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]
[2] _Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire_, 39; _Ten Years’
Diggings_, 54, 82.
[3] _Journal_ of Derbyshire Archæo. and Nat. Hist. Soc., xii., 118.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. East Chamber at Five Wells. View From the
North-East.]
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.
[4] _Pilkington_, _View of Derbyshire_, ii., 424.
[5] _Philosoph. Trans._, 1759.
[6] _Ten Years’ Diggings_, 254.
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-low[7] 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.
[7] _Ten Years’ Diggings_, 93.
[8] _Vestiges_, 46.
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
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.
[9] _Proceedings_, Society of Antiquaries, 1895.
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]
[10] _Ten Years’ Diggings_, 87.
[11] See article, “Early Man,” _Victoria History_, Derbyshire.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.—Section of Barrow at Flaxdale, near Youlgreave.
(_From wood-cut by Llewellynn Jewitt_.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 7.—Section of Barrow at Grinlow, near Buxton.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.—Plan of Burial at Thirkelow, near Buxton.]
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. 8[12]), 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.
[12] _Proc._ Soc. Ant., 1896.
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.
[13] See _Vestiges_ and _Ten Years’ Diggings_.
[14] _Ten Years’ Diggings_, 34.
[15] _Proc._ Soc. Ant., 1899.
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.—Dolichocephalic Skull from “Chamber” at
Harborough Rocks. Side and Top Views. (Scale = ⅓.)]
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 Crosslow[16]—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
ago[17] 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.
[16] _Vestiges_, 57.
[17] _British Barrows._
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.—Brachycephalic Skull from Grinlow. Side and Top
Views. (Scale = ⅓.)]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.—Typical Examples of Bronze Age Burial Vessels,
Derbyshire.
A—Drinking-Cups. B—Food-Vases. (Scale = 1/5 size of originals.)
]