if not sepulchral, were intended to perpetuate the final triumph of the Southern Britons, and the limitation of the Belgic dominion. The boundaries of which I am now speaking, are for the most part extant on the steeper and northern sides of hills, the foss, or excavation, lying on the North, because people, pressing forward from the south, were opposing the resistance of a northern adversary."

THE BUSTARD.

(Page 140.)

The re-appearance of several bustards in Wiltshire in the winter of 1871, when the two, which, as stuffed specimens, are to be seen in the Salisbury Museum, were killed, would seem to indicate that if this bird had a chance of living a quiet life on the downs, it would again be found occupying its former haunts. The rapid conversion of the downs into corn and root-producing land would, however, effectually prevent any re-settlement of this bird near Stonehenge, even if it could ensure an unmolested existence.

THE OSSUARY THEORY.
(Page 152.)

Dr. Thurnam did not think that the provisional interment of bodies during the formation of the mound which was to be their ultimate destination would satisfactorily account for the remarkable appearance presented by so many of these bodies when discovered in the long barrows. He says "It is highly probable that, during the time the large and honorary grave-mound was in process of formation, the bodies of the dead and of those slaughtered in their honour were deposited in some temporary grave, and subsequently disinterred for final interment in the complete, or nearly complete, long barrow. I am, however, satisfied, by repeated and minute examinations of the bones, that the very peculiar appearances which they present cannot be entirely explained in this way; but that they are due to the manner in which those who were sacrificed in the course of the funeral ceremonies were slaughtered, and who seem to have been literally brained' by the blows of a club or stone axe." "Archæologia," xlii., p. 191,

CREMATION IN WILTSHIRE LONG BARROWS.

(Page 153.)

Dr. Thurnam saw reason, subsequently, to add to this list of three long barrows presenting imperfect cremation, two, which he had previously considered to be oval barrows. They are " Kill-Barrow," near Tilshead, and No. 3 on Shrewton Down (p. 196). "Both, when excavated at the east and broader end, yielded deposits of burnt bones, covered and intermixed with a substance resembling mortar, many of the bones being tinged of a green colour.

In

both the skirts of the mounds are more or less mutilated, so that the lateral ditches of the true long barrow are not apparent." ("Archæologia,” xliii., 297, note.) The three long barrows, described in "Archæologia, xlii., 191, in which the remains of the dead found in them had been burnt, were Knook Long Barrow, Tilshead Old Ditch Barrow, and that in the centre of Bratton Camp. In Knook Long Barrow, in the year 1801, in the usual situation, and instead of the usual pile of skeletons, Mr. Cunnington found a "large quantity of burnt bones." This barrow was re-opened by Dr. Thurnam, in 1806, "when, in digging at the north-east end of the barrow we came to traces of the burnt bones and many scattered brittle flints, some of a red and others of a blackish-grey colour, as if scorched by heat. Though no pains were spared in clearing out the base of the barrow, no trace whatever was met with of any unburnt skeleton or skeletons." In 1865 Dr. Thurnam opened the Tilshead Ditch Barrow (perhaps the largest long barrow of Wiltshire), and found beneath a pile of large flints, and on a sort of pavement of similar flints, a large pile of burnt bones, being those apparently of one full-grown adult individual. It was observed that the fragments of bone were much larger than those so common in the circular barrows, and that they were far from being so completely incinerated. The skeleton of a small female was found about two feet to the north-west of the burnt bones, closely doubled up, and crouched. The skull presented indisputable marks of having been violently cleft before burial, and no doubt during life. "In this instance the skeleton appears clearly to have been that of a slaughtered female victim, and the burnt bones those probably of the chief in

whose honour the barrow was erected." In August, 1866, Dr. Thurnam opened the barrow at Bratton Castle, and in the more westerly of two large openings made at the extreme east end, he found, on the natural level, at a depth of 8 feet, a heap of imperfectly-burnt, or rather charred, human bones, as many, perhaps, as would be left by the incineration of one or two adult bodies. Careful search was made for an enti.e unburnt skeleton or skeletons, but without success. Dr. Thurnam gathered from the results of the examination of some long barrows in Yorkshire by Canon Greenwell that in that part of the north of England "cremation was the rule of the long barrows, but cremation after a singular and imperfect fashion."

POSTURE OF BODIES IN CASES OF INHUMATION.

(Page 165.)

Had Dr. Thurnam lived to write his paper on Stonehenge, he would doubtless have condensed for it his two valuable papers in vols. xlii. and xliii. of the "Archæologia," and have done it in a more systematic manner than the writer has done. The latter, anxious not extend his paper to an undue length, has touched very lightly on some very interesting matters connected with the barrow-burial around Stonehenge, and amongst others, upon the position of bodies in cases of inhumation. He gladly takes advantage of this printing of " Addenda" to give some more information upon this subject than the slight mention of it made at page 165. Sir R. Hoare says "Ancient Wilts," i., 24):

"The second mode of burying the body entire is evidently proved to be of a much later period, by the position of the head and body, and by the articles deposited with them. In this case we find the body extended at full length, the heads placed at random in a variety of directions, and instruments of iron accompanying them.

"Two modes of cremation seem also to have been adopted; at first the body was burnt, the ashes and bones collected, and deposited on the floor of the barrow, or in a cist excavated in the native chalk. This being the most simple, was probably the most primitive custom practised by the Ancient Britons. The funeral urn, in which

the ashes of the dead were secured, was the refinement of a later age. The bones, when burnt, were collected and placed within the urn, which was deposited with its mouth downwards, in a cist cut in the chalk. Sometimes we have found them with their mouth upwards, but these instances are not very common: we have also found remains of the linen cloth which enveloped the bones, and a little brass pin which secured them.

"Of these different modes of interment, I am of opinion that the one of burying the body entire, with the legs gathered up, was the most ancient: that the custom of cremation succeeded, and prevailed with the former; and that the mode of burying the body entire, and extended at full length, was of the latest adoption."

"The crouched position of the skeleton," says Dr. Thurnam, "with the knees drawn up more or less closely to the breast, is not confined to the long barrows, or to tombs of the stone age; but is also observed, almost, if not quite, to the exclusion of the extended posture, in the circular barrows of the bronze age. It is a very singular, though well-known circumstance, that this contracted or crouched position of the remains is by no means peculiar to ancient British tombs, but is found to have been and still to be very generally resorted to by primitive and barbarous peoples in both hemispheres and in all the quarters of the globe. The earliest notice of it seems to be in Herodotus, who tells us (iv., 190) that the Nasamones of Lybia buried their dead in a sitting posture, watching when one is about to expire, that they may set him up, that he may not die supine." The secondary interments found by Mr. W. Cunnington, Sir R. C. Hoare, and Dr. Thurnam, near the summits of barrows, with iron weapons accompanying them of an Anglo-Saxon character, were all in a extended position. In a barrow opened in 1802 by Mr. Cunnington, the contracted position is described more specifically as the "sitting posture." Such a posture, and more rarely a kneeling and standing one, have occasionally been pointed out in other British barrows. Most of the deviations, however, from a simple crouched position are probably the result of accidental circumstances. We may infer, from the example of numerous barbarous and savage peoples at the present day amongst

whom American Indians, Esquimaux, Australians, New Zealanders, Feejeeans, and Andaman Islanders may all be named, that the custom which obtained with the ancient Britons was the same as now practised, viz., that of swathing the body more or less closely in skins or cloth, in a posture sometimes described as a sitting one, and sometimes as simply doubled up. When a corpse is thus prepared and deposited, for burial, it is obvious that it must be very uncertain, whether, in filling up the grave, the body shall ultimately lie on the right or the left side; or be somewhat tilted up and left in the sitting or squatting posture. What may have been, and what may still be, the reason for this practice has been much argued. It must be remembered that death usually leaves the body with the limbs more or less bent and contracted, or in the condition known as rigor mortis. Hence, in laying out the corpse it is generally needful to employ slight force, in order to extend, and as it is said, compose the limbs. In rude states of society we may readily understand that superstitious feelings may operate so as to prevent any interference with nature, whose apparent indications in such a matter would be likely to be carried further rather than contravened. It may likewise have been the object to inter the dead as much as possible in the same posture, as that which the living were accustomed to occupy when at rest, crouching rather than sitting round the fire or low table, with the elbows on the knees, and the hands resting against the cheek. According to M. Troyon, this doubled-up posture, none other than that of the unborn infant, was imposed on the body of the dead, when about to re-enter the bosom of the universal mother, as the symbol of a belief, not only in a life to come, but likewise in that of the resurrection of the body. The bodies of the Britons of this period, and in this part of the island were, for the most part, deposited in the meridian line, with the head to the north, and consequently with a south aspect. This was found to be the general practice by Sir R. Hoare, Mr. Cunnington, and Dr. Thurnam.