Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/269

Rh of the circle, either at the foot of the stones as at Crichie, or outside the ditch as at Hakpen or Stonehenge. In the smaller circles the diameter of which does not exceed 100 feet, the deposit seems either to have been in the centre; or, if at the sides, the stones were so arranged as to mark its place. In the larger, or 100-metre circles, we have not yet ascertained where to look. Accident may some day reveal the proper spot, but till it is ascertained either scientifically or fortuitously, no argument can be based on the negative evidence which our ignorance affords.

In the neighbourhood of these stone circles are several bowl-shaped barrows similar to those in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, not only externally but internally. When opened they were almost all found to contain interments by cremation and rude half-burnt pottery. It is not here, however, that these barrows are found in the greatest numbers. In the neighbouring parish of Sandwick they exist in hundreds, and scattered exactly as on the Wiltshire downs, here and there, singly or in pairs, without any apparent arrangement or grouping. It is said that there are at least 2000 of these mole-hill barrows in the islands. Here, as there, it would seem, that where a man lived and died there he was buried, without any reference to anything existing, or that had existed. None of these barrows have stone circles of any sort attached to them. Indeed, the only rude stone monuments in Orkney of the class we are discussing are those just described, and they are all confined to one remote inhospitable-looking spot. Close to these, however, Lieutenant Thomas enumerates six or seven conoid barrows, whose form and contents are of a very different nature. The bodies in them had been buried entire without cremation, and with their remains were found silver torques and other ornaments, similar as far as can be made out—none are engraved—to those found in Skail Bay, along with coins of Athelstane, 925, and of the Caliphs of Bagdad, of dates from 887 to 945. That these conoid graves here, as well as others found in the islands, are of Scandinavian origin, can hardly be doubted, and their juxta-position to the circles is at least