Figs. 3, 4, and 5.—Plans of “Chambers.” Fig. 3, at Harborough Rocks; Figs. 4 and 5, at Mininglow, Derbyshire.
This association of numerous skeletons, dolichocephalic skulls, and leaf-shaped arrow-heads in Neolithic chambers has been observed elsewhere in Britain. We need only cross the Derbyshire border a few miles for an excellent example of this. In 1849 a large and little disturbed chamber was opened at Wetton, in Staffordshire, which yielded about thirteen dolichocephalic skeletons and several of these arrow-heads. Further afield, at Rodmarton, in Gloucestershire, the arrow-heads were all broken, apparently intentionally, as seems to have been the case at Harborough Rocks. The placing of things which are useful in life with the dead is both ancient and widespread, and has its roots in the belief in man’s continued existence after death, and that somehow they will still be of use to him. The breaking or burning of them may have been partly to render them useless to the living, and partly by thus “killing” them to set their spirits free to join the departed in the world of spirits. Perhaps, too, there was a sacrificial intention of propitiating the ancestral spirits. The presence of the arrow-heads in the gallery at Harborough Rocks is more suggestive of offerings to the dead than the depositing of objects with them at the burial. Some prehistoric man would, perhaps, for reasons best known to himself, crawl into the entrance to the vault of the family or the clan and there make his offering, and with some appropriate formula dedicate it to the dead by breaking or burning the objects, the enduring arrow-heads and charcoal alone remaining to us as witnesses of the act. The thinness and delicacy of these arrow-heads suggest that they were made, not for use, but for this special purpose, like the amber and jet models of implements which have been found in Continental chambers. A further stage, in which the act has become degraded into a purely representative one, is seen in the imitation cardboard money which the Chinaman burns to enrich the soul of his ancestor.
Assuming that the less known examples correspond with the better known, which seems probable, these Derbyshire Neolithic burial-places constitute, in their circular outlines and their abrupt entrances, a strongly marked local type, contrasting in these respects with the more usual elongated forms and incurved entrances elsewhere. The wedge-shaped plans and inward leaning sides of the chambers at Mininglow, Five Wells, and Harborough Rocks, present another peculiarity. The apparent absence of galleries in some of these remains may not be due to oversight or want of investigation, as this means of access has been proved to be absent from some of the barrows of this period; but it seems to be an essential that the chamber should have some means of access, even if it involved digging, for the whole trend of enquiry goes to show that it was designed for successive burials, and herein it differs from the cists of the barrows we next consider.
Bronze Age Barrows
The barrows of this era in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, differ so much among themselves in form, size, construction, and contents, that it is impossible to establish a Bronze Age “type.” They have little in common, except in the relics associated with their interments, which have the impress of a common age. Compared with the chambered class, they are, as a rule, smaller and of less elaborate construction; but more marked is the difference in their internal arrangements. The former barrows suggest the idea that they were erected to receive the dead; these, that they were piled up over the dead. The chamber, being designed to receive successive interments, was provided with a tunnel-like gallery, or other means of more or less easy access; whereas the Bronze Age cist or grave, having received its charge, was permanently closed, and if the mound which was raised over it was used for future burials, new receptacles were made for the dead, which rarely interfered with the primary or original one. Sometimes, however, in digging a new grave the primary was reached, and more often than not the bones were thrown on one side to make way for the new interment, thus indicating how completely the Neolithic procedure had disappeared.
The results of the examination of about 250 of the Derbyshire Bronze Age barrows have been placed upon record, and these represent about three times as many interments which have been described—by “interment” must be understood, not the remains of each separate body buried, but each burial, whether it consisted of one body or more.
So far as can be judged from the usually worn down and mutilated condition of these Derbyshire barrows, the prevailing original form was that of a shallow dome or inverted bowl, but various transitions ending with the disc-shaped types of Dr. Thurnam occur. Their outlines are circular, unless rendered irregular by the addition of secondary mounds or the depredations of a still later age. Their usual diameters range between 30 and 60 feet, and the heights rarely exceed 6 feet; but these dimensions are occasionally less or greater. With few exceptions, the mounds are of stone, or of stone with an admixture of earth; but whether the latter is an original ingredient is often uncertain—it may be merely blown earth and vegetable mould. Broadly speaking, therefore, these Bronze Age barrows are cairns. In most instances they consist of such stones as may be gathered from the surface, simply thrown together. A slight advance upon this is the introduction of a kerb of larger stones to define the margin of the mound (fig. 6). In a further advance, the kerb is formed of one or more rings of large, flat stones set on edge in the ground and inclining inwards. In a still further advance, the whole mound may be built up of concentric rings of such inclined stones. The barrow on Grinlow[9] (on which the tower known as “Solomon’s Temple” stands), near Buxton, showed this construction (fig. 7). In the kerbed barrows, the partial removal of the looser materials of the central portion may result in a table-like mound, the kerb forming a well-marked shoulder; and if the destructive process has gone further, this may stand out verge-like—results which have been mistaken for original designs. Examples of all these are to be met with in Derbyshire.
These barrows, again, are sometimes surrounded with a bank or a ring of stones, or a combination of the two. That known as Hob Hurst’s House, on Baslow Moor,[10] is closely invested with an annular bank, and the writer has seen a similar example on Eyam Moor. In others, the bank is further away, and is usually capped or lined with a row of standing stones, a few feet or yards apart. There was formerly a good example of this variety on Abney Moor, and others on Eyam Moor with rings apparently of stones only. As the ring expanded, the enclosed mound seems to have been smaller, and consequently more easily removed by the accidents of time; and this probably explains the origin of the smaller so-called “Druidical” circles.[11]
Fig. 6.—Section of Barrow at Flaxdale, near Youlgreave.
(From wood-cut by Llewellynn Jewitt.)