ding stones. Sometimes, instead
of a chamber formed above ground, the barrow covered a pit excavated for
the interment under the original surface. In later times the mound itself
was frequently dispensed with, and the interments made within the enclosure
of a trench, a _vallum_ or a circle of standing stones. Usually the great
barrows occupy conspicuous sites; but in general the external form is no
index to the internal construction and gives no definite indication of the
nature of the sepulchral usages. Thus, while the long barrow is
characteristic of the Stone Age, it is impossible to tell without direct
examination whether it may be chambered or unchambered, or whether the
burials within it may be those of burnt or of unburnt bodies.

In England the long barrow usually contains a single chamber, entering by a
passage underneath the higher and wider end of the mound. In Denmark the
chambers are at irregular intervals along the body of the mound, and have
no passages leading into them. The long barrows of Great Britain are often
from 200 to 400 ft. in length by 60 to 80 ft. wide. Their chambers are
rudely but strongly built, with dome-shaped roofs, formed by overlapping
the successive courses of the upper part of the side walls. In Scandinavia,
on the other hand, such dome-roofed chambers are unknown, and the
construction of the chambers as a rule is megalithic, five or six monoliths
supporting one or more capstones of enormous size. Such chambers, denuded
of the covering mound, or over which no covering mound has been raised, are
popularly known in England as "cromlechs" and in France as "dolmens" (see
STONE MONUMENTS). The prevailing mode of sepulture in all the different
varieties of these structures is by the deposit of the body in a contracted
position, accompanied by weapons and implements of stone, occasionally by
ornaments of gold, jet or amber. Vessels of clay, more or less ornate in
character, which occur with these early interments of unburnt bodies, have
been regarded as food-vessels and drinking-cups, differing in character and
purpose from the cinerary urns of larger size in which the ashes of the
dead were deposited after cremation.

The custom of burning the body commenced in the Stone Age, before the long
barrow or the dolmen had passed out of use. While cremation is rare in the
long barrows of the south of England, it is the rule in those of Yorkshire
and the north of Scotland. In Ireland, where the lo