(After Thurnam, _Archaeologia,_ XLII.)]

Turning first to the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire group of barrows we
find that they are usually from 120 to 200 feet in length and from 30 to
60 in breadth. In some cases there is a wall of dry stone-masonry around
the foot of the mound and outside this a ditch. The megalithic chambers
within the mound are of three types. In the first there is a central
gallery entering the mound at its thicker end and leading to a chamber
or series of chambers (Fig. 3, _a_ and _c_). Where this gallery enters
the mound there is a cusp-shaped break in the outline of the mound as
marked by the dry walling, and the entrance is closed by a stone block.
The chambers are formed of large slabs set up on edge. Occasionally
there are spaces between successive slabs, and these are filled up with
dry masonry. The roof is made either by laying large slabs across the
tops of the sides or by corbelling with smaller slabs as at Stoney
Littleton.

In the second type of chambered barrow there is no central corridor, but
chambers are built in opposite pairs on the outside edge of the mound
and opening outwards (Fig. 3, _b_). The two best known examples of this
are the tumuli of Avening and of Rodmarton.

In the third type of barrow there is no chamber connected with the
outside, but its place is taken by several dolmens--so small as to be
mere cists--within the mound.

The burials in these barrows seem to have been without exception
inhumations. The body was placed in the crouched position, either
sitting up or reclining. In an untouched chamber at Rodmarton were found
as many as thirteen bodies, and in the eastern chamber at Charlton's
Abbott there were twelve. With the bodies lay pottery, vases, and
implements of flint and bone.

CHAPTER III

MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND

The stone circles of Scotland have been divided into three types--the
Western Scottish, consisting of a rather irregular ring or pair of
concentric rings; the Inverness type, in which a chamber entered by a
straight passage is covered by a round tumulus with a retaining wall of
stone, the whole being surrounded by a regular stone circle; and the
Aberdeen type, which is similar to the last, but has a 'recumbent' stone
between two of the uprights of its outer circle.

The first type occurs in the southern counties, in the islands of the
west and north coasts,