Note 15 — Chapter VI · Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation.

Similar facts were noticed at Littleton-Drew, at Uley, at Cotswold, and at Rodmarten, and from this Dr. Thurmam concluded that nearly all those who were buried in long barrows had met with a violent death.15 He speaks, however, of one skull pierced with a large hole, the edges of which had become rounded smooth, showing the action of a recuperative process, and proving that the injured man had long survived his serious wound. In 1809, a farmer of Kirkcudbrightshire set to work to demolish a large cairn that interfered with his tilling of the soil, and which, according to popular tradition, was the tomb of a Scotch king. In taking away the earth the workmen found a large stone coffin, in which lay the skeleton of a man of great stature. The arm had been almost separated from the trunk by the blow of a diorite hatchet, a broken bit of which remained imbedded in the bone.16