Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/114

88 of course, was victorious. The occasion was happily chosen; for an address to the Archæological Institute was certain of attention at all events by a large part of the scientific world.

The keynote, not merely of the address, but of all the explorer's work, is to be found on the very first page, where he says: "I am fully sensible that the value of such investigations depends mainly, if not entirely, on the precision with which the evidence is recorded." Proofs of the truth of this are to be found on every page of the record; and well does General Pitt-Rivers remark: "So far from barrow-digging and camp-excavation having been worked out, as I understand some persons have asserted, it has hardly yet commenced upon a thorough system. But when we consider the rapidity with which ancient earthworks are being destroyed, the utmost care is necessary, not only in preserving but in examining them. If I were asked to give a title to this paper it would be 'A plea for greater precision and detail in excavations. And again: "Sir Richard Hoare, who excavated such a number of tumuli in this district, unfortunately took no notice of human skeletons, by which omission not only was the important evidence of race afforded by them lost, but it was destroyed for ever. This shows how careful we should be to record everything. I have twice been offered by neighbours permission to dig upon their property, on condition that I would not disturb the human bones or rebury them immediately. Of course I refused to avail myself of permission so hampered with unscientific conditions. This excessive reverence for bones of hoary and unknown antiquity is a great hindrance to anthropological science. The interesting questions of race can only be studied by careful measurements of the bones and skulls, and the preservation of them, if possible, in museums for future reference."

The excavations conducted in this spirit have been remarkably successful in contributing to the solution of old problems, and—what is equally important—to the raising of new ones. So far as recorded in the present volume they have been occupied with three camps or rectangular entrenchments of the Bronze Age and a ditch of the same, and with a neolithic barrow and a number of tumuli and other graves of the Bronze Age.

The first camp or entrenchment, called by the explorer South Lodge Camp, is in Rushmore Park. It covers three-quarters of