DIM AND MISTY PAST

Evening Star, Issue 21511, 8 September 1933, Page 1

DIM AND MISTY PAST

STONE AGE FINDS 4,000-YEA,US-OLD ■ SKELETON. With a view to securing more information about life in the Stone Age, excavations are being made on Thickthirn Down, near Faniham, Dorset, under the direction of Lieutenantcolonel C. D. Drew, the Field Secretary of tlie Dorset Natural History and Archeological Society, and Mr Stuart Uiggot, an authority on archaeology. The excavations are being made at a " long jjnrrow,” a typo of burial mound dating from the Stone Age, which ended about 200 n.c. Already several interesting finds have been made. Colonel Drew says that the people who made the ditch round the mound had no metal tools, and used deers’ antlers as picks and the shoulder blades of oxen as shovels. Several of these have been found. At varying depths in the ditch different* kinds of pottery have been recovered. At the bottom were pieces contemporary with the period of the formation of the barrow. Even more important finds were made in the central mound. On the first day of the excavations, a few weeks ago, just under the turf was found the skeleton of a child about years old with a “ beaker ” of pottery peculiar to the early Bronze Age, dating about 2,000 b.c.-1500 me. This skeleton belonged to a people who came from South Germany and were entirely different from those who built the barrow. They were the first people to introduce metal to this country. Later, another skeleton, of a man, was found, and immediately underneath was a third skeleton.