334 



Examination of Barrows on 



ornaments, weapons, or other relics. In one of these were beauti- 

 fully barbed arrow-heads and a knife of flint, (No. 4. ); in three, 

 pins of bone, (No. 8 — in which there was also an earthen cup— 12, 

 22) ; in one, pins of ivory (No. 9), in one, beads of jet and glass 

 (No. 15); and in another, a small blade of bronze (No. 27). 



The researches of the writer in the barrows of North "Wiltshire, 

 like those of Dean Merewether in the same district, in 1849, 1 con- 

 firm the observations of Sir Richard Hoare, who tells us that he 

 found in them " no costly ornaments of jet, amber, or gold," such 

 as "so often had rewarded his labours in the Southern district of 

 the county." 2 Sir Richard hence draws an inference as to the 

 " very high antiquity " of the tumuli near Avebury, and also as to 

 the "poverty" of the clan of Britons who inhabited these downs. 

 It is perhaps more to the point to insist on a difference of race in the 

 tribes in the two districts; that occupying the North Wiltshire Downs 

 appearing to have consisted of the Dobuni of Ptolemy, who clustered 

 round their aboriginal fane at Avebury ; whilst the tribe in posses- 

 sion of South Wiltshire, for some time, perhaps two centuries, 

 before our era, consisted of the immigrant Belgse. These last 

 brought with them from the Continent a more advanced civiliza- 

 tion ; probably erected Stonehenge ; and doubtless maintained a 

 more intimate traffic with Gaul than did their northern neighbours. 

 Another argument in favour of the priority or distinction of race, 

 of those who raised the barrows to the north and south respec- 

 tively of Wansdyke and the Yale of Pewsey, is derived from the 

 external form of the barrows themselves. It is true, indeed, that 

 no form of tumulus is distinctive of either district ; but it is also 

 true that the more elaborately formed barrows are much more com- 

 mon in the Southern district. On the plains around Stonehenge, 

 it is the elegant campaniform, or bell-shaped 3 barrow, and the 



1 Salisbury Yol. of Arch. Institute, p. 82. 



2 Ancient Wilts, vol. ii. pp. 91, 93. Tumuli Wiltun. p. 4. 

 3 In North Wiltshire, the bell-shaped barrows are rare, but the disc-shaped 

 ones of very muoh rarer occurrence ; and indeed, so far as the writer is aware, 

 they do not exceed five or six in number. Now that in the present season, 

 1859-60, a large portion of the down north of Shophord's Shoro is been ploughed 



