Prehistoric Burials in Derbyshire
By John Ward, F.S.A.
In prehistoric remains, Derbyshire is singularly favoured, and for two reasons. In the first place, nearly every class of these remains is represented, notably the following: cave-remains, burial-mounds, circles, camps, villages and other habitation sites, and the doubtful rocking-stones and other curious blocks and masses of rock which have been regarded as rock-idols or as otherwise associated with prehistoric man. In the second place, three of these classes—the first three of the above enumeration—are both numerous and important, scarcely surpassed by the corresponding remains of any other county in Great Britain. Moreover, these various remains have received the careful attention of a succession of antiquaries during the last century-and-a-half, and a large number of them have been more or less systematically explored, with the result that their literature is extensive and important. Derbyshire, indeed, has played a prominent part in the elucidation of the prehistoric archæology of our country.
Before entering upon the subject of this article, the distribution of these remains in the county demands a few words. They are most numerous in the mountainous region which lies north of Ashbourne and Wirksworth, and west of Tansley, Darley, and East Moors. They are rarely met with in the more gently undulating country to the east and south. Why this should be is not altogether clear. It is probable that the valleys and the low-lying lands generally, which are now the most populated, were in prehistoric times too swampy for habitation; but this does not explain the general absence of prehistoric remains from the higher tracts of the lowlands of Derbyshire. It has been suggested that the primitive inhabitants clung to the more mountainous regions because of the ease with which they could be defended against the marauding incursions of other tribes. It is more likely, however, that agriculture is mainly responsible for the uneven distribution. The fertile higher tracts of the lowlands have long been under cultivation, whereas many of the Peak uplands still remain in the primal state of nature, and many more of them have only been wrested from that state within the last two centuries. One of the earlier effects of the enclosing of the wastes in the eighteenth century and earlier decades of the following century, was the removal of the large stones of ancient monuments for gate-posts, and the despoiling of stone tumuli for the construction of field-walls and roads. Even on the moors it is rare that these remains have escaped partial demolition for the sake of their materials. If the havoc wrought during two centuries in the sparsely inhabited Peak country has been so great, it is not surprising that few prehistoric remains are to be seen where the land has been for a much longer time under cultivation. Probably the relative abundance or scarcity of stone is also to some extent accountable for the distribution. In the Peak, where stone is plentiful and rock-fragments strew the ground, cairns or stone tumuli abound; but in the south, where clays, marls, and glacial deposits abound, and stone is only obtained by quarrying, the few remaining tumuli are of earth. Earthwork, if left alone, is wonderfully enduring, but is highly susceptible of being levelled, and so obliterated, by the plough. The plough cuts through it as easily as through the natural soil; whereas in the Peak may often be seen the stony bases of cairns, covered with brambles, and avoided by the ploughman.
It is scarcely necessary to say that cairns, barrows, or tumuli, are, archæologically, the names applied to ancient burial-mounds. How the earliest races of men disposed of their dead we do not know; but we know that the earliest stages of civilization were everywhere characterized by a marked consideration for the dead, and this represents the strongest and perhaps ultimate difference between man and beast. When Neolithic man first appeared in our island, he already had an elaborate system of sepulture, and the megalithic chambers he raised are the greatest monuments of his age, and are among the most notable remains of prehistoric times. The Pyramids of Egypt are but barrows on a colossal scale, and constructed with all the engineering skill and refinement of a higher stage of culture than obtained in the west of Europe, and they will probably outlast all the other works of the ancient Egyptians.
It is not difficult to understand why burial under mounds should have preceded burial in the ground. In primitive times, before man possessed metal tools, it was easier to collect stones from the waste or to scrape sand or soil from the surface, wherewith to make a heap, than to dig a hole. Hence it is that in the tumuli of the Neolithic Age, and many of those of the following Bronze Age, interments are found upon or above the old ground level; while in others of the latter age, and many subsequent tumuli, they are found in shallow or deep excavations, over which the mounds were raised. To the early Christians the tumuli savoured of paganism, and soon ceased to be raised, but we have a reminiscence of the ancient mode of burial in our word “tomb.” In our country, as in the west of Europe generally, they range from Neolithic times to the establishment of Christianity, and the study of their contents better enables us to bridge the long interval with the successive advances made by man than does that of any other class of contemporary remains. In Derbyshire this is eminently the case, and perhaps no other English county can furnish so continuous a series of ancient interments.
In this county, as also in the contiguous parts of Staffordshire, a barrow is popularly known as a “low,” from the Anglo-Saxon hlaew, a small hill, heap, or mound, a word which is a frequent component in the place-names, as in Wardlow, Blakelow, etc. The conspicuous barrows at these and many other places so named, leave little room for doubt that they are accountable for the names, and that when absent the names may be regarded as evidence for their former existence. Whether the evidence in the case of hills, so many of the names of which in the Peak end in low, is of the same value is not so clear, as the hill itself may have been regarded as a “low” on a large scale. But it is well known that Neolithic and Bronze man had a decided penchant for burying his dead on the tops and brows of hills, as the pimple-like profile of many a barrow in such situations in the Peak amply proves. It may well have been, then, that the name by which a “low” on a hill was known has become transferred to the hill itself. It is impossible to estimate the number of these ancient burial-mounds in Derbyshire. The experienced eye will often detect on the moors the slight rise on the surface which may represent one, unmarked on the Ordnance Survey, and unrecognised as of possible archæological interest. The large number of low names, where no traces of these mounds are now to be seen, indicates that many have disappeared, as also does the occasional chance discovery of a cist or a cinerary urn where nothing on the surface indicated an interment. The number of prehistoric burial places (the Roman and post-Roman do not come within the scope of this article) which have been discovered in the county and described is little short of 300.
The first impression that the literature of these remains gives rise to is their great diversity, a diversity which the reader will not unnaturally associate with differences of age or of race, or of both combined; but he will soon find their classification a difficult task. Very few of those which have been explored were in a reasonably perfect condition to begin with, and then the explorations have often been insufficient, and the descriptions vague and inexact. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the Derbyshire barrows are susceptible of satisfactory classification into three main divisions: (1) a small number containing megalithic chambers, and with general consent assigned to the Neolithic Age; (2) a large and varied number which belong to the Bronze Age; and (3) a few which are of later age, some of which certainly synchronize with the Roman occupation. These groups, it should be mentioned, merge into one another by transitional characters, and there is a residue which, from insufficient data, cannot be assigned to any particular class.
Neolithic Barrows
Including several more or less doubtful examples, there are or have been within the last century, remains of about a dozen barrows containing “chambers” in the county. Three of these—at Five Wells, near Taddington, and at Mininglow and Harborough Rocks, near Brassington—have yielded good results to exploration. All three were unfortunately in an extremely ruined condition, but by piecing together their evidence a fair idea can be obtained of their original state.
The Five Wells example (figs. 1 and 2) was excavated by Mr. Salt, of Buxton, and the writer, in 1899.1 The remaining lower portion of the mound was found to be circular, about 56 feet in diameter, and constructed of quarried stones roughly laid in courses, and so disposed at the margin as to form a wall-like podium, which remained in places to the height of three feet. Near the middle are still to be seen the remains of two chambers, each about six feet long, and constructed of great slabs of stone resting on the old natural surface. Each had a paved floor, and was reached by a tunnel-like passage or gallery, of similar construction to the chambers, from a porthole-like entrance in the podium. Each chamber is somewhat wedge-shaped, the wider end being that into which the gallery opened, and immediately within this end are two pillar-like stones, one on each side, which structurally formed the last pair of side stones of the gallery; but they differed in their greater height. The use of these “pillars” is uncertain, but the writer has suggested that between each pair was a dropstone, which when raised, portcullis-fashion, to allow of access to the chamber, was received into an upper space.
The Mininglow example is larger, is also circular, and appears to have had five chambers, of which two (figs. 4 and 5) closely resemble the above, except that they seem to have lacked the “pillars.” Mr. Thomas Bateman, who examined this tumulus in 1843, found that it had a wall-like podium as at Five Wells, and he traced one of the galleries to its orifice in this podium. Had he pushed his investigations further, it is probable he would have found the mound to be of similar built construction.2 The Harborough Rocks barrow was excavated by the writer in 1889, but it was too ruined to allow of its shape and the number of its chambers to be determined. One chamber (fig. 3), however, remained, and this also resembled those at Five Wells, but it is doubtful whether it ever possessed “pillars.” A portion of the gallery was traced, as also what was almost certainly a fragment of a podium.3
Of the other barrows of the type, little can be said of their structure. Several have been opened or destroyed by labourers, and the rest have only been slightly examined. Mr. Bateman examined examples at Ringham-low, near Monyash; Bolehill, near Bakewell; Stoneylow and Greenlow, near Brassington; Smerrill, near Youlgreave; and a second one at Mininglow. They all appear to have been constructed with stone, and their chambers to have been on a megalithic scale. He makes no mention of galleries, but as his efforts were confined to clearing out the ruined chambers, he might easily have overlooked their remains. With the exception of the first-mentioned, they were all circular, but his plan and description of that barrow leave it uncertain whether its curious outline was original or due to additions. The remaining three barrows—the great one near Chelmerton,4 one near Wardlow,5 and one on Derwent Moor,6 have only a doubtful claim to be included in the chambered class. They were broken into a century or more ago, and the accounts of them are very meagre.
Unfortunately, all the chambers in this county which have been searched from scientific motives had already been rifled, but that at Harborough Rocks had suffered least. Here the mound had been almost entirely removed for the sake of its materials, the capstone of the chamber had been thrown over, and many of the skeletons it contained scattered; but, fortunately, six of these remained untouched. These were laid on their sides across the space, in the usual contracted or doubled-up attitude. Mr. Bateman, in 1843, found in the more perfect of the two Five Wells chambers the remains of about twelve skeletons, all in a state of confusion. He also found a similar number in one of the Ringham-low7 chambers, and in that at Smerrill, and a still greater number at Stoney-low.8 The chambers at Mininglow and Greenlow had been too much rifled to yield more than a few scattered bones to his spade. In the Wardlow barrow seventeen skeletons were found, “inclosed by two side walls”; and from that on Derwent Moor a “cartload of human bones occupied a large trench above a yard wide.” The skulls in every case, when sufficiently perfect for their form to be made out, have been of the long or dolichocephalic shape; and all the shin bones that have come under the writer’s notice have exhibited the peculiar flattening known as platycnemism. These Neolithic people had a remarkable immunity from dental caries, although the teeth are frequently so worn down by mastication that they must have been almost level with the gums in life. Out of 148 teeth at Harborough Rocks, many of which were excessively ground down, there were only five or six which showed any signs of caries.
In no case has a bronze or other metallic object been found associated with these interments. The few stone implements which have been found are all of flint, and it is significant that these have consisted mostly of thin and delicately-worked arrow-heads of leaf-shaped form. The clayey floor of the gallery at Harborough Rocks yielded several of these, all excessively thin and beautifully wrought, all either broken or calcined, and associated with fragments of charcoal. Several fine examples were found in two of the Ringham-low chambers, and the point of one at Five Wells; and, in addition, a knife of delicate workmanship was also found with the last, as also fragments of coarse pottery, but these may have been derived from destroyed later burials at a higher level.
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 Grinlow9 (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
During the period we are considering, both inhumation and cremation were practised, sometimes together. The placing of the interments was as diverse as the forms and construction of the barrows. For the moment we will confine ourselves to the inhumated class. In the simplest mode of burial, the body was laid on the ground and the mound heaped over it. But often, perhaps usually, something was done to fence it in, or to protect it from the material of the mound. The simplest fence consisted of a row of stones placed round the body (as in the plan of the interment of a barrow at Thirkelow, near Buxton, fig. 812), and between this and the symmetrical enclosure, formed of flag-stones set on edge, has been found every transition. When it was desired to protect the body from the weight of the mound above, a simple device was to place it at the foot of a large stone or a ledge of rock, against which flat stones were reared pent-wise over it; or large stones were made to incline against one another from opposite sides, like a gable roof. From these simple devices we pass through another series of transitions to the box-like cist, formed of slabs on end and roofed with others. Then there was burial in a grave, shallow or deep, large or small, simply filled up with earth or stones, or roofed with one or more flag-stones to form a vault; and the vault, when lined with other flag-stones, became an underground cist. Examples of all these modes of burial have been found in Derbyshire, where, from the abundance of stone, cists are numerous. We know that timber was used for like purposes where stone is scarce, and there is indirect evidence for its occasional use in this county.
What has been said above, will apply in some measure to the cremated interments. Occasionally these are found in cists, graves, and other receptacles, as large as those containing unburnt skeletons; but more frequently they are smaller and better proportioned to the small compass of the remains. Probably the larger receptacles relate to the early days of cremation, when it was a new fashion; to-day, by force of habit, we occasionally transfer the few handfuls of ashes from the crematorium to an ordinary coffin instead of an urn for burial. Generally speaking, however, the disposal of the cremated remains differed considerably from that of unburnt bodies. When the funeral pile was raised on the spot where the burial was to take place, it was the common custom to collect the calcined bones into a little heap on the surface, or to place them in a shallow depression made before or after the burning. In either case, they were sometimes deposited on a flat stone, and there is reason to think that they were often first tied up in a cloth or placed in a basket. This would be especially convenient when they had to be transferred to a different site for burial from that where the body was burned, as seems to have been more often the case in Derbyshire. A more notable receptacle for the burnt remains was the cinerary urn, which may be regarded as the equivalent of both the cloth or basket and of the cist. The urn was usually deposited in a simple hole, and most often, in this county, upright, the mouth being nearly always covered with a thin stone. When reversed, the mouth usually rested upon such a stone.
The regard of the Derbyshire Bronze people for their dead sometimes—and perhaps more often than we suspect—went beyond the mere provision of a protection from the surrounding soil or stones. Occasionally the receptacle was paved, or it contained gravel, clay, or fine earth or sand, on which the body was laid, or in which it was embedded. On Stanton and Hartle moors several cists containing cremated remains were filled with sand, which in one rested on a bed of heather.13 In a grave at Shuttlestone,14 near Parwich, the body had been wrapped in a skin, and laid upon a couch of fern leaves. In another, near King’s Sterndale,15 there was tenacious clay mixed with grass and leaves, which still retained their greenness. The presence of these perishable substances, which under ordinary conditions must have soon disappeared, may represent a general custom.
The dead were evidently buried or cremated, as the case may have been, in their wearing apparel, for the pins, buttons, studs, weapons, and the like, which are frequently found with the unburnt remains, are often in the relative positions they would occupy on the attire; and in case of the burnt, they have almost invariably passed through the fiery ordeal.
Barrow burial in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, was not confined to one sex or to any particular age. The remains of women and children are found in graves and cists as carefully constructed and associated with implements and ornaments as varied and elaborate as those which appertain to the men, indicating, surely, that the family tie was strong, and that the lot of the women was not servile. The frequency with which an infant is associated with an adult, usually a woman, and presumably the mother, probably points to infanticide upon the demise of the parent. Similarly, the occasional presence of a woman’s remains with those of a man points to suttee. More frequently a deposit of cremated bones is associated with a skeleton, and this may possibly represent the sacrifice of a slave. These in themselves, however, do not necessarily indicate a state of savagery, as the recent prevalence of suttee in India and of infanticide in China sufficiently prove.
In the unburnt interments, the body was laid in a more or less contracted posture, varying from a slight flexure of the knees to such a doubling up as to bring them close to the chest, and nearly always on the side, very rarely sitting. The contracted posture may be said to be the invariable Bronze Age rule in Derbyshire, for the only exception—a skeleton laid at full length at Crosslow16—may possibly have belonged to a later period. The side on which the body was laid, and its orientation, have in themselves no apparent signification, and are irrespective of sex or age. To judge from the recorded instances, about as many were laid on the left side as the right. Their orientation shows a slight predilection for the south, and a more marked aversion to the north-west. The Rev. Dr. Greenwell pointed out many years ago17 that in the majority of instances in the north of England which came under his notice, the bodies had been so placed as to face the sun during some part of the day, nearly 60 per cent. having their gaze confined to southerly directions between the south-west and the south-east. If we analyse the forty-four Derbyshire cases in which both the orientation and the side are given, we obtain a similar result—the faces of over 60 per cent. looking in directions ranging from west to south-east. It seems clear that no importance was attached to the direction of the body or the side upon which it was laid, except so far as these enabled it to face the source of light and life; but it was not a rule invariably insisted upon.
These skeletal remains throw an interesting light upon the contemporary inhabitants of Derbyshire. Unfortunately, when Bateman was so actively engaged in opening barrows, anthropology was in its infancy. He and his colleagues rarely gave more than the cephalic index and femoral length, and even these not always. The terms used in describing the skulls, as “boat-shaped,” “oval and elevated,” “medium,” “rather short,” “platycephalic,” “evenly rounded,” etc., do not admit of precise interpretation, and probably no exact value was attached to them. From all sources sufficient particulars of about 85 Bronze Age skulls found in Derbyshire are available to allow of the following classification:
| Dolichocephalic | skulls, | approximately | 16 |
| Mesaticephalic | ″ | ″ | 25 |
| Brachycephalic | ″ | ″ | 44 |
| — | |||
| 85 |
This intermixture of skull-forms has long been observed in the barrows of this age elsewhere in the country, and is generally recognized as indicating the intrusion of a round-head people upon the Neolithic long-heads, the intermediate form being the result of intermarriage between the two stocks. The proportion of these different forms in Derbyshire is of peculiar interest, because, as the Rev. Dr. Greenwell pointed out in his British Barrows, the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic skulls are found in about equal numbers in the barrows of the wolds, whereas in those of the south-west of the island the latter very greatly preponderate. Hence, in Derbyshire, the ratio, like its geographical position, is roughly intermediate, and thus naturally confirms his conclusion, “that the earlier long-headed people were more completely eradicated by the intrusive round-heads in Wiltshire than they were in East Yorkshire.” The general experience has been that the brachycephalic skeletons indicate a race of more powerful physique than the people with whom they intermingled. Assuming that the length of the femur or thigh-bone is 27.5 per cent. of the stature in life, the average stature of twenty-one men was 5 ft. 7⅓ ins., and of seven women 5 ft. 0½ ins. The difference between these statures, nearly 7 ins., considerably exceeds that which obtains in England to-day, and must probably be set down to the effects of early child-bearing and hard work on a poor and irregular diet upon the Bronze women.
The various objects associated with the interments have, as already stated, the impress of a common age. The most remarkable are the earthen vessels. Besides the cinerary urns referred to above, there were vessels of other forms, which have received the names of “drinking-cups,” “food-vases,” and “incense-cups.” The first two are with little doubt rightly named, as both in Derbyshire and elsewhere traces indicating the former presence of liquids and of solid foods have been detected in them respectively. The use of the diminutive “incense-cups” is unknown, and the name is a fanciful one. All these vessels are of clay, with an admixture of sand or crushed stone to prevent them cracking in the process of firing, and are shaped by hand and imperfectly burnt. The ornamentation is essentially of the same character in all, but it varies greatly in elaboration, consisting of various combinations of straight lines, produced for the most part by the impression of twisted thongs or rushes or of notched stamps, or, less frequently, of grooves made with a pointed tool. These combinations are extremely varied, consisting of simple bands of parallel lines, parallel lines in alternate series, horizontal and vertical, saltires, zig-zags, “herring-bone” and latticed diapers, etc. Punched dots and impressions of the finger-nail or tip also occur, but sparingly. The forms of the drinking-cups, food-vases, and cinerary urns are tolerably constant in Derbyshire, but the little incense-cups vary very much; these, too, are usually the most carefully made, while the urns are, as a rule, the coarsest and the least decorated. In figs. 11 and 12 are shown Derbyshire examples of each kind, which will convey a better idea of them than any description.
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.
In a barrow at Parcelly Hay18 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 Blakelow21 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 Moor22 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 Moor23 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 Mininglow24 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.
These illustrations will have given the reader an idea how the sequence of interments is determined. Many years ago the writer tabulated the sequences in all the Derbyshire (including the Staffordshire) barrows containing more than one interment each, of which reliable information was obtainable. When those associated with vessels, other than cinerary urns, were classified, some significant results were obtained. The distribution of the vessels was as follows:
Twenty-nine drinking-cups, all associated with unburnt interments;
Sixty-five food-vases, of which forty-eight were associated with unburnt and seventeen with burnt interments, but none of these in cinerary urns; and
Eleven incense-cups, all with burnt interments, and nearly all in cinerary urns.
It is a question whether the smaller food-vases associated with the burnt interments should not be classed as incense-cups, as the two forms often approximate; but this does not vitiate the general results.
That this table represents a sequence is proved by the fact that in no barrow containing a number of interments has one associated with a drinking-cup been found under conditions to suggest that it may have been of later introduction than a neighbouring food-vase or cinerary urn, nor is there an example of a food-vase interment succeeding an inurned one; whereas the contrary has frequently been noted.
If we apply the test of horizontal position, we find that, compared with the other interments, a much larger proportion of those with drinking-cups were central, while those in urns were as markedly lateral, indicating that the first were predominantly primary interments, and the last secondary. But the vertical position gives even more definite results. The normal position of a primary interment is on or below the old natural surface; that of a secondary, on or above that level.
The following table gives the percentages of these positions when ascertainable:—
| Interments with | Below. | On. | Above natural level. |
| Drinking-cups | 83 | 17 | 0 |
| Food-vessels | 43 | 31 | 26 |
| Cinerary urns | 36.5 | 36.5 | 27 |
It will be observed that in descending order the proportion of those below the natural level decreases, and of those above increases, the inference being that the ratio of primary to secondary interments decreases.
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.
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.