By Mrs. M. E. Cunnington. 3 



found resting against the southern wall of the hole with packing 

 boulders behind it ; this piece of stone was itself broken across, and 

 fell into two pieces on being moved. It is difficult to see why the 

 stone should have cracked after its burial in the ground, and it is 

 perhaps possible that it was actually cracked before ; if, on the 

 other hand it could have broken in the ground comparatively 

 recently, this may have caused the final collapse of the stone. 

 Most of the packing boulders were found at the easterly and wider 

 end of the hole, the natural irregularity in the shape of the stone 

 requiring a greater amount of packing on that side to give it a 

 firm support, 



A discovery that has an important bearing on the date of the 

 erection of the stone, and therefore presumably on the date of the 

 monument of Avebury as a whole, was made in removing the soil 

 in front of the hole preparatory to clearing it out. The discovery 

 was that of the remains of a human skeleton and fragments of a 

 " drinking cup," or " beaker," close to and immediately in front of 

 the hole in which the stone had stood. The section here given 



/-:-------:<£-'.c 



' F . '' '■ ( - ' < \ ( 



I I. I J < /• f ' 



■ —____-_—- '■ f ■■'■ I !• '• i. v f ( ' 



* f i ( i- f < »■ i ( , < ,. y ( <■ t- i — > 



Section across the middle of the hole in which the stone stood, 



showing the relative position of the burial. A A the area 



of the -burial; B top of chalk; C soil. 



shows how very near the burial must have been to the side of the 

 stone when standing ; this section, drawn through the centre of the 

 hole, at right angles to its length, cuts as nearly as it was possible 

 to ascertain, through the middle of the burial, showing that it was 

 placed in the centre of this face of the stone. Presuming that the 

 three stones of the cove originally formed a sort of triangular en- 

 closure this face of the stone would have been the inner one. 



B 2 



