Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Flint implements, flakes, and fragments are the most frequent accompaniments. The implements include all the ordinary forms of the period: arrow, javelin and spear-heads, daggers, knives, scrapers, fabricators, and chisels, of every grade of workmanship down to nondescript-worked fragments of uncertain use. The majority of the flint objects are, however, mere shapeless fragments and chippings, and the frequent presence of these seems to indicate that the placing with the dead of things useful in life had already begun to degenerate into a merely symbolic ceremony.

Bronze objects follow next, but a long way behind. Of these the most numerous by far are knife-daggers, the rest consisting of awls, pins, axes, or celts, etc., and mere fragments. The first are of the early form, in which the blade was attached to the handle by two or three rivets, and the axes are of the early flat or slightly flanged form. Next come objects of bone and deer-horn; the former consisting mostly of pins and borers, and the latter of hammers. Then follow jet and Kimmeridge—coal beads, studs, and necklaces, several of these being of elaborate character. Besides the above, drilled and polished basalt and granite axe-hammers, whet-stones, rubbers, quartz pebbles, red ochre, and iron ore are occasionally met with. The animal remains associated with the interments are those of species still existing in Europe, and they include the present domesticated animals—the ox, sheep, goat, pig, horse, and dog. So frequently has a tooth, described as that of an ox or a horse, been reported that there is little doubt its introduction had some ceremonial import; perhaps, here again, it was a food offering reduced to a representative symbol.

Besides the various objects actually found with the interments, others often occur amongst the materials of the mounds. Some of these may have been unwittingly gathered up with the materials, and thus be of much greater age than the barrows in which they are found; others may have been casually dropped in after times, and have gravitated into the interior. But a more fertile source of the scattered objects is the disturbance of the earlier interments by the introduction of the later ones.

The objects described above fall into two, but not easily separated, classes—those which were introduced with the wearing apparel of the deceased, and those with ceremonial import. The vessels are a good example of the latter, as they differed in a marked degree from those used for domestic purposes. So also the animals’ bones, especially the teeth just referred to, as they evidently (as also the drinking-cups and food-vessels) imply offerings of food to the dead. The absence of Roman influence is noteworthy, as also is the absence of articles characteristic of the later Bronze Age, as swords, palstaves, and socketed axes. The objects indicate in the aggregate a time when stone implements were going out of use, and bronze was confined to a few light implements. But it must not be assumed in consequence that the barrows we are considering were confined to the earlier Bronze Age.

The remarkable differences in the mode of interment, which have been only sketchily described on the foregoing pages, present a highly interesting problem to be solved. The prevailing view is that these different modes were practised simultaneously by different tribes, and even by the same people. The double interments, in which an unburnt skeleton is associated with a deposit of cremated remains, may seem to countenance the latter view, while the distribution of the interments favours the former. For instance, in certain districts certain modes prevailed. On and around Stanton Moor, and throughout the country between Eyam, Castleton, and Sheffield, cremated interments predominate, while in many parts of the west of the county the interments are exclusively unburnt. Then, again, in barrows containing many burials there is a decided partiality for like rather than unlike interments. But if the phenomena are subjected to a careful and systematic study, it will be found that these differences are neither local nor tribal, but in the main consecutive.

The problem is solved by the superposition and other evidences of sequence of the different interments in those barrows which contain several, with the comparison of the associated objects, and then by a general correlation of the results derived from the individual barrows. It is by a similar process that the geologist establishes the sequence of his formations; the fossils playing the part of the associated objects. The pottery is a peculiarly valuable factor in the enquiry, as in spite of the conservatism of half-civilised people, the ease with which the plastic clay can be modelled into any desired shape resulted in comparatively rapid changes in form and decoration. In this respect the pottery contrasted with the flint and stone implements, the intractability of the materials of which limited the workman to a narrow range of forms; hence these forms continued unchanged through long periods. We will now give a few illustrations.

Fig. 12.—Typical Examples of Bronze Age Burial Vessels, Derbyshire.
A—Incense-Cups. B—Cinerary Urns. (Scale = 1/5 size of originals.)

In a barrow at Parcelly Hay[18] Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in a vault, and immediately above its cover-stones was another, accompanied with a bronze knife-dagger and a polished granite axe-hammer. Here is a case of simple superposition, in which the older interment was not disturbed by the later one. But frequently the later introduction disturbed or quite displaced the earlier. At Gray Cop,[19] near Monsal Dale, for instance, the original interment consisted of the skeletons of a woman and a child; but at a later date the cremated remains of another body had been buried so deeply that the woman’s pelvic bones had been dispersed in the process. The havoc wrought by the introduction of secondary interments is sometimes very confusing, and has given rise to erroneous conclusions on the part of the barrow-digger. In the two examples just cited, the earlier interment was the primary one—the one over which the mound was raised in the first instance—and it occupied the normal position, the centre of the site. The secondary interments may or may not be in the centre. In a small barrow at Lidlow,[20] near Youlgreave, for instance, the primary interment was a skeleton in a cist, while near the margin of the mound was a later deposit of burnt bones under a cinerary urn. In another at Blakelow[21] a central grave contained the skeletons of a woman and infant with a drinking-cup, while in a cist at a higher level near the edge were six more skeletons with a food-vase. In another on Hartle Moor[22] was a deposit of burnt bones with a food-vessel in the central cist, and near the margin a cinerary urn with its contents.

It has occasionally happened, however, that no central interment has been recorded. In some cases we may suspect that the explorers had forgotten that the primary interment is sometimes in a deep grave below the natural level. On the other hand, carelessness on the part of those who originally raised the mound may account for the interment being out of the centre. The same result has been brought about by additions to the original mound upon the occasions of new interments, for the Bronze folk were not always content with merely inserting these into an old mound. Sometimes the additional matter formed a capping. A barrow on Ballidon Moor[23] furnishes a good example of this; it had an inner cairn containing several interments, and was surmounted with a thick layer of earth, at the foot of which was an ashy stratum representing the site of a funeral pile, while in the earth above were the cremated remains derived from it. It was evident, therefore, that this capping was added on this occasion. More often the later mound was thrown up against the side of the old one. The smaller chambered cairn at Mininglow[24] was found to have had a mound of earth cast up against its side, and this had been raised over the spot where a man had been cremated, with whose remains were a bronze dagger, part of a bone implement, and some “good flints,” all of which had passed through the fire with their owner; and at Five Wells, Mr. Salt found a secondary interment of Bronze Age type, consisting of a contracted skeleton in a small cist, which had been constructed against the podium of the chambered cairn, and covered with stones and earth—two interesting proofs of the greater age of the chambered tumuli. These additions are not easily detected if their materials are similar to those of the parent mounds, but their effect may be apparent in the superficial irregularities they give rise to. Not a few Derbyshire examples could be given which probably owe their irregularities to this cause.