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186 unprocurable. On the other hand, wood is so liable to decay that it is rare to find evidence of its having been used.

The stone-lined grave is perhaps the most widely distributed of all the sepulchral monuments in Britain. From this to the megalithic chamber, with its internal compartments, entrance passage and superincumbent cairn, was an easy transition. But the sequence thus suggested is of little chronological value in dating these monuments, as there is evidence to show that chambered cairns and long barrows were the earliest tombs constructed in this country. Thus, in the counties of Gloucester, Wilts, Somerset, Dorset and some neighbouring localities, there are chambered cairns in which the primary interments were by inhumation, and the human skulls found in them belonged to a dolichocephalic race. Similar chambered cairns, also containing reniains of a dolichocephalic race, have been found in the island of Arran; but as regards the analogous groups farther north in the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Sutherland, Caithness and the Orkneys, it has been conclusively proved that cremation and inhumation were carried on simultaneously from their very commencement. This shows that the custom of constructing chambered cairns travelled slowly northwards, and was overtaken by that of cremation. It would thus appear that, subsequent to the construction of the English megalithic chambers, there was a period of