Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/227

 EARLY MAN ments) immediately above, to fall into it. The collapse of such roofs may also be responsible for the concave or dished summits frequently mentioned by the older writers, who presumably saw many of the bar- rows in a more perfect condition than we see them to-day. On the other hand, these hollows may represent the openings made by treasure seekers and others in ancient times. The bodies were buried in a more or less contracted posture varying from a slight flexure of the knees to such a bending as to bring them close to the breast, nearly always lying on the side, and very rarely sit- ting. This may be said to be the invariable rule for Derbyshire, for the only apparent exception an extended interment at Crosslow 1 may possibly belong to a later period than that we are considering. What has been said above will apply in great measure to the cre- mated remains. Occasionally they are found in graves, cists, or other receptacles as large as those used for the unburnt interments, but more usually the receptacles are smaller and better proportioned to the small compass of the remains. Perhaps these large receptacles are legacies of a time when cremation was a new fashion ; to-day, we, by force of habit, transfer the few handfuls of ashes from the crematorium to an ordinary coffin, instead of an urn, for burial. When the funeral pile was raised on the spot where the burial was to take place, it was commonly the custom to collect the calcined bones into a little heap on the surface, or to sweep them into a shallow depression made before or after the burning. In either case the remains were sometimes deposited on a flat stone, and there is reason to think that they were often tied up in a cloth or placed in a basket. This would be especially convenient when they had to be transferred to a dif- ferent site for burial from that where the body was burned, as seems to have been more often the case in Derbyshire. But the most notable receptacle for these burnt remains was the cinerary urn, which in this county partakes of the well known stereotyped form, tall and flower-pot like, with the characteristic deep and overhanging rim to which the de- coration is mostly confined. These urns vary considerably in size, ranging from the extremes of 5 inches to 2 feet in height, the smaller ones pro- bably being intended for the ashes of children. When found upright, as is most frequently the case in this county, the mouth is nearly always covered with a stone, and occasionally the weight of this cover is borne by two upright stones, one on each side of the vessel. When reversed over the remains, the mouth usually rests upon a flat stone. Occasionally the urn has been found to occupy a circular hole, somewhat larger than itself, the intervening space being filled up with carbonaceous earth, apparently derived from the site of the pile. The fierceness of the heat to which the bodies were exposed varied considerably, leaving the bones in some instances in pieces sufficiently large to admit of easy identifi- cation, in others reducing them to a coarse powder. 1 Vtstigts, p. 57. 171