Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/120

94 throw light upon other prehistoric practices, such as the excavation of grave-pits, like those referred to above (p. 92), beneath a barrow, the position of cinerary urns (whether upright or inverted), the direction of inhumated bodies, of causeways across ditches surrounding barrows, and of entrances to chambered barrows, and the deposition of fragments of sandstone in the graves, as recorded in the volume before us? It is to them we must look, when the facts have been accurately recorded, to interpret these and many other customs.

I must pass over much of interest in this fascinating volume. But I cannot close a notice inadequate in every sense without referring to the entrenchment on Martin Down, excavated in 1895-96. It is quadrangular, enclosing about two acres, of the Bronze Age, and, like Winkelbury Camp described in vol. ii., has very wide entrances, that on the south-east side being 22*5 feet wide and that on the north-east being 17 feet wide. Such large entrances would be a serious weakness in a defensive work. General Pitt-Rivers therefore suggests that they were for the ingress and egress of cattle, or as he said about Winkelbury, "this points obviously to a necessity which must have existed for large openings for the ingress or exit [?] of a considerable body of men or animals in a short time under pressure from without," the theory in that case being that the animals were kept at pasture on the down outside and driven quickly in on the occasion of any hostile attack.

So far, therefore, there is nothing which cannot be accounted for in the entrenchment on Martin Down. What is puzzling is that on the higher or north-western side for nearly half its length no trace remains either of ditch or rampart. In fact, for a distance of upwards of 170 feet neither ditch nor rampart ever existed. That it is not simply an unfinished and abandoned camp is clear from the fact that remains indicating residence and use—flint and other stone implements, pottery, flint-flakes, and especially a very large number of burnt flints (doubtless used for boiling purposes)—were found both in the ditch and inside the camp, as well as bronze implements and a quantity of animal bones in the ditch. Little doubt can indeed remain that it was used, down to and in Roman times; for various iron objects, and even Roman coins were also among the relics recovered. In these circumstances what is the meaning of the large gap? The only suggestion made in the