A Map of Stonehenge Down
Two such Long Barrows are within a short distance of Stonehenge. No metal objects have been found in these Long Barrows, though leaf-shaped flint arrow-heads, most delicately chipped, are almost invariably met with, and occasionally rough, hand-made, undecorated pottery. Most Long Barrows have been used for "secondary interments," i.e. other bodies at a later date have been buried in them. These secondary interments are sometimes associated with bronze or even iron. Interesting as the Long Barrows are, however, they are only mentioned as being, so far as present information goes, the earliest form of regular sepulture in this country. It is highly improbable that they have any connection with Stonehenge, which must have been erected at an age when the Long Barrow with its inhumed body was passing away, and the plain was being peopled with a new race, the "round-headed" people, whose method of burial was considerably different.
The Round Barrows
The visitor to Stonehenge has only to turn his back to the "Friar's Heel," as he stands on the Altar Stone, and he will see a typical "group" of Round Barrows, seven in number. Let him remember, then, that Wiltshire boasts of two thousand similar sepulchral mounds; and that he can, within an easy distance of Stonehenge, find three hundred of them, while in the same radius he will only encounter two Long Barrows.
The proportion, therefore, of round to long is considerable, viz. 1:150. The figures of round and long for the entire county are eighty-six Long to two thousand Round Barrows, or 1:24. In other words there are five times more Round Barrows in the Stonehenge District, than there are anywhere else in Wiltshire, taking Long and Round Barrows together. This disproportion in distribution cannot altogether be the result of accident; it must bespeak a special attraction for the spot by the builders of the Barrows, and from the very fact that Stonehenge was erected at a time when these people were first arriving on Salisbury Plain, it does not seem extravagant to claim that they had some reason for wishing their remains finally to rest within easy distance of what must have been to them a sacred spot.
As already noted, these Round Barrows can be divided into three classes: 1. The simple Bowl-shaped Barrow, that most frequently encountered, having a diameter of from twenty to sixty feet, and a height of from three to five feet. 2. The Bell-shaped Barrow which reaches its highest development on the plain round Stonehenge, and is more common and more beautiful in Wiltshire than in any other part of England.
Plans and Sections of Bowl Bell & Disc barrows.
Indeed, the Stonehenge Bell Barrows are the very crown of the Sepulchral Mound on Salisbury Plain. Unlike the Long Barrow, they are entirely surrounded by a circular ditch, from which material for the Mound has been excavated; within the ditch is a circular area level with the turf, from which the mound rises from five to fifteen feet in a graceful conical form. The diameter will be upwards of one hundred feet, so that the entire structure is considerably larger and more impressive than the Bowl Barrow.