The pottery was, without doubt, made on, or near to, the spot where found. It was, there is every probability, the handiwork of the females of the tribe, and occasionally exhibits no little elegance of form, and no small degree of ornamentation. The urns, of whatever kind they may be, are formed of the coarse common clay of the district where made, occasionally mixed with small pebbles and gravel; they are entirely wrought by hand, without the assistance of the wheel, and are, the larger vessels especially, extremely thick. From their imperfect firing, the vessels of this period are usually called “sun-baked” or “sun-dried,” but this is a grave error, as any one conversant with examples cannot fail, on careful examination, to see. If the vessels were “sun-baked” only, their burial in the earth--in the tumuli wherein, some two thousand years ago, they were deposited, and where they have all that time remained--would soon soften them, and they would, ages ago, have returned to their old clayey consistency. As it is, the urns have remained of their original form, and although, from imperfect baking, they are sometimes found partially softened, they still retain their form, and soon regain their original hardness. They bear abundant evidence of the action of fire, and are, indeed, sometimes sufficiently burned for the clay to have attained a red colour--a result which no “sun-baking” could produce. They are mostly of an earthy brown colour outside, and almost black in fracture, and many of the cinerary urns bear internal and unmistakable evidence of having been filled with the burnt bones and ashes of the deceased, while those ashes were of a glowing and intense heat. They were, most probably, fashioned by the females of the tribe, on the death of their relative, from the clay to be found nearest to the spot, and baked on or by the funeral pyre. The glowing ashes and bones were then, as I have already stated, collected together, and placed in the urn, and the flint implements, and occasionally other relics belonging to the deceased, deposited along with them. The _Cinerary_, or _Sepulchral, Urns_ vary very considerably in size, in form, in ornamentation, and in material--the latter, naturally, depending on the locality where the urns were made; and, as a general rule, they differ also in the different tribes. Those which are supposed to be the most ancient, from the fact of their frequently containing flint instruments along with the calcined bones, are of large size, ranging from nine or ten, to sixteen or eighteen inches in height. Those which are considered to belong to a somewhat later period, when cremation had again become general, are of a smaller size, and of a somewhat finer texture. With them objects of flint are rarely found, but articles of bronze are occasionally discovered. The general form of the cinerary urns will be best understood from the annexed engravings.