he two rites.

In all other cases the builders of the megalithic monuments buried their
dead unburned. Often the body was lying stretched out on its back, or
was set in a sitting position against the side of the tomb; but most
frequently it was placed in what is known as the contracted position,
laid on one side, generally the left, with the knees bent and drawn up
towards the chin, the arms bent at the elbow, and the hands placed close
to the face. Many explanations of this position have been suggested.
Some see in it a natural posture of repose, some an attempt to crowd the
body into as small a space as possible. Some have suggested that the
corpse was tightly bound up with cords in order that the spirit might
not escape and do harm to the living. Perhaps the most widely approved
theory is that which considers this position to be embryonic, i.e. the
position of the embryo previous to birth. None of these explanations is
entirely convincing, but no better one has been put forward up to the
present.

This custom, it must be noted, was not limited to the megalithic
peoples. It was the invariable practice of the pre-dynastic Egyptians
and has been found further east in Persia. It occurs in the neolithic
period in Crete and the AEgean, in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and other
parts of Europe, and it is one of the facts which go to show that the
builders of the megaliths were ethnologically connected, however
remotely, with their predecessors in Europe.

At Halsaflieni, in Malta, we have perhaps examples of the curious custom
of secondary interment; the body is buried temporarily in some suitable
place, and after the flesh has left the bones the latter are collected
and thrown together into a common ossuary. That the bones at Halsaflieni
were placed there when free from flesh is probable from the closeness
with which they were packed together (see p. 111). There are also
possible examples in Sicily (see p. 79). The custom was not unknown in
neolithic days, especially in Crete. It is still occasionally practised
on the island and on the Greek mainland, where, after the dead have lain
a few years in hallowed soil, their bones are dug up, roughly cleaned,
and deposited in caves.

CHAPTER X

WHO WERE THE BUILDERS, AND WHENCE DID THEY COME?

Modern discussion of the origin of the megalithic monuments may be said
to date from Bertrand's publication of the French examples i