The case here presented is in a sense ‘special pleading’ and does not profess to give a complete explanation of the very complicated plans provided by the few long barrows and chambered cairns which have been excavated with any degree of care and completeness.

It may, in fact, be likened to an attempt to prove a single line of descent in a complicated pedigree; but, in my opinion the line is the principal one leading up to the common ancestor of a vast family of cousins of different degree.

One difficulty is the selection of a starting point in the family tree (to continue the metaphor); Mr O. G. S. Crawford would take the pedigree back to the house, a thesis it is much to be hoped that he will develop. I would, however, enter the caveat that in the particular case he cites the possibility of a reversal of the process of development should be considered. In a paper read to the Society of Antiquaries Mr Stuart Piggott suggested that an elongated chamber found by Mortimer under a round barrow at Kemp Howe was a house converted into a tomb. I would rather believe it to have been constructed for a burial chamber, and claim it as another link in the line of evolution from burial cave to barrow which I am trying to establish.