the second and latest Iron age, and as no one seems to dispute this, it may be accepted as an established fact. Their peculiarities of form, and the smallness of the stones of which most of them are composed, are such that the date here ascribed to them does not necessarily bring down that of the true megalithic remains to anything like the same age. It takes away, however, all improbability from the assertion that these may be much more modern than was supposed, and this much is certain that there was no break between the great English and Irish circles and the Viking graves; or, in other words, men did not cease to mark their sepulchres with circles and cairns, and then after a lapse of centuries revive the custom, and begin it again on a smaller scale. There may be a descent, but there was no solution of continuity, and any one can consequently form an idea how long a time must have elapsed before the great Wiltshire circles could have degenerated into those of Hjortehammer.
There is one other group of monuments it seems worth while to illustrate before leaving this branch of the subject. They are found in the extreme east of the province, on the banks of the Dwina, in Livonia. At a place called Aschenrade, about fifty miles as the crow flies from Riga, is a group shown in the accompanying woodcut.[1] The arrangement is unusual in Europe, but is met with in Algeria, and seems to be only such a combination
- ↑ Bähr, 'Die Gräber der Liven,' Dresden, 1850, pl. i. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, no scale is engraved on the plate, and no dimensions are mentioned in the text.
