Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

These groups are further differentiated by the implements and other objects associated with them. These are, as a rule, more numerous in the drinking-cup interments and least so in the inurned. The flint implements of the former are usually the more carefully wrought. Two other peculiarities of the drinking-cup interments may be noted. With five of them was an instrument described as a mesh-rule or a modelling tool, made from the rib of some animal; but these instruments have not been found with other Bronze Age interments in the county. The other peculiarity is that in all these interments, the body, when it has been recorded, lay on its left side. Both these peculiarities are also characteristic of the drinking-cup interments of Staffordshire.

From these various data it is evident that very early in the Bronze Age inhumation was the normal mode of sepulture. The body, probably clad in the clothing of life, was laid on its side in a contracted attitude on the natural surface or in a grave, with or without a fencing or protection of some sort, which in its highest development took the form of a cist. Food was certainly often, if not invariably, placed with it; but all we know of this, as also any other articles which were present, are the less perishable portions that have survived the withering hand of Time—the bronze blade of a dagger-knife, the head of an axe, or the flint point of an arrow. Now and again a vessel of clay was also placed with the deceased—the vessel familiar to us as the “drinking-cup.” Later, but still early in the age, and while as yet the mode of burial was unchanged, this gave place to the food-vase. Whether this vessel was derived from the former is uncertain. Derbyshire provides no intermediate forms, and this seems to be general throughout the country. But the period of transition may have been short, and transitional forms may yet be forthcoming.

We have guardedly spoken of inhumation as the normal mode of sepulture at this early period, for cremation was both known and practised, perhaps from the very first. The occasional presence of a deposit of burnt human bones with these contracted interments has already been noticed. Whether, as was then suggested, it represents the immolation of a slave on the occasion of the burial or not, there is little doubt that it should be regarded as a subordinate feature, and the skeleton, as the interment proper. Fire certainly played an important part in these early funerals, as the frequent presence of a little charcoal indicates. Why? We can only guess. It must have had a religious import—the ceremonial purification of the grave, perhaps; and this might well have now and again included a human sacrifice.

There is little doubt that the drinking-cup was introduced from the Continent,[25] and one is tempted to connect its introduction with the brachycephalic newcomers, as also the introduction of bronze. The immigration seems to have been of a peaceful nature, and however much the powerfully-built “round-heads” may have influenced and even dominated the native population, they were numerically only a small element in it, and were ultimately—perhaps before the close of the Bronze Age—absorbed by it.

Before the food-vase ran its course, cremation, in the proper sense of the term, made its appearance, and soon became the general fashion. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that it supplanted inhumation. For anything we know to the contrary, the latter still continued in vogue in some parts of the country to the Roman period. At first, it would seem, the cremated remains were deposited in cists, or otherwise entombed after the manner of unburnt bodies; but soon the more appropriate cinerary urn made its appearance, as also the changeful and enigmatical little incense-cup. That the cinerary urn was derived from the food-vase is almost beyond doubt, for although Derbyshire has not supplied examples bridging the two, vessels of intermediate form and associated with burnt remains, but not containing them, have been found in the north.

Meanwhile, the objects placed with the dead became fewer and more meagre in character, until at length they were reduced to little more than fragments of flint, representing a rite, perhaps, with a lost meaning. Less care was expended on the sepulchral vessels as time went on, but the delicacy of some of the incense-cups proves that this was a rule with exceptions. The general trend of evidence goes to show that the later mounds raised over the dead were smaller and less stereotyped in form than those of old. Ringed barrows and the smaller “circles” are associated with cremated interments, especially those of the cinerary-urn stage, in Derbyshire.

“Late” Prehistoric Barrows.

The interval between the last barrows and the Roman period presents many difficulties to the student of the ancient sepulchral remains of Derbyshire. A few—barely two dozen—barrows have been opened in the county which had certain features in common that markedly differentiated them from those of the Bronze Age on the one hand and from the post-Roman or Anglo-Saxon on the other. Some of these, perhaps most, can certainly be assigned to this interval; and of the rest, several seem to as conclusively belong to the Roman period. As these differ much from the typical Romano-British barrows, they may be held to prove that the Romanization of the natives of the district was a slow and retarded process. From the extremely ruined condition of these barrows and their usually meagre contents it is only by comparing them together, and especially with the larger number of the same type in the adjacent parts of Staffordshire, that anything conclusive can be learned of their original characteristics.

The mounds are sometimes of considerable size, and are wholly or largely built up of fine materials, as earth, clay, sand, and gravel; and if large stones enter into their composition, they are not intermixed with the finer constituents, but form a platform or pavement, a layer, or a capping. Occasionally they disclose the curious constructional feature of two or more different materials arranged in alternate layers. Such a barrow was opened at Gorsey Close,[26] near Tissington, in 1845; its soil was found to be interspersed with alternate layers of moss and grass. Another at Roylow,[27] near Sheen, gave very similar results. It is also noticeable that these barrows are often found in comparatively low-lying places.

In every known instance, the interment over which the mound was raised had undergone cremation, and this applies to the few secondary interments which have been noticed. The bodies had invariably been burned on the spot, and the hard-baked floors, strewn with charcoal and ashes, are a notable feature of these “late” barrows. The excessive heat of the funeral pile has so completely reduced the bones that they have often escaped detection altogether. There is reason to think that these calcined remains were sometimes left as they were deposited by the fire; but in a few instances they were found occupying a shallow circular hole in the natural surface into which they had been swept after the fire was extinguished. This may have been a common practice, for the presence of a small depression of the kind might easily be overlooked by the explorer. On the other hand, there was evidence that in some of these barrows the human ashes had been collected and placed near the summit of the mound; and the large stones which have occasionally been observed in this position may have been the relics of the receptacle which contained them. We thus seem to have a “low-level” and a “high-level” type, but whether this indicates a difference of period is by no means certain. The general trend of evidence shows that some effort was made to seal down, so to speak, the site of the pyre and its contents by a layer of puddled clay or earth, which was hardened by a fire upon it, or by a layer of large stones instead.