Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

Chronology of the barrows.

The chronology of the barrows is somewhat perplexing. There is hardly a single absolutely certain instance in which a socketed celt, a sword, or a socketed spear-head has been found in a barrow, associated with an interment;[752] and most antiquaries infer that the round barrows generally belong to the earliest period of the Bronze Age.[753] It would follow that during not less than four or five centuries the practice of raising mounds over graves was discontinued, and one could only wonder how it came to be revived at the beginning of the Iron Age. It has indeed been argued that the absence of swords is no proof that they were not used when barrows were being erected, but merely shows that it was not customary to bury costly weapons which were not habitually worn.[754] It seems difficult, however, to explain why a distinction should have been drawn between swords and socketed celts, on the one hand, and knives, daggers, and awls, which were often buried, on the other.[755] Some may accept the suggestion that in the later period of the Bronze Age, when cremation had presumably become general, the practice of burying weapons or ornaments had ceased;[756] but in the Early Iron Age it was not uncommon.[757] It would seem, moreover, that in one or two instances socketed weapons were laid with the dead;[758] and Dr. Arthur Evans, pointing out that an amber necklace, found in one of the barrows near Stonehenge, is identical in form and arrangement with the amber necklaces of Hallstatt, boldly affirms that the disk-shaped barrows of Wiltshire belong to the end of the Bronze Age.[759] Be this, however, as it may, it is morally certain that some of the glass beads which abounded in the graves of South Wiltshire were contemporary with socketed weapons; and a competent antiquary, who has diligently examined their associations, concludes that they belonged to the eighth and seventh centuries before the Christian era.[760] Moreover, an earthenware vessel of the kind which are called incense-cups, found in a barrow at Bulford, near Amesbury, was ornamented with concentric circles;[761] and, as we have seen,[762] this form of decoration, which is common on the covering stones of cists in Scotland and in the north of England,[763] is also characteristic of socketed celts and unknown on implements of earlier date. The number of celts which have been found in barrows is so small that it would be premature to lay stress upon the fact that only one belonged to the socketed type;[764] and there may have been some reason, of which we are ignorant, for the absence of spear-heads and swords. In Gaul, at all events, relics belonging to every phase of the bronze culture have been exhumed from burial mounds.[765]

Cremation and inhumation.

In the Bronze Age, as in the period of the long barrows, both cremation and inhumation were practised in Britain. In Cleveland and on the coast between Scarborough and Whitby cremation was almost invariable:[766] in Northumberland nearly twice as common as inhumation.[767] In Derbyshire,[768] on the other hand, inhumation interments are slightly commoner than those by cremation; and on the Yorkshire Wolds more than three times as numerous.[769] In Wiltshire and Dorsetshire inhumation is as rare as cremation on the Wolds; and in Gloucestershire, Devonshire, Cornwall, Merioneth, Carnarvon, and Denbigh cremation is practically universal.[770] In Devonshire interments by inhumation have been found, but never in barrows.[771] In Scotland the numbers are about equal.[772]

Archaeologists generally hold that cremation was not practised in the Bronze Age until a comparatively late date,—probably not before 1000 B.C.; and this view seems at first sight to be supported by the facts that it was unknown in Scandinavia in the earlier period;[773] that cinerary urns were not the earliest of the sepulchral vessels; and that drinking-cups, which were in use before any of the others, although they continued to be used after cinerary urns had been introduced,[774] are generally found with unburnt skeletons, and have never been found with the cremation interments in Cleveland.[775] On the other hand, in Brittany in the centuries which immediately followed the introduction of metallurgy cremation was almost invariable;[776] burnt bones, as we shall presently see, were often buried without urns; and since cremation was not uncommon in the Neolithic Age, the custom probably persisted into the Bronze Age independently of its introduction by immigrants who possessed weapons of bronze. Indeed, unless cremation existed from the very beginning of the Round Barrow period, it seems impossible to account for the fact that in the sepulchres of certain districts not a single instance of inhumation has ever been observed. Before the inhabitants of Bute emerged from their Stone Age they practised both cremation and inhumation; and there is no evidence that the latter was earlier than the former.[777] Not infrequently both in Scotland and in many parts of England skeletons and burnt bones reposed under the same cairn, in the same barrow, within the same stone circle, even in the same cist; and in some cases they were buried at the same time.[778] A cairn has been opened at Greenhill in Fifeshire, in which four different modes of sepulture had been practised: cremated remains had been laid in the earth, and beneath a stone slab; an unburnt body had been buried in a cist, and another lowered into a pit.[779] In some barrows one unburnt body has been found accompanied by several deposits of burnt bones; and it has been inferred that, even after cremation had become general, the bodies of chieftains were very rarely burned, although those of their wives and retainers were.[780] It is possible that this distinction may sometimes and in some places have been maintained; but obviously it was very unusual. For otherwise we should be compelled to suppose that in Cleveland and in those western districts in which cremation was universal no chiefs were buried in barrows at all, although it is universally admitted that it was in their honour that barrows were erected. And if the presence of an unburnt body surrounded by urns is a sign that wife and dependents were sacrificed in honour of the dead chief, what conclusion is to be based upon the association of nine skeletons with a single cremated interment?[781] On the Yorkshire Wolds the question as to which method should be adopted had nothing to do either with rank or sex or age;[782] and one may reasonably suppose that it was often settled simply by individual preference. Moreover, the expense of cremation was far greater than that of inhumation;[783] and it is not improbable that long after the former had become prevalent among the wealthy the poor were generally obliged to content themselves with the latter.

Inhumation was accompanied by many varieties of usage. Most of the Wiltshire barrows contained only one interment, though in a few—evidently family tombs—there were two or even more.[784] Those of the Yorkshire Wolds, on the other hand, generally contained several, two or three having sometimes been laid in one grave; and where one only was found the barrow was of the conical kind which is common in Wiltshire.[785] In the Scottish cists also, single burial is the rule, though occasionally husband and wife were interred together, and sometimes a father with his child.[786] The same variety has been noticed in connexion with cremation: a group of eight barrows in Lincolnshire contained one urn each, while inside a barrow in Dorsetshire was found a cairn which covered nearly fifty interments.[787] When a mound was erected, the primary interment was generally made in the centre.[788] The body was almost always laid in the crouched position. In Wiltshire this custom was absolutely, and on the Yorkshire Wolds almost, universal: the same posture indeed was commonly adopted there even when the body was cremated.[789] In Dorsetshire, on the other hand, the extended position appears to have been occasionally met with.[790] When secondary interments have been found, they were generally on the surface of the barrow or just outside it, and were covered with fresh material.[791] There is a barrow on Lord’s Down in Dorsetshire, formed of alternate layers of mould and chalk, which represent no less than five successive interments, each of which was covered by a new tumulus.[792] Almost invariably on the Wolds secondary interments were made on the southern or eastern side of the mound, doubtless in order that the dead might face the sun; and this fancy underlies the prejudice, which still exists, against burying on the northern side of a churchyard.[793] Probably the same purpose is discernible in the orientation of the skeletons. Generally in Wiltshire they were laid with their heads towards the north so that they looked southwards;[794] and although in Yorkshire and elsewhere the head has been found directed to almost every point of the compass, yet, as a general rule, it was so laid as to face the sun: thus when it pointed westward or to the north or south of west, the body was commonly laid upon its right side; when to the east or the adjacent points, upon the left.[795]

It is probable that bodies were generally interred either in the clothes which had been worn in life or in a winding-sheet; for at Kelleythorpe in the East Riding a linen cloth was underlying a skeleton: bones have been found in divers parts of Britain with fragments of woollen or leathern fabrics clinging to them; and buttons in their natural positions on the breast-bone.[796] In one instance Hoare found a skeleton in a disk-barrow near Amesbury, lying on the ground, without cist, grave, or coffin, beneath a heap of stones, and quaintly suggested that the dead man had suffered the doom of Achan.[797] Occasionally, however, corpses were not buried entire; but, as in the Stone Age, the bones were disjointed and interred separately.[798]

When the dead were cremated the customs which governed the disposal of primary and secondary interments remained the same: indeed in the Lord’s Down barrow the latter comprised both skeletons and burnt bones. The mound was sometimes raised over the funeral pile; but more commonly the ashes were brought to the place of interment.[799] Although they were often enclosed in urns, this custom was by no means universal. In the disk-shaped barrows of Wiltshire, in which cremation was almost invariable, urns were very rare: the remains had generally been wrapped in a skin or a linen cloth.[800] In Dorsetshire, on the other hand, except in the north-eastern corner, the customs of which closely resembled those of Wiltshire, urns were used three times out of four;[801] while some barrows have been opened which contained both urns enclosing burnt bones and burnt bones without any urn.[802] Occasionally an urn has been found which, instead of containing the bones, was surrounded by them.[803] Sometimes the urn was placed upright; but much oftener, at least in Wiltshire, it was inverted;[804] and occasionally one urn was inverted as a cover over another.[805] In more than one instance a custom described by Homer had found its way to Britain: the urn which contained the ashes of Patroclus was wrapped in a cloth;[806] and in a barrow in Cambridgeshire, as well as in six of those which Hoare opened, the same ritual was observed.[807] In several Scottish graves tiny urns, containing the remains of infants, were placed inside vessels of ordinary size;[808] and it is remarkable that in a few instances empty cinerary urns have been found in association with unburnt bodies.[809] Why urns were sometimes broken into fragments before they were placed in the grave it would be vain to guess.[810]

Sepulchral pottery.

The urns and drinking-cups which have been so often mentioned were not the only kinds of sepulchral pottery. Besides them were bowls which have been called food-vessels and incense-cups. The custom of placing vessels in graves was not, however, universal: both in Wiltshire and in Yorkshire the majority of interments were without them.[811] All four kinds are worth studying, not only as illustrative of funeral customs, but also because they throw light upon the origin of the round-headed invaders and upon the intercourse which subsisted in the Bronze Age between Britain and other lands.[812]