Dr. R. Munro2144 says, on what authority I do not know, that the object of cremation was ‘to liberate the spirit more quickly’. Is it then to be concluded that in cases where inhumation and cremation were practised simultaneously in the same barrow,2145 it was intended that certain spirits should be liberated quickly and others slowly?

Mr. W. C. Borlase2146 remarks that ‘the transformation which would have taken place when incineration was introduced ... would ... have ... been from a cult which was probably filthy and material to one which was pure and spiritual’. We have seen that the ‘probably filthy’ and the ‘spiritual’ cult were practised simultaneously by the same people; are we to assume that when inhumation was reintroduced in the Early Iron Age filth and materialism were revived?

Professor Boyd Dawkins2147 insists that cremation was introduced into Britain by ‘the bronze-using Celtic tribes’; and Dr. Munro2148 apparently agrees with him. Putting aside the fact that most of the tribes to which the professor refers were not Celtic,2149 there is no evidence that cremation was first introduced by bronze-using tribes: if it was, the long barrows in which primary cremation interments have been found must have been erected in the British Bronze Age! It may or may not be true that, as Canon Greenwell suggests,2150 some of the Yorkshire round barrows were erected in the Stone Age; but at all events they were later than the long barrows of the same county. Those long barrows, according to Dr. Munro and Professor Boyd Dawkins, must have been erected after a bronze-using people had introduced cremation into Britain. How then would the professor and the doctor explain the fact that in the round barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds there was a reaction in favour of inhumation, seeing that Canon Greenwell2151 found in them 301 interments of unburnt and only 78 of burnt bones?

Dr. Munro2152 remarks further that, ‘so far as available evidence has been adduced, it would appear that the only sepulchral remains, proved to have been older than the custom of cremation, are the chambered cairns in the south-west of England. When, however, the analogous cairns of Argyllshire, Caithness, and the Orkney Islands were constructed, the religious wave had already enveloped Northern Britain. Hence, though generally destitute of bronze relics, these structures were generally contemporary with the Bronze Age burials elsewhere in Britain.... The explanation ... is that in out-of-the-way localities ... the Stone Age civilisation lingered longer than in those on the main routes of commercial intercourse.’ Certainly; but no sepulchral remains in Britain are ‘proved to have been older than the custom of cremation’. Inhumation preceded cremation in Cornwall;2153 but there is no evidence that when inhumation was first practised there cremation was not practised in other parts of Britain. Though cremation was very rare in the chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, it was not unknown:2154 it was almost universal in the unchambered long barrows of Yorkshire; and it cannot be proved that they were later than the chambered long barrows of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.2155 The chambered cairns of Scotland were not only ‘generally’ but absolutely ‘destitute of bronze relics’. Very likely some of them may have been erected after the Bronze Age had commenced in Southern Britain; but even this can hardly be proved. What has been proved is that even in the Palaeolithic Age in the caves near Mentone cremation was already practised side by side with inhumation.2156

[Since the rough draft of this note was written Professor Boyd Dawkins2157 has asserted that the long chambered barrow of Stoney Littleton belonged to the Bronze Age, while he admits, apparently because it did not contain cremated interments, that the long chambered barrow of Rodmarton was neolithic.2158]

Professor Ridgeway’s views, which are expounded in his well-known chapter, ‘Cremation, Inhumation, and the Soul,’ have been noticed in the first part of this book. In regard to Western usage he blunders in a way which makes me hesitate to accept his statements about archaeological details that I have not myself studied. He says that ‘in Dorsetshire ... the extended position seems to be the prevalent one’,2159 a remark which I have already noted2160 as an instance of the danger of relying upon second-hand evidence; he implies that the invaders who ‘conquered Dorset, Wiltshire, and Cornwall’ in the Bronze Age were Belgae;2161 and he states that ‘in France inhumation was universal before the age of metal’,2162 which, as I have shown,2163 is contrary to fact.