shelving 

 up toward the middle of the causeway, on which long irregular 

 ledges could be clearly traced which might well have served 

 as steps, to facilitate the process of ingress and egress to and 

 from the bottom of the ditch before it became filled, or partly 

 filled, with silting. 



* Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, xviii., 

 1 22. 



t Excavations in Cranborne Chase, iv. , plate 253, fig. I, and plate 249. 



