1 Of this stone circle, one of the next in importance to Stonehenge, an account will be given in a future chapter.

2 This remarkable barrow was excavated by Mr. Warne, and a fully detailed account given by him in his valuable work, the “Celtic Antiquities of Dorset,” from which the illustration is taken.

3 See Crania Britannica, one of the most valuable ethnological works ever issued.

4 It will be well to bear in mind that when “rats’ bones” are mentioned, it must be understood that they are the bones, not of the common rat, but of the water-vole or water-rat. They are very abundant in Derbyshire barrows, and, indeed, are so frequently found in them, that their presence in a mound is considered to be a certain indication of the presence of human remains. “The barrows of Derbyshire, a hilly, almost mountainous, county, abounding with beautiful brooks and rills, inhabited by the water-vole, were made use of for its hybernacula, or winter retreats, into which it stored its provisions, and where it passed its time during the cold and frosty season. It is a rodent, or gnawer, or vegetable eater, and, as I have described elsewhere, has a set of grinding-teeth of the utmost beauty, and fitted most admirably for the food on which it lives. The part of the matter which is curious to the antiquary is, that the bones in Derbyshire barrows are frequently perceived to have been gnawed by the scalpri-form incisors of these animals. I have endeavoured to explain, in the note referred to, that all the rodents amuse themselves, or possibly preserve their teeth in a naturally useful state, and themselves in health, by gnawing any object that comes in their way. This is well known to every boy who keeps rabbits. I remember, some years ago, seeing a very fine black squirrel in the house of a workman in this town, which had been sent him by his son from Canada. It was found that it was impossible to keep this animal in any wooden house. He would gnaw a road out of the strongest wooden cage that could be made for him, in a few hours. In consequence, his owner made him a tin cage, in which he was kept securely. In confirmation of what I have said respecting the water-voles, vegetable feeders, gnawing the bones of the ancient Britons in barrows, I may refer to LinnÆus’s most interesting Tour in Lapland. When in Lycksele, Lapland, June 1, he describes the Kodda, or hut of the Laplander, and incidentally remarks, “Everywhere around the huts I observed horns of the reindeer lying neglected, and it is remarkable that they were gnawed, and sometimes half devoured, by squirrels.”—I. 127. That is, if anything were truly devoured, it was the antlers, not the bodies. “The bones of the Arvicola, or water-vole, were found in the exploration of the colossal tumulus of Fontenay de Marmion, which was one of the galleried tumuli, opened in 1829, near Caen in Normandy. It belonged to the primeval period of the ancient Gauls.—Mem. de la Soc. des Antiq. de Normandie, 1831-3, p. 282.”—Dr. Davis.

5 See Note on the Distortions which present themselves in the crania of the Ancient Britons, by J. Barnard Davis, M.D., in the “Natural History Review” for July, 1862, page 290.

6 The elliptical form was evidently, in this case, the result of accident. The original mound had been circular, but the elongated form had been the consequence of successive interments.

7 Plate II., Decade 1.

8 Journal of the British ArchÆological Association, vol. i, p. 25.

9 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 78.

10 There are in Derbyshire lead mines worked at the present day which were worked, at all events, in the Romano-British period. Roman coins, fibulÆ, and other remains are occasionally found in them.

11 “Ten Years’ Diggings.”

12 Although I am describing the position in which the urns have been placed, it must not for a moment be supposed that they are often found in a perfect state, or in the position in which they have originally been placed. On the contrary, the urns are usually very much crushed, and not unfrequently, from pressure of the superincumbent mass of stones and earth, are found on their sides, and crushed flat.

13 This skull has been most skilfully figured in “Crania Britannica,” where it is carefully described and compared with other examples by Dr. Davis, who gives an admirable account of the discoveries at Long-Low, and of the characteristics of the different crania found there. Of the skull here shown Dr. Davis says it is “remarkably regular, narrow, and long; of good shape, medium thickness, and presenting few of the harsh peculiarities of the ancient British race; on the contrary, there is about it an air of slenderness and refinement. In some features it assimilates to the modern English cranium, although decidedly narrow, whilst its genuine and remote antiquity is determined by unquestioned evidence. It belongs, in an eminent degree, to the class of dolichocephalic skulls, and is the cranium of a man of about forty years of age.”

14 Described in the “Reliquary,” vol. ix.

15 For a full account of this discovery see the “Reliquary,” vol. vi. page 1.

16 This woollen cloth must be regarded as a woven texture, but whether it were woven in so artificial a machine as a loom may be questioned. A great variety of contrivances have been used for weaving, i.e., crossing alternately threads passed in opposite directions, the warp and the woof, by what are called savage races. Still it is not at all improbable that a people so advanced in pastoral habits, possessed some machine for weaving, bearing a relation to a primitive loom. Both warp and woof are composed, as might be expected, of a simply spun thread of one strand. Perforated stones are found in British and Danish barrows, and perforated pieces of earthenware in the Swiss Lake villages, even of the stone period, which are regarded as spindle-whorls.

17 It is worthy of remark, that this noble mound, with its very early interments, has been made a place of sepulture in more recent times, many Roman coins and remains of that period having been found there.

18 These immense monoliths have originally, it is estimated, been upwards of thirty in number, and to have been placed probably ten yards apart. The largest remaining stone stands between eight and nine feet above the ground, and is seventeen feet in circumference. It is estimated to weigh upwards of seven tons. Several of the stones have entirely disappeared, of others fragments remain scattered about.

19 For an excellent notice of this and other remains, the reader is referred to Mr. W. F. Wakeman’s “Handbook of Irish Antiquities,”—the best and most compact little work on the subject which has been issued, and one which will be found extremely useful to the archÆological student—to which I am indebted for some of the accompanying engravings.

20 For the loan of these seven engravings I am indebted to the Council of the “Historical and ArchÆological Association of Ireland,” (formerly the “Kilkenny and South-east of Ireland ArchÆological Society,”) in whose journal—one of the most valuable of antiquarian publications—they have appeared. This Association is one of the most useful that has ever been established, and deserves the best support, not only of Irish, but of English antiquaries.

21 F. C. Lukis.

22 Vol. i. p. 142.

23 T. Wright.

24 “ArchÆological Journal,” vol xi., p. 315.

25 For articles upon this subject see the “Reliquary, Quarterly ArchÆological Journal and Review,” vol. ii., pages 61 to 70; and Mr. Bateman’s “Ten Years’ Diggings,” page 279.

26 This barrow has been admirably described in that magnificent work, “Crania Britannica,”—a work which every ethnologist and antiquary ought to possess, and which contains far more information than any other book extant. The following extract from the work explains the section:—

“Above this cist a cairn of fragments of sandstone had been raised
most likely before interments by cremation were practised on the spot. The dark horizontal line of our woodcut indicates the situation of a stratum of burnt earth traversing the barrow at this height. Funereal rites, by incineration, had evidently been celebrated on this surface; which was scattered over with a thin layer of wood-charcoal. In the centre of the barrow, and resting upon this carbonaceous deposit, stood a fine urn of dark British pottery, 11 inches high, and 9 at its greatest diameter at the top; not in the more commonly inverted, but in an upright position. It is ornamented in the usual style of lineal impressions, most probably made by a twisted thong of untanned leather, with rows of lines, alternately upright and horizontal, around the upper division; and in the middle the lines are varied into the zigzag, having distinct crosses and other impressions in the intervals. It contained calcined bones in a clean state, and mingled with them a portion of the jaw of some animal; bones of the water-vole (Arvicola amphibius, Desmar.), so common in the Derbyshire barrows; a bone pin, 4 inches in length, and finely pointed; and a flint arrow-head; all calcined. The urn was closed by a large flat stone, the two ends of which rested upon side walls, so as to protect the deposit, and secure it from superincumbent pressure. Did this urn contain the inconsiderable yet sacred remains of one whose devotion in life the distinguished dead below had oft experienced—one who held life itself subordinate to his fate? The fearful conjecture seems not by any means improbable.

“Interred in the soil above this portion of the barrow, and lying amongst loose stones, the remains of four other skeletons occurred, placed in the primitive flexed position. One of these had apparently been disturbed at no long period subsequent to interment, and the bones laid in order before they had become decayed—a practice adopted by some uncivilized people in more modern times.

“This barrow of the British period presents unquestionable evidences of very primeval times, and contained the relics of a true aboriginal inhabitant of these islands, piously laid in his last resting-place with great care, but in all rude simplicity. It is rich in instruction, and marked by precise phases of information. It shows almost certainly the contemporaneous adoption of inhumation and cremation—the latter, perhaps, yielding to the first a short precedency; or possibly, in this instance, a rite of the nature of a “Suttee,” and subordinate to the former.”

27 Warne’s “Celtic Tumuli of Dorsetshire.”

28 Celt, from Celtis, a chisel.

29 This is one of the largest examples which have been found. It is in my own collection, having been most kindly presented to me by the Hon. and Rev. C. Willoughby.

30 For a lengthened description and classification of the various forms of stone implements, the reader is referred to a new work, “The Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain,” by that able antiquary, Mr. John Evans, the author of the admirable volume on “Ancient British Coins,” by which his name is so well known.

31 For a memoir, with portrait, of this remarkable character, and an account of his doings, see the Reliquary, vol, viii., p. 65, et seq.

32 “Ten Years’ Diggings.”

33 Reliquary for October, 1861.

34 “Nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem.”—Juvenal.

35 The skull of one of these, an excellent typical example of a Roman in the very prime of life, is engraved in “Crania Britannica,” pl. 30.

36 See example in the York museum.

37 “Collectanea Antiqua,” vol. iii., p. 45.

38 “Proceedings of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society;” Wellbeloved’s “Eburacum;” “Crania Britannica,” etc.

39 Now in the Bateman Museum.

40 See the Reliquary, vol. iv., p. 185.

41 In the Intellectual Observer.

42 See Mr. Roach Smith’s interesting account of this vase in the “Collectanea Antiqua,” vol. iv., pp. 82-89.

43 Wright.

44 Thomas Wright.

45 Wright.

46 For an interesting account of these potteries, see Wise’s “New Forest.”

47 For a detailed account of all the different pot-works and their productions, see my “Ceramic Art in England.”

48 C. R. Smith.

49 Shields.

50 Armour.

51 A detailed account of this discovery will be found, from the pens of Mr. Briggs, the Editor, and others, in the “Reliquary,” vol. ix.

52 Coat of mail.

53 C. R. Smith.

54 See the “Reliquary Quarterly ArchÆological Journal and Review,” vol. ix. p. 180.

55 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 28.

56 “Vestiges,” p. 24.

57 For a more extended and fully illustrated account of penannular brooches, the reader is referred to the “Reliquary,” vol. iii.

58 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 231.