By John Thurnam, Esq. 341 



fifteen of those in South Wiltshire were excavated by the elder 

 Cunnington and Sir Richard Hoare, and more recently rather more 

 than that number by Dr. Thurnam. From these data a tolerably 

 complete view of the character of these barrows has been obtained. 1 

 Usually — in at least six cases out of seven — the interments consist of 

 unburnt bodies. Sometimes, there is a single skeleton doubled up; 

 but more commonly a pile of many skeletons, as many perhaps as 

 ten or twenty in number, the bones mixed promiscuously, as if 

 removed from some prior place of burial. The greater part of the 

 skulls are cleft, and many of the long bones split, as if the majority 

 of those interred had been immolated, in honour perhaps of a de- 

 ceased chieftain, and as if not alone human sacrifice, but cannibalism 

 likewise, had been resorted to. In rare cases (and the Long Barrow 

 round which they were now gathered was one) , the body or bodies had 

 been burnt, but the cremation was of a peculiar and imperfect sort, 

 the bones being charred, rather than completely burnt like those in 

 the Round Barrows. In one instance, that of the largest Long 

 Barrow in South Wilts, that of Tilshead Old Ditch, which measures 

 380ft. in length, and was imperfectly explored in 1802, Dr. Thurnam 

 in 1865, found the true primary interment, at a depth of ten feet, 

 consisting of one imperfectly burnt body, and immediately adjacent 

 a doubled-up unburnt skeleton, that of a woman of small stature, 

 the skull bearing indisputable marks of having been violently cleft 

 before burial, and doubtless during life. The burnt body must be 

 regarded as that of the chief, the unburnt one as that of the wife 

 or female slave, slaughtered that she might accompany her lord to the 

 land of spirits. 



In the Long Barrow at Bratton, however, the primary interment 

 consisted of burnt remains alone. At the beginning of this century, 

 Mr. Cunnington made two attempts on this tumulus. " At first he 

 cut a section nine feet long and five wide, and found black vegetable 

 earth for the depth of five feet intermixed with pottery and animal 

 bones. On one side of the section, at the depth of four foot, ho 

 discovered a pile of pebble stones (probably brought from Cod lord, 



1 Archseologia. Vol. xlii., p. 169, 



