EARLY MAN 



south and 45 ft. east and west, with a rise of 3 ft. above the surface : being 

 placed upon a slope it has probably slipped and suffered slight change of form. 

 ' It was constructed as follows : a circle of large and rough native sandstones 

 was laid on the surface of the ground, marking the extent of the supposed 

 mound. Near the centre of this circle the urn was placed, mouth upwards, 

 probably in a cairn of stones ; then a quantity of rough sandstone was thrown 

 in, and afterwards covered with sandy clay or loam.' ^ The urn was of the 

 two-tier variety, hand-made, decorated on the outside, on the apex, and on 

 the interior by rope pattern in chevron designs. The contents were burnt 

 human bones, burnt flint implements and flakes, and a ' broken nodule of jasper 

 flint.' In the barrow itself were found also the burnt tooth of an ox, animal 

 bones, charcoal, numerous flint flakes and implements, among them a barbed 

 arrow-head, pieces of coal and quartz pebbles. 



This is a characteristic interment. Technically this mound and urn 

 must be assigned to the Bronze Age ; but the deposit itself is significantly 

 suggestive of the neolithic area amid which it is placed. 



The excavation of a barrow at Littleboro', further to the east, showed it to 

 contain a similar interment, consisting of an urn, calcined bones, and small 

 pieces of flint. But it is further to the north, on the moorland hills that lie 

 away towards Burnley, that interments of this character are more numerously 

 recorded. These are almost homogeneous, and the single discrepancy of a 

 bronze pin occurring in one instance, only strengthens the suspicion that the 

 real age of these neolithic sites may have been contemporary with the incipient 

 use of bronze, and reciprocally, that these ' round barrows ' were fashioned 

 by a people accustomed to the use of flint and to whom bronze was rare. To 

 quote a few examples : At Worsthorne, near Black Hameldon Hill, was a barrow 

 30 ft. in diameter and 4 ft. in height, in which were found ' flint flakes and 

 arrow-heads,' the centre was occupied by stones arranged like a long sarco- 

 phagus with two large stones as cover ; on the same site a tumulus 2 1 ft. in 

 diameter yielded an unglazed urn ; a third mound was surrounded by a stone 

 circle, and in it were found calcined human remains ; at BrierclifFe, in the 

 same region, was a tumulus and earth circle, 27 ft. in diameter, with a 'food- 

 vessel ' ; near it was a circle of seven stones, from which came ' unglazed urns, 

 human remains, and flint arrow-heads ' ; at Hellclough was another circle of 

 seven stones, an urn, and the bones of two persons, with the bronze pin 

 previously mentioned ; a third circle of seven stones yielded, in addition to 

 an urn and bones, a flint axe. 



Further again to the north, on the hillside which forms the northern bank 

 of the Ribble near Stonyhurst, there was examined a circular tumulus which 

 was 1 1 5 ft. in diameter, with the result that a ' small flint knife or scraper ' 

 was found with ' crushed bones in charcoal,' a bone hone 4 in. long, and the 

 handle of a vessel (seen subsequent to the excavation), the edge of which was 

 crimped. The bone hone was worn as by the sharpening of a metal instru- 

 ment upon it. 



At Wavertree, near Liverpool, there have been made finds of no less 

 importance. Some cinerary urns, reported to be eight in number, containing 

 burnt human bones and ashes, seem, from those which are preserved in 

 the City Museum of Liverpool, to have been possibly of very early date, 



1 In Roch. Lit. and Set. Soc. i8gS. Sutcliffe, ' Hades Hill Barrow.' 



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