By the Rev. E. H. Goddard. 95 



barrows or cemeteries without barrows of a date later than Period 

 III,, of Montelius ; though if we assume that for some reason the 

 people of the later Bronze Age gave up the previous custom of 

 burying their implements with the dead, many of the barrows 

 which contain a single interment of cremated bones without any 

 otlier relics by which their age might be determined, may possibly 

 be referable to this later period. But it is not merely in the in- 

 terments, which indeed are but doubtfully known elsewliere, but 

 in the implements themselves, that Wiltshire is largely lacking. 



It is, indeed, singular that a county, which is richer than any 

 other part of England in relics, both in bronze and gold, of the 

 earlier period of the ]3ronze Age, represented by the barrow in- 

 terments, should be able to show so few examples, comparatively 

 speaking, of the later period of that age, when the bronze Swords 

 and Daggers, socketed Celts, Spearheads, and other implements 

 often found in considerable numbers in other parts of England, 

 were in use. 



We can hardly suppose tliat a district which evidently possessed 

 such a large population in tlie earlier period of the Bronze Age 

 ceased to be inhabited when men no longer buried their bronze 

 weapons with their dead, especially when we know that later, 

 again, the Romano-Britisli population was as dense on the Wiltshire 

 Downs as in any part of Britain. A more probable explanation 

 of the absence of these implements would seem to be that Wiltshire 

 possesses neither large rivers like the Thames, nor turbaries and 

 bogs, such as exist in Somerset and Devon and the northern 



the turf in a barrow near Stoneheiige in 1802, and in all probability w;is 

 of much later date than the barrow itself. The object actually found 



with the cremated interment at ,, .._._ 



Wilsford, ])artly melted by the / ~~----..^_ 



heat of the funeral ])ile, though ; :' ""; i^^^^\, '-^ 



«'all(!(l by Hoarea " Lance Head," ■ ^^^'^"^s ,'^^''*''^v ""^. 



is really a small Knife Dag^jer [ it''^'K'*^^^K^f^''''^^i^*^ '- 



with two rivets, and still exists ; I ■' ■-' )t39r^''^^k^^^ 



as No. 211 of tlu" Stourhead ! Vi<i--)»K^i^,.->''^^ -" . , - 



Collection at Devizes. (No. W.) : ....--"'" 



Small KnitV UapRcr half im-ltod with 

 heat ot" fiiiu'ial pilr. Krom bai row at Wilsford. 



