Lanhill

The original entrance was constricted by a slab in the floor and two upright fractured stones, leaving a gap about 2 ft wide and only just over a foot high. Inside the chamber an earth-covered skeleton had been discovered lying on its back with its knees pressed up to its chest. It was a man of about 50 whose left elbow, wounded in this youth, had remained rigidly flexed for the rest of his life. Other bones and skulls lay tidily around the sides of the chamber. Such an arrangement in a space hardly 4ftx3ft could only have been achieved by someone wriggling into the chamber, lying on his stomach to stack up the bones and clear a space at the centre, and pushing himself out backwards. In turn the corpse, 2 or 3 days after death whn rigor mortis had gone, was laid in the short passage in front of the entrance, on its back, head over the portal slab, and shoved forward until its shoulders were inside the chamber. Only then could it be swivelled round, its legs tied up to its chest, until it slumped partly onto its side in the chamber. A thin skim of earth was spread over the body, almost like a blanket, leaving the head uncovered.