MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 95 



be readily split off with wedges and then dragged or 

 rolled to their present positions. !NTo lintel, impost, or 

 covering to the cist now remains, these having doubtless 

 been long since removed for building and repairing 

 fences. This removal and the fall of rubbish consequent 

 thereon would in part account for so much broken pottery 

 in the cists. Above the flooring of flat slabs and the 

 buried urns, ashes and flints, the cist appears simply to 

 have been filled in with loose stones and earth up to nearly 

 the top of the side stones (see Fig. 1 on fig. 11). The 

 burials were evidently all by cremation, 2 to 5 or more 

 urns being deposited in each tangential cist or in the 

 proximal end of the radials — we met with no such remains 

 in the distal part of any radial cist. 



Altogether we have been able to distinguish the 

 remains of at least 26 distinct urns, all however in a 

 fragmentary condition. With this pottery were some 

 fragments of calcined bones, ashes and loose charcoal, also 

 compacted lumps of bone, ash, and charcoal, with a certain 

 amount of greas}^ black matter. A few flint instruments 

 were met with, including three arrow heads (Fig. 2 on 

 fig. 11), at least 5 knives, a scraper, and some broken 

 pieces. In each cist also were found a number of rounded 

 white quartz pebbles, from the beach, measuring 1 to 6 

 inches in diameter. These were found scattered through 

 the grave without obvious arrangement, although they 

 may originally have been carefully deposited on the floor 

 around the urns or in some definite manner. In some 

 other ancient burial places in the island similar white 

 quartz pebbles, evidently brought from the sea-shore, have 

 been used. Can this be the origin of the superstitious 

 dislike the natives still have to the use of the " clagh- 

 bane " or " white stone ' ' ? Fishermen, for instance, will refuse 

 to go to sea in a boat which has a white stone in the ballast. 



