Fig. 164.—Cinerary deposit. Grave, 5 feet in diameter, 4 feet deep, lined with cobble stones, burnt bones, and broken fragments of clay urns.—Fyen.
Fig. 165.—Cinerary deposit. Grave, 16 feet long, 6 feet wide, running from north-west to south-west, with hole 2½ feet deep, containing burnt bones and fragments of ornamented clay urns, remains of a large one-edged knife, &c.—Grönneskev field, Fyen.
The earliest graves[[119]] belonging to this iron age in the North are called by Northern archæologists depôts cineraires (cinerary deposits). These graves are round bowl-shaped holes, the excavations being from about two to four feet in diameter, and three to four feet deep: into these the remains of the funeral pyre, such as burnt bones of the corpse, ashes, charcoal, fragments of clay, urns, ornaments, jewels, other objects and weapons are thrown in, without order or method. The burnt bones and the charcoal are scattered sometimes over a bed covering a certain space, or sometimes in a heap together.
In other graves the antiquities are found resting on the black mould itself. What were the causes which led to the temporary disuse of the mound-burials we cannot tell.
Then came a period when after the burning of the corpse on the pyre the pieces of the bones were gathered into urns of clay, wooden buckets with metal mountings, vessels of bronze or glass bowls; these latter being very rare. These urns, &c., which are frequently found covered, for protection, by other vessels, were placed in chambers of varying sizes, those of the earliest graves being made of slabs, and just large enough to contain the sepulchral urn.
It should be mentioned that the development of the form of these graves runs in an unbroken chain, beginning with the large grave chamber of the stone age, and culminating in the insignificant receptacles for preserving a mere handful of burnt bones.
These graves are found sometimes singly, and at others in many hundreds, and even thousands, together.
The Kannikegaard cemetery on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic, and that of Möllegaard by Broholm on the island of Fyen, are perhaps the two richest antiquarian fields of the earliest iron grave period. Kannikegaard must have been a very large common graveyard; it is over 1,000 feet long and over 150 feet wide, and formed, no doubt, part of a more extensive burial ground, as there are other graves some 200 feet further on. In nearly all the graves scorched stones have been found, often in such quantities that they nearly fill the grave; a clay urn was also often found standing at the bottom of the burnt spots or lying on its side, sometimes with the bottom up or in broken pieces; many graves contain no antiquities, and hold only burnt bones and charcoal.[[120]]
In no other part of Europe do we see such a vast number of graves of this period, showing that the North must then have been inhabited by a far more dense population than other countries; from the number and contents of these depôts cineraires, we gather that the population burned its dead in large burial-grounds.