NEOLITHIC STONE CIRCLE AT PORT ERIN. 171 



in the Neolithic stage, living in small communities of 4 to 

 16 families, that they occupied the locality over a lengthened 

 period and were there when the later Celtic population 

 settled in Man — and perhaps on the evidence of the name 

 " Lhag-ny-Boirey " we may conclude that they occupied one 

 of the latest preceltic strongholds and that they had a 

 reputation for being quarrelsome and troublesome to their 

 neighbours. They used pottery of a rude kind, made by 

 hand, of materials obtained from the spot, for domestic 

 purposes and as urns in which they deposited the ashes 

 of their dead. The stone circle on the hill above the 

 villages was used by them as a place of sepulture, and the 

 only mode of burial there was by means of cremation. 

 They hunted and fought with flint-tipped arrows, used 

 flint scrapers to prepare the skins of animals for their 

 clothing, and the flint knives no doubt for various other 

 purposes. In regard to the ceremonies of burning their 

 dead and the burying of the ashes we can only conjecture, 

 but the size and nature of the cists, the presence of the 

 numerous quartz pebbles, the buried weapons and imple- 

 ments deposited with the ashes all imply the funeral rites 

 of a people imbued with some religious ideas however 

 primitive. The remarkable arrangement of the tritaphs 

 in a circle with radiating spokes and openings to north 

 and south may point to some form of nature worship. 



We have done our best to make the examination of the 

 huts and stone circle of the Meayll Hill as thorough as 

 possible, and what is perhaps of nearly equal importance 

 we have lost no time in placing the results on record for 

 future reference. We trust the proprietor may now be 

 induced to make over the guardianship of this unique 

 relic to the Trustees of the Manks Museum and that it 

 may be thus preserved as a National Monument of interest 

 not only to IVfanksmen but also to Archaeologists in 

 general. 



