Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/227

 DESCRIPTION OP AN ANCIENT TUMULAR CEMETERY. 127 eluded that the tumuli on eminences near the sites of Roman roads in this country, are all Roman, or have been con- structed over the bodies of British chieftains engaged in the Roman service. Lamel-hill must certainly have been very near, and distinctly visible from, the Roman road between Eburacum and the nearest station to the east — Derventio. Indeed, as Mr. Wellbeloved, with great probability, con- cludes, this road must have crossed what is now called Hes- hngton field, not fiir from the place where the Roman coffins were found a few years ago.-^ In this case, the road would probably have been carried along the north side of the ridge on which Lamcl-liill stands, and perhaps between the existing roads to Hull and Heslington. Such a conjectural Roman road is laid down in Mr. Newton's recent map, having Heslington Mount (Siward hone) on its south side. The position, then, of Lamel-hill, so far as it goes, is favourable to the view, expressed by Drake, that it is a Roman tumulus. In the neighbourhood of York much cannot be insisted on the discovery of such fragments of Roman tile and pottery as were found in Lamel-liill, more particularly as they were not discovered in immediate connexion with the undisturbed skeletons. The presence of the bones of Bos longifrons, in considerable numbers, seems a more important circumstance. Hitherto, I believe, the remains of this animal have not been found with antiquities which can be assigned to a later period than that of the Romans. Still it can hardly be thought an improbable opinion, that, in this more northern part of the island, the species may have lingered down to the time of the Saxons. Having, then, noticed those circumstances which are favour- able to the view of Lamel-hill being a cemetery of the Roman- British period, let us examine whether other particulars ought equally to incline us to this opinion. The size and form of the skull, and the condition of other parts of the skeleton, are circumstances from which we may perhaps look for some aid in determining the question before us. Professors Eschricht, Nillson, and Retzius, have found a remarkable difference in the crania from the tumuli of Sweden and Denmark, of different epochs, and which the}^ have made the subject of observations of great interest to ethno- logical science. In the very numerous accounts which we possess of the ^ Eburacum, 1842, p. 158.