EXCAVATIONS IN PILLOW MOUNDS AT HIGH BEACH. 219
across the centre, then worked out a wide trench down the
middle to the southern end, and supplemented this by several
minor trenches across the ditches.
The general characters and measurements were identical
with those already given under Mound D.
Mound N.—This was tested with two small trial holes, which
did not suggest anything different from the others.
Mound O.—This is a circular mound, very clearly defined
but low, which looks deceptively like a round barrow. We dug
out all the central portions, and a trench across the ditch. In
point of fact, less than a foot of new soil has been added, even in
the centre, to make it into a mound, and the ditch was cut to a
depth of about 1.5 feet.
In the case of this mound there has been no lateral spread
of the soil. Its present form to-day is the form of its original
construction, and in this respect it presents a very sharp
contrast to the other mounds we sectioned. We found nothing
in it except one or two flint flakes, such as may be found in the
soil anywhere.
I think there is no doubt that this mound is quite modern,
and does not belong to the pillow mound group. There are some
very similar circular mounds in the Forest, near the enclosed
fields along the Nursery Road, Loughton, and these are equally
fresh looking; I have never thought that they were old.
The Baked Sand.—Most people will be familiar with the
peculiar and characteristic darkening of sandy soil under the
sites of bonfires. It is a somewhat durable effect, lasting long
after any visible charcoal has disappeared.
It is material of this kind, which I call the "baked sand,"
which forms the main foundation deposit of the pillow mounds.
In places it is as much as 1.5 feet in thickness, and the suggestive
circumstances of its occurrence noted in Mound E have already
been described.
Its most characteristic content is burnt flint, altered to rich
scarlet tones, and not infrequently with agate-like banding
under the cortex. It is entirely different from the whitened
"pot-boiler" condition. The scales which pit out of the surfaces
of the flints, rather like the fracture of oyster-shell, are also a