XXVII.—On the Examination of a Chambered Long-Barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire. By John Thurnam, Esq., M.D., F.S.A.
Read 15th March, 1860.
The investigation described in the following paper may perhaps throw some light on the nature of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as "long barrows," which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare; but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised.[1] In another part of his "Ancient Wiltshire," he tells us that he and his colleague "had at length given up all researches in them, having for many years in vain looked for that information which might tend to throw some satisfactory light on their history."[2] In the various long barrows which were opened by these investigators, we find that, with very few exceptions, human skeletons were discovered on the floor of the barrow, at the broad, or east end, "lying in a confused and irregular manner, and generally covered with a pile of stones or flints." The total absence of bronze weapons, of all personal ornaments, and of urns of pottery, such as were constantly found by them in the circular barrows of the same district, is repeatedly noticed by Sir Richard Hoare, who observes that "their original purport is still involved in obscurity, and a further explanation of them would be a great desideratum."[3]
In his second volume—"Ancient North Wiltshire"—Sir Richard points out that in this district many of the long barrows have a cistvaen, or stone chamber,
- ↑ Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 21.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 93. Mr. Cunnington's own observations on the Long Barrows will be found in the Archæologia, vol. xv. p. 345.
- ↑ Ancient Wilts, vol. i. loc.cit. vol. ii. p. 110. Modern Wilts; Hundreds of Ambresbury, Everley, &c. 1826, pp. 54, 57. Tumuli Wiltunenses, 1829, p. 5.
