[843] W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, pp. 54-6, 59; Archaeologia, xliii, 1871, p. 401; xlix, 1885, pp. 188-9; Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Association, N. S., vi, 1900, pp. 8-10; Vict. Hist. of ... Derby, i, 175; J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 56, 67-9, 86-7, 94; Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., passim. Pitt-Rivers (Excavations in Cranborne Chase, ii, 8), speaking of twenty-two round barrows near Rushmore, remarks that ‘Here, as in other places, the smaller barrows have, as a rule, been found to contain the larger number of relics’.
[844] W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 39.
[845] Ib., p. 60.
[846] See Lord Avebury, Prehist. Times, 1900, pp. 133, 135, 144, and Guide to the Ant. of the Bronze Age (Brit. Museum), p. 57. Seventy-nine flint saws were found by Canon Greenwell (Brit. Barrows, p. 262) in one barrow in the parish of Rudstone, East Riding of Yorkshire. They could hardly have been intended for the use of the deceased, unless, indeed, he was a dealer in implements, and his relatives wished to provide him with the means of plying his trade in a future state. ‘On ensevelit le guerrier,’ says M. Salomon Reinach (L’Anthr., xvii, 1906, p. 354), ‘avec ses armes, la femme avec ses objets de parure, parce qu’ils sont tabous et, à ce titre, retirés de la circulation et du commerce’, &c. Very likely this motive sometimes operated; but it will not account for many of the deposits which I have mentioned.
[847] E. B. Tylor, Prim. Culture, 1903, i, 483-5.
[848] B. G., vi, 19, § 4.
[849] Germ., 27.
[850] E. B. Tylor, Prim. Culture, 1903, i, 477-90.
[851] A. Lang, Custom and Myth, 1885, p. 11, n. 2. See also W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, pp. 59-60, 121.
[852] Archaeologia, xliii, 1871, pp. 536-8; lii, 1890, p. 24; W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 10. Pitt-Rivers, however (Excavations in Cranborne Chase, ii, 2), found that only one of the twenty-two barrows which he opened at Rushmore contained animal bones. Mr. J. R. Mortimer (Forty Years’ Researches, p. lxx) believes that ‘many of the small dish-shaped cavities containing burnt matter that are found scooped into the old turf-line under the barrows were probably made to serve as cooking ovens for roasting the funeral feasts’. Some of these cavities contained pieces of animal and human bones, charcoal, and potsherds; but Canon Greenwell (Brit. Barrows, p. 9) observes that ‘there is no appearance of a fire having ever been kindled within them, the burnt matter, when they contain any, having evidently been placed there in that condition’. Their object remains unexplained.