Page:The history of Little England beyond Wales and the non-Kymric colony settled in Pembrokeshire.pdf/44

18 shaped barrows, for in these we find inhumated bodies, invariably of the long-headed or dolicocephalic type, with no admixture of round-headed or brachycephalic skulls. These burial-places are, so far as my experience goes, conspicuous by their absence in West Wales. Barrows we have in plenty, but they are the round barrows of the bronze using, round-headed people, and usually (though not invariably) contain cremated bodies.

There is, however, another class of tomb which is very largely represented in our west country, viz., the cromlech or dolmen. Of these about twenty are marked on the Ordnance Map of Pembrokeshire; but an immense number of ruined cromlechs, and indeed many perfect ones have been carelessly omitted by the map-makers. We may safely say that these structures are more plentiful in Pembrokeshire than in any other district in Great Britain. The mystery which perforce hangs over these tombs has been unnecessarily magnified by generations of theorists. Welsh writers in an ecstasy of patriotic enthusiasm have claimed them as altars of an unknown god, who was ignorantly worshipped by their Keltic ancestors,