214 



Excavations at Avehury. 



its mighty sides : but now we prepared for a thorough examination 

 of its materials, and to this end having already sufficiently ex- 

 amined the southern end, we selected the W.N.W. side of the gap, 

 behind Mr. Keram's rick-yard, in a field called " Barclose," where 

 the mound is thickly planted with trees, and near the locality 

 where quantities of animal bones had once been found. 1 Here we 

 made a considerable opening, cutting our trench or tunnel many 

 yards into the centre, and at such an incline downwards that we 

 reached at length the original level of the ground, which proved 

 to be a stiff clay soil of a deep red colour. 2 (We subsequently ex- 

 amined the soil of the meadow adjoining, and at about two feet 

 below the turf found it to be of a similar clay, though in that spot 

 scarcely so stiff.) This excavation occupied our labourers the 

 greater part of two days, but it proved wholly unremunerative, as 

 we disinterred nothing but the chalky rubble of which the whole 

 of the mound was made ; not a bone, not a fragment of pottery, 

 nor even of sarsen. 



Besults. 



Our workmen had now been carrying on the excavations for a 

 week, and we had examined all the spots of special interest, so that 

 it was time to bring our labours to a close : but it was with no 

 little reluctance we gave directions to desist, and fill in all the holes 

 and trenches we had made. For although we had found no hidden 

 treasures, and made no fresh discoveries, the result of our work 

 was on the whole highly satisfactory to us : for we considered we had 

 fairly settled the question mooted by Mr. Fergusson, but which 

 neither of us ever entertained for one moment, that Avebury was 

 a vast grave-yard, and that human bones would be disinterred, if 

 search were made. 



"We had made excavations in fourteen different spots within the 

 area, some of them of no trifling dimensions, but not one single 

 human bone had we found : quantities of bones of the sheep, the 

 horse, the ox, we had disinterred, many of which, not far from 



1 Btukeley's Abury, p. 27. 

 8 This clay is probably " loess," or a local drift. 



