438 The Sixtieth General Meeting. 



Hamada, Professor of Archaeology in Kyoto University, Japan, who 

 was present, and was asked to say something on the distribution of 

 dolmens, said he was much interested in seeing this structure, for 

 it reminded him of the dolmens which were so numerous, some 

 with mounds, and some bare, as this was, in Japan. Sometimes 

 five hundred or six hundred were to be found there within a com- 

 paratively small area. He put their date, in Japan, at from 500 

 to 700 A.D., and they all belonged to the Iron Age. There was 

 no Bronze Age in Japan. Dr. Tapp mentioned the dolmens of 

 Corea and the pottery found in them. Professor Sayce, referring 

 to excavations of his "own in North Africa and Korea, said that 

 whilst the African dolmens resemble those of Europe, the Korean 

 examples do not. Mr. H. E. Medlicott thanked Mr. Alec Taylor, 

 the owner of the Devil's Den, for the interest which he took in the 

 monument. 



After tea in Mr. Arnold's farm premises at West Kennett the 

 drive was continued to SILBURY HILL. Here the Rev. E. H. 

 Goddard again acted as guide, giving an account of the various ex- 

 cavations by the Duke of Northumberland (1777), the Archaeological 

 Institute (1849), the Wiltshire Archaeological Society (1867), and 

 Mr. A. Pass in 1886. The latter had found a number of flint flakes, 

 certainly of human manufacture, at a level in the chalk silting 

 round the base of the mound, which showed that flint-using people 

 were on the site a considerable time after the raising of the mound. 

 This he said seemed to him the most important piece of positive 

 evidence as to date that had come to light as yet, and its importance 

 had not been properly considered. Dr, W. H. St. John Hope, in 

 reply, referred somewhat contemptuously to the flints in question, 

 and argued at some length in favour of the Norman origin of the 

 mound. He had paid a good deal of attention to these great 

 mounds in different parts of the country. One thing was very 

 clear, they were not barrows. Although they appeared to be scat- 

 tered about promiscuously, they really served a definite purpose, 

 and with regard to many of them there was documentary evidence, 

 beginning with Domesday, that they were Norman, and so part of 

 a great system devised by the Conqueror. Apparently he parcelled 



