Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/222

168 a handful of ash. Nevertheless, it is probable that some kistvaens belong to the period of carnal interment, and were erected for the reception of single bodies, which for some reason or other could not be conveyed to the family mausoleum. In Derbyshire carnal interment is found in cists, which are miniature dolmens, or kistvaens, sometimes standing alone, sometimes congregated together like cells of a honeycomb, each containing its crouched skeleton. On Dartmoor we have hundreds of kistvaens. Most have been rifled, but such as have been explored show that they belonged to the same people and period as those who occupied the hut circles.

In the fine kistvaen at Merivale Bridge, plundered and mutilated though it had been, a flint knife and a polishing stone were found; and flint flakes have been picked out of the ploughed soil round the Drewsteignton cromlech. At King's Oven is a ruined circle surrounding a demolished kistvaen, of which, however, some of the stones remain. A flint scraper was found wedged between two of the encircling stones. Some fine specimens are to be seen near Post Bridge.

IV. The stone circle is called by the French a cromlech. The purport of this is conjectural. Undoubtedly interments have been found within them, but none, so far, in those on Dartmoor, In the great circle on Penmaen-mawr there were interments at the foot of several of the monoliths, and, indeed, one of these served as the backstone of a kistvaen. Stone uprights surround many cairns, in the midst of which is a kistvaen; but such circles as the Grey