Page:Primevalantiquit00wors.djvu/117

Rh antiquity. They afford the surest guides to a knowledge of funeral ceremonies which gradually became dissimilar to each other, and since they are fixed and lasting memorials which may be destroyed altogether, but cannot be transferred from their original place, their situation and extension furnish us with very important testimony as to the most ancient settlement and occupancy of different districts. From a single mound standing by itself, we must not of course attempt to deduce too much, but by comparing a number of observations from all parts of the country, we arrive, by degrees, at a knowledge of the general and particular characteristics of the grave, and by this mean learn to refer the different kinds to distinct classes, and in some measure to distinct periods. Experience of this kind is of high value and importance. For, to cite an example, if we can prove that there exist in certain districts, barrows and structures of stone of the same form and the same contents, and that, beyond these districts, other and opposite relations exist, we certainly have a valid reason for concluding that such districts were inhabited in ancient times either by the same races of men, or at all events by races very nearly related.

The barrows of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, like the antiquities of these countries, were at an earlier time all considered as belonging to one class, so that monuments of the most different kind were mixed together, as if they belonged to one period. For this reason we will just point out very briefly the chief classes of the acknowledged Danish monuments, and afterwards examine their connection with the ancient remains which exist in other parts of the North.

The Danish grave-hills are, like the early antiquities, generally divisible into three classes, namely, those of the stone, of the bronze, and that of the iron-period, which last includes the inscribed monumental stones, or Runic stones, as they are termed.