46 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



That the sun was revered by many races in the primitive period 

 there are abundant proofs. In Britain our knowledge of the re- 

 ligious cult of the men of the period of transition from stone to 

 bronze, or of the early bronze age, is extremely limited, yet very 

 strong evidence in favour of some kind of worship or reverence of 

 the sun is afforded by the interments in the barrows of Yorkshire 

 and Derbyshire, 1 explored by Canon Greenwell, where " the habit 

 was generally to place the body in the grave facing the sun." 



In later days, when Stonehenge had ceased to be a temple of 

 the sun, and its sacred character had departed, it might have been 

 used as a sepulchre, but of this there is no positive evidence, and 

 its ascription to such a purpose would seem to have no other basis 

 than the fanciful ascriptions of ancient legends. 



Finally, as to the origin of Stonehenge. 



The idea of the origin of megalithic structures from a common 

 source has been advanced by many writers. But in this connection 

 it should be borne in mind that there seems to have been an epoch 

 in the life of many races, widely separated from one another, 

 during which, under very varied conditions, they erected monuments 

 of more or less rude megalithic blocks and of similar forms. And 

 from this it by no means follows that the practice or the forms 

 were copied by one race from another, but rather that they were 

 the outcome of a similar development of the human mind and had 

 an independent origin in many and remotely separated regions. 



In Britain there is abundant evidence, in the numerous rude 

 stone monuments distributed throughout its area, that this peculiar 

 phase of mental development had reached a very high point. Why 

 then should we seek in distant countries for the origin of this 

 crowning example of megalithic art ? 



Of its foreign origin there is, in fact, no proof, and its plan and 

 execution alike can be ascribed to none other than our rude fore- 

 fathers, the men of the neolithic or, it may be, of the early bronze 

 age. 



W. Greenwell, British Barrows, 26. 



