Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/224

 124 DESCRIPTION OF AN ANCIENT TUMULAR CEMETERY. been disturbed, must remain doubtful. It seems more pro- bable that the cemetery had formerly a much greater super- ficial extent, and that its outskirts were, for some reason, dug up and piled on the central part, which was allowed to remain undisturbed. The black seam of charcoal and ashes, described as running through the mound, appears to indicate what has at one period been the surface of this cemetery. If we reject as improbable the conclusion that the human remains interred were originally covered by no greater depth of earth than that which now intervenes between the undisturbed skeletons and this black seam (though the depth is not greater in some Anglo-Saxon tumuli of considerable extent), we must suppose that the superincumbent soil was so far removed. Fires would at least appear to have been made on this level, and to have left behind them their traces in the form of a seam of wood-ashes. These fires may possibly have been made for the purpose of beacons, during the wars between the Saxons and Danes, or even at a period, subsequent to the Norman conquest. As already pointed out, the situation is one well adapted for such a purpose. That they were fires connected with cremation and urn-burial — though at first sight the most probable conclusion — appears very doubtful, from the circumstance that bone-ashes do not seem to constitute an essential constituent of this seam. Although, then, these views of the original construction of the cemetery at Lamel-hill, and of the changes which have subsequently been made in it, are more or less conjectural, they appear to be those by which the appearances which have been described are most satisfactorily explained. The inquiry remains as to what period and people this cemetery must be ascribed. This is a question' the solution of which is attended with some difficulty. In endeavouring to determine it, there are several points which require our consideration. And the first of these which I will mention, is the mode of interment. We find in Lamel-hill the remains of a cemetery bearing the marks of unquestion- able antiquity, in which persons of both sexes, and of nearly all ages, have been interred. We have, I believe, no ground for supposing that general cemeteries, of such a description as this has been, were used by any tribe of the early Britons, who appear to have generally practised the more isolated