Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/315

]. Kits Cotty House, in Kent, and Wayland Smith's Cave, are still simpler forms, without a gallery.

The dead were buried in these tombs as they died, in a contracted or crouching posture, which is probably due, as Mr. Evans suggests, to their sleeping in that position, and not at full length on a bed. In the caves and tumuli which I have examined, I have been unable to detect any regularity in the position, although very generally the corpse had been interred on its side. Dr. Thurnam believes, from the many cases in which he has met with cleft skulls, that human sacrifices were offered, as was the habit among the Gauls, according to the testimony of Cæsar and Mela. Domestic animals were also slaughtered, and were eaten with the wild animals, such as the boar, roe, and stag, in honour of the dead. In the barrow of Tilshead Lodge were two skulls of the Celtic short-horn, nearly perfect; and in another barrow were part of a skull and a number of bones of the feet in their natural positions. In both these instances it would appear that the heads and feet were thrown on the yet incomplete barrow, "as offerings to the manes and other deities."

Implements of various kinds, flakes, arrow-heads (Figs. 106, 107, 108), scrapers, celts, and pottery, are very generally found in the tombs, and probably were intended for the use of the dead. Sometimes they have been purposely broken, so that they might be of no use to the living, and from the idea that the spirits of the