NEOLITHIC STONE CIRCLE AT PORT ERIN. 167 



In one cist — VI. A of our plan (PL XI) — we found 

 immediately beneath the pavement or floor a hole measur- 

 ing 12 inches in diameter at the mouth and 12 inches in 

 depth, filled with a fine dark soil like that above the floor 

 of the cist, while with this exception all the floor stones 

 rested on the undisturbed surface of the hard yellow 

 mountain soil. This suggested that in this case an urn 

 had been buried in the soil under the floor, and in fact 

 nearly all the pieces of pottery and the flints were found 

 beneath the floor stones. How far this position is due 

 to the cists having been disturbed before, the contents 

 turned over, and the urns broken it is impossible to say. 



Now we shall note briefly any special characters of the 

 tritaphs, commencing at the north east corner (see Plan 

 PL XI). We label the tritaphs I to VI, and the cists in 

 each A, B, and C, B being in each case the radial one. 



In LA we found an old worn shell of Littorina littorea, 

 also fragments of pottery which proved on examination to 

 belong to at least 5 different vessels measuring from 9 to 12 

 inches in height and in widest diameter. Other fragments, 

 some evidently belonging to the same urns, lay in the 

 central space between A and C. 



In II. A in its north west corner were loose pieces of 

 charcoal and some burnt bone fragments, also traces of a 

 black oily substance possibly the result of charred animal 

 matter mixed with earth. We were told that 20 years 

 ago a man named Fargher had dug a perfect urn out of 

 cist C. No description or record of it was however kept, 

 and the urn itself has disappeared. We think that it was 

 in or beside this tritaph that in 1882 Mr. F. Swinnerton 

 picked up a small flint arrow head. 



In III.B a small flint scraper was met with, and in C 

 some pieces of pottery belonging to 5 urns and 2 broken 

 knives. The space between this and the next tritaph, an 



