The articles associated with the interments, or, rather, the sites of the piles, consist mostly of potsherds and rude implements and chippings of flint, which are usually described as burnt. The potsherds appear in every case to have been introduced as potsherds, and they also appear to have belonged to the ordinary domestic vessels of the time. That the introduction of these and the flints, together with the pebbles which have occasionally been observed, had a religious significance can hardly be questioned; and doubtless it is to this custom, which was widespread and not confined to our shores, that the passage in Hamlet refers, anent the burial of Ophelia, that “sherds, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.” Ophelia was supposed to have perished by her own hands, and this pagan rite, reversed under the Christian regime into a symbol of execration, was deemed more fitting in such a case than “charitable prayers.”
Other objects than these rarely occur in these barrows, and they mostly relate to the personal attire of the deceased. Two bronze daggers and a pin, and a bone pin or two, have been found—all burnt; but the most remarkable “find” consisted of twenty-eight convex bone objects, marked with dots and described as draughtsmen, and two ornamented bone combs, which also had passed through the fire. Fragments of iron, a coin of the lower Empire, and the upper stone of a quern, have also been found. The coin is a valuable link in the chain of evidence as to the age of these barrows. It was found associated with wheel-made potsherds and calcined bones on the site of the funeral pile, under a small mound, near Mininglow, under conditions which left no room for doubt that it had passed through the fire with the body and the potsherds. The terms in which the potsherds found in these barrows are invariably described, as “wheel-made,” “hard,” “firmly-baked,” “compact,” and “Romano-British,” all suggest the period of the Roman occupation or its near approach. Querns and the use of iron are admittedly of late introduction. The bone combs referred to above have a distinct Iron Age facies. The two bronze dagger-blades, one of which was found in the earth extension of the smaller Mininglow chambered cairn, are both of later type than those associated with the Bronze Age burials.
On the other hand, a notable “find” near Throwley,[28] in Staffordshire, provided a link between these “late” barrows and the inurned interments of the Bronze Age. The barrow there, “wholly composed of earth of a burnt appearance throughout,” was of the “low-level” type previously referred to, and its cremated deposit was in a circular depression in the natural soil. Among the burnt bones were two pieces of flint and a quartz pebble; below them, the shoulder blade of some large animal; while resting upon them were a small bronze pin and “a very beautiful miniature vase of the incense-cup type, ornamented with chevrons and lozenges, and perforated in two places at one side.” This is the only complete vessel hitherto recorded as from these “late” barrows of the two counties, and in its shape, decoration, and other particulars it is a thoroughly typical Bronze Age incense-cup. The circular depression was “of well-defined shape, resulting from contact with a wooden or wicker-work vessel, in which the bones were placed when buried, the vestiges of which in the form of impalpable black powder intervened between the bones and the earth.” Clearly, we have here a wooden or a basket-work equivalent of the cinerary urn. It is probable that these circular holes were generally similarly provided with such receptacles, for in another example, under a barrow of the type we are considering, at Cold Eaton,[29] there were indications that its contents had been “deposited in a shallow basket or similar perishable vessel.” It was from this interment that the bone draughtsmen and combs already alluded to were obtained, as also some fragments of iron. It is interesting that in two barrows which resemble one another too closely to be dissociated by more than a short lapse of time, there should be objects which, per se, would be relegated to two different archæological ages, for apart from the iron, the combs were of a type found with Late-Celtic, Romano-British, and even Anglo-Saxon remains. The inference, therefore, is that these two barrows belonged to the overlap of the Bronze and Pre-Roman Iron Ages.
If the various conclusions which have been arrived at in the preceding pages are correct, Derbyshire is fortunate in her sepulchral remains illustrating the succession of burial customs from Neolithic to Roman times without a serious break. But there is still a difficulty to be faced. The barrows which we have classed as of the Bronze Age are usually ascribed to the Earlier Bronze Age, upon the evidence of the bronze implements associated with their interments. While the socketed axe, which is characteristic of the Later Bronze Age, is perhaps found in greater abundance than all its forerunners put together, it has rarely, if ever, been found in association with these interments.[30] But this proves nothing, when it is considered that it has never been found with any other interments. The earlier forms of the axe have occurred, but only sparingly, with the drinking-cup and food-vase interments; but of the hundred or more recorded inurned interments of Derbyshire and the adjacent parts of Staffordshire, not one has yielded a bronze axe of any kind, and this appears to be generally the case throughout the country. These inurned interments certainly succeeded them, so there is no reason to doubt that they represent the Later Bronze Age among our sepulchral remains.
Having brought the burial customs and remains of our ancient predecessors in Derbyshire well within the bounds of authentic history, we here conclude. The few remains of Roman sepulture, and the many and varied burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period, are outside the scope of this article, and would involve many pages to adequately describe them.
THE PREHISTORIC STONE CIRCLES OF DERBYSHIRE
By W. J. Andrew, F.S.A.
Scattered over the world, from India to Peru, from Southern Africa to Northern Europe, wherever it may be, the megalithic circle marks a grade in the advance of civilization, for it is man’s earliest attempt at geometrical architecture. As such, although so uniform in design, its age must vary by thousands of years, according to the intelligent progression of the early inhabitants of the country in which it is present. Old as our stone circles seem to us, those on the shores of the Mediterranean were probably grey with antiquity when ours were yet unbuilt; indeed, so far as the old world is concerned, it may be assumed that the megalithic monuments of the British Isles are amongst the latest in date.
The circle is but an elaboration of a monolith surrounded by stones. There is, however, every indication that it was introduced into this country after it had passed through all its stages of evolution and assumed its final form. Its builders made their way hither from the south, spreading more especially over Spain, Brittany and Denmark on the mainland, and on arriving upon our southern coasts, branching northward through England and Scotland, even to the Orkneys, on the one side, and by sea to Ireland and the Western Hebrides on the other. Thus the date of its advent must have been subsequent to the mastery of navigation. It has been assumed that because Stonehenge represents the finished design, it must be the latest of our English examples, and, therefore, the evolution of those rude, and often unhewn, monuments of which so many examples have weathered more than two thousand winters on the high-lands of the Peak. But the very opposite proposition probably represents the truth. In the whole of our isles there is no other example of a trilithic design, so the theory of local evolution must fail. On the other hand, we trace it without a fault from India, through Arabia, along the north coast of Africa, in Malta and Minorca, and finally on the coast of Brittany, on its way to this island. Again, the curious architectural joint of mortice and tenon, which is so interesting a feature of Stonehenge, is unknown here, but present in the trilithons of the Mediterranean shores.