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94 feeling which is only to be found among such nations as have acquired some degree of civilization. It was a totally different matter however, when towards the close of paganism in the North, cultivation having attained a higher grade, men once more adopted the custom of interring their dead without first burning them. This fact by no means invalidates the assertion, that the mode of interment of the stone-period is the most ancient. That the stone-period extends farthest into antiquity, the tombs which belong to it afford the most unquestionable proofs. At the summit and on the sides of a barrow are often found vessels of clay with burnt bones and articles of bronze, while at the base of the hill we meet with the ancient cromlechs or giants' chambers, with unburnt bodies and objects of stone. From this it is obvious that at a later time, possibly centuries after, poorer persons who had not the means to construct barrows, used the ancient tombs of the stone-period, which they could do with the more security, since a barrow which is piled above a giant's chamber had exactly the same appearance as a barrow of the bronze-period. To prevent misunderstanding it must here be observed, that many persons are of opinion, from the appearance of the barrows when opened, that the different modes of interment of the periods of stone and bronze, the placing bodies in cromlechs and the burning them, prevailed universally at one and the same time. This opinion has however been founded in most cases on very loose grounds, since sufficient attention has not been paid to distinguishing the different modes of interment at the base and the summit of the barrows; for the fact that two kinds of interment occur in the same barrow, by no means proves that such interments belong to the same era. The circumstance moreover that together with unburnt bodies vessels of clay have also been found, in the cromlechs and giants' chambers, has given rise to error. These vessels contain, as we have seen, merely loose earth; but formerly it was constantly as erroneously conceived, that all vessels of clay found in barrows were urns for ashes, and had been filled with