at the time of the building of Stonehenge bronze was
only known as a rare substance, whose very scarcity would make it
valuable as material for ornaments. It would not, therefore, be
inconsistent with existing evidence to set the date of Stonehenge
roughly at from 1700-1800 years B.C.

WHAT WAS STONEHENGE?

The Megalithic Stone structures, which exist not only in this country
but also throughout the Continent of Europe, are a special feature of
that period known as the Neolithic Age. As has already been shown,
Stonehenge represents a very late type, erected at a time when the
bronze culture had begun to overlap that of polished stone
(Neolithic).

These stone structures can be roughly divided into three classes.

1. Single upright stones, or _menhirs_ (Celtic = "high stone"), which
may be commemorative of some great event or personage.

2. _Dolmens_ (Celtic = "table stone"), in which a stone slab is set
table-wise on three or four uprights.

3. _Cromlechs_ (Celtic = "stone circle"). Circles enclosing barrows or
dolmens.

Stonehenge is a highly specialised example of this last class. Round
these cromlechs popular myth and superstition have crystallised
themselves into tales of the devil and his works (as in the case of
Stonehenge), ogres, giants, dwarfs, Sabbath breakers, and infidels,
turned to stone. In nearly every case there is some story of the
supernatural, which cannot be accidental, but which must have its root
in past religious observance.

It is a recognised fact that the worship of stones is more widely
distributed than any other primitive cult. Its almost universal
distribution can be referred to the tendency of the half savage mind
to confuse persons and things, and from seeming likeness of the
inanimate to the animate, to endue the lifeless object with the virtue
and power of the living object. This mental outlook is better
understood in practice than in theory. A Melanesian native may come
across a large stone, lying upon the top of a number of smaller
stones. It suggests to him a sow with her litter of pigs, and he at
once makes an offering to it, in the hope that he will secure pigs. In
determining the function of Stonehenge, therefore, it will be useful
to compare it with similar existing stone circles. The largest of
these in this country is Avebury, not many miles distant from
Stonehenge. Unluckily, to-day it is so ruined that its former
greatness is hardly to be distinguished by t