EARLY MAN tumuli, and into them the pieces of burnt bone have been placed without urns and then covered with earth. The accompanying illustration, fig. 59, represents a contracted inter- ment in the circumference of a large round tumulus examined by the writer, which once existed on Dunstable Downs. The tumulus has now been levelled for agricultural purposes. Its position was one third of a mile south-east of the ' Five Knolls ' on Dunstable Downs, in the field on the east side of the road. The chief skeleton represents a woman, one of the bronze age dolichocephali, 4 ft. ii| in. in height and from eighteen to twenty-five years of age ; the child clasped by the mother was about five years of age. Near the head of the woman were two broken pots, near the right hand a stone muller and a white pebble ; else- where in the grave were two other mullers, two scrapers and two very rudely chipped celts. About 200 fossil Echini were found surrounding the skeleton as illustrated. The owner of the land, Mr. F. T. Fossey, found an arrow-head in the excavated material but lost it again. Near by, in the same tumulus, the remains of a cremation were found buried in a small hole excavated in the chalk. Another tumulus, a little to the south of this, contained in its circumference the skeleton of a crouching boy about fourteen years of age ; between the hands was a nodule of iron pyrites. Very few finds of bronze implements have been recorded from Bedfordshire, and the county is unrepresented in the bronze age collection of the British Museum. This is not because bronze antiquities have not been found in the county, but because they have not been preserved, and when found by field workmen have been lost again, or sold for old metal. The late Mr. Joseph Cooke, the former owner of Maiden Bower, the camp near Dunstable, once told the writer that when he was a boy his father had a quantity of bronze weapons in one of his barns at Sewell, but none are there now, and Mr. Cooke did not know what had become of them. There can be no doubt that the people of the bronze age were spread over the whole county, and further investigations may bring many remains of this age to light. Sir John Evans 1 records the finding of two bronze spear-heads, yf inches and 6 inches, near Toddington, and about sixty socketed celts at Wymington. 2 A socketed celt has been found at Toddington. 3 In fig. 60 is shown a piece of antler, from which a number of long narrow pieces have been sawn or cut out, as if for the manufacture of rude pins. In fig. 61 a bone is shown with the surface cut and end pointed with a knife to form a long bone peg. In fig. 62 two views of a bone are Fig. 60. given, showing numerous axe marks which have been delivered by a polished stone or bronze celt. These 1 Amient Bronze Implements, p. 321. 3 Op. cit. p. 113. 3 Man, the Primeval Savage, p. 316, fig. 230. I I69 22
