Archaeological Intelligence.
PRIMEVAL PERIOD.
Amongst the meagre evidences which can be adduced in relation to the earliest occupation of our island, there are none more valuable than observations connected with sepulchral deposits; and although little may remain to be added to the facts collected by Douglas, Cunnington, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and other zealous investigators of British tumuli, it is of importance that the circumstances observed in the examination of any barrow or burial-place, should be faithfully recorded. However trivial and tedious such recitals may appear to some of our readers, it must be remembered that tumuli supply almost the only indications of the civilization, customs, manufactures and commerce of the first inhabitants of Britain; that their comparison may ultimately enable the archæologist to reduce to a scientific classification, facts, which at present remain in vague confusion, and thus tend to establish a distinction between the various tribes or successive occupants of the country.
The following notice of the recent examination of two British tumuli, in Cambridgeshire, has been communicated by Mr. W. T. Collings; one of them, opened on May 20th last, is in the parish of Bottisham, on the borders of Newmarket Heath. It is placed on an elevated range of hills, forming the escarpment of the chalk, which makes it conspicuous for miles over the flat country around. This position, with the fact that an immense quantity of charcoal was found throughout the composition of this tumulus, which is of large size, measuring about 90 feet in diameter, although the deposit was, in comparison, very trifling, would incline us to think that it had been used as a site for a beacon-fire, to guide the traveller over the wild waste of fen-country which spreads in all directions around, and hence, probably, the name "Beacon-course." The cutting was made from east to west, commencing at the eastern side of the tumulus, in the direction of its centre, in which, at a depth of about three feet, there was found a cinerary urn, in an inverted position, slightly tilted on one side, and surrounded by charcoal and burnt earth. It was filled with charcoal, but contained only one small fragment of bone. This vessel, which was of the simplest manufacture, moulded by the hand, and sun-baked, measured, in height, five inches, and its diameter, at the largest part, was five inches and a half. From the deep red colouring, and the general appearance of the surrounding soil, it would seem that a small hole
