Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/27

Rh ignorant of the turning-lathe or wheel of the potter. They are generally extremely unsymmetrical, merely dried in the sun, without any attempt at design, and devoid of ornament. But at a later period, the urn is found neatly fashioned into various and graceful forms, and ornamented with different patterns of lines, traced by some instrument on the soft clay, after which the vessel has been baked with fire.

The sepulchral monuments of the earliest periods, with their accompanying weapons and implements, are not peculiar to Britain; nor indeed are they at all so common in England as on many parts of the continent of Europe. They are of frequent occurrence on the coasts of the Baltic, and along the shores of the German Ocean. They are found in Holland, Brittany, and Portugal, and on the islands and coasts of the mainland bordering on the Mediterranean. They are, in fact, the monuments of a rude and thinly scattered people, who subsisted by hunting and fishing, and whose imperfect implements totally incapacitated them from penetrating into the interior of those countries, encumbered as they were then by vast forests, which bade defiance to their imperfect implements and simple arts; and they are scarcely ever discovered far inland, unless in the vicinity of some large river or lake. Those, however, in this district have this distinguishing feature, that they are situated nearly midway between the east and west seas, and occupy a position almost on the very backbone of this part of Britain.

About a mile westward from these tumuli are three large cairns, in Askerton Park, near the eastern end of the Mollen Wood. They are situated near each other, and are constructed of large stones. The cairn is only another and more artificial form of tumulus, and is frequently found in combination with the latter. The tumulus may be considered a mound of earth, while the cairn is a mound of stones. Pennant, in his voyage to the Hebrides, speaking of cairns, says, "These piles may be justly supposed to have been proportioned in size to the rank of the person, or to his popularity; the people of a whole district assembled to show their respect to the deceased, and by an active honouring of his memory, soon accumulated heaps equal to those that astonish us at this time. But these honours were not merely those of the day; as long as the memory of the deceased existed, not a passenger went by