Note 852 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Archaeologia, xliii, 1871, pp. 536-8; lii, 1890, p. 24; W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 10. Pitt-Rivers, however (Excavations in Cranborne Chase, ii, 2), found that only one of the twenty-two barrows which he opened at Rushmore contained animal bones. Mr. J. R. Mortimer (Forty Years’ Researches, p. lxx) believes that ‘many of the small dish-shaped cavities containing burnt matter that are found scooped into the old turf-line under the barrows were probably made to serve as cooking ovens for roasting the funeral feasts’. Some of these cavities contained pieces of animal and human bones, charcoal, and potsherds; but Canon Greenwell (Brit. Barrows, p. 9) observes that ‘there is no appearance of a fire having ever been kindled within them, the burnt matter, when they contain any, having evidently been placed there in that condition’. Their object remains unexplained.