42 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



Then as regards pottery of an earlier date, the discovery of a 

 thuribulum 3 feet below the ground, recorded by Inigo Jones, 

 affords no evidence either as to the age or purpose of the monument, 

 as the nature of the ground and the conditions under which it was 

 found are not given, and without these, in a place so honeycombed 

 in part by rabbit burrows, no scientific value can be attached to 

 the occurrence of any object. It may be of very much later date 

 than Stonehenge, even if it were found at a greater depth, for in 

 Excavation VI. I dug up a modern preserved meat tin from a 

 much lower layer than the stone implements in the neighbouring 

 undisturbed ground. 



As regards the stone implements, I have already partially dealt 

 with their character and approximate age. More, however, remains 

 to be said about them. The larger number of these implements, 

 their rudeness, and the complete absence of any of bronze might 

 be considered to indicate without doubt that they belonged to an 

 early part of the neolithic age, and hence that Stonehenge was of 

 that date. But, as I have previously shown, bronze tools were by 

 no means necessary for any of the operations required, either for 

 shaping the stones or for erecting them, and it is possible that if 

 the early bronze age people found that stone tools were the most 

 suitable implements to employ they would certainly have used 

 them. So that the occurrence of stone tools does not alone prove 

 with absolute certainty that Stonehenge belongs to the neolithic 

 age, although it affords a strong presumption in favour of that view. 

 But, and this is important, had bronze been in general or even 

 moderately extensive use when the stones were set up, it is in the 

 highest degree probable that some implement of that metal would 



1801, and is now in my possession. He writes as follows : ' I think you 

 should correct the statement respecting the Roman pottery found at Stone- 

 henge. Your paragraph conveys what I never meant it to convey, namely, 

 that the pottery was deposited before the erection of the stones. I conceive 

 it to have been in the earth surrounding the stones, and after the fall of the 

 trilithon the earth containing these fragments would naturally moulder into 

 the hollows, for in this loose earth recently fallen into the cavity, the bits of 

 pottery were found.' " — Wiltshire Archceological and Natural History 

 Magazine, xxi., 149. 



