Grave-mounds and Their Contents
A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods
9781465647559
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
To the grave-mounds of the early inhabitants of our island, more than to any other source, we are indebted for our knowledge of their arts, their habits, and their occupations. Indeed, to these mounds and their contents, we owe almost all the knowledge we possess as to the history of the races and peoples who have preceded us, and are enabled to determine, approximately, their chronological succession as masters of the soil. From the very earliest ages men of every race have bestowed peculiar care over the graves of the dead, and have marked to later ages, in an unmistakable manner, these places of sepulture, which have, in many instances, been preserved with religious care to modern times. Thus the relics which they contain have come down to us intact, and even now tell their wondrous tale, in a language of their own, of ages and of races of beings long since passed away. A single implement of stone or of flint; a weapon or an ornament of bronze, of iron, or of bone; a bead of jet or of glass; an urn, or even a fragment of pottery; or any one of the infinity of other relics which are exhumed, no matter to what period they belong, or from what locality they may have come; one and all tell their own tale, and supply new links to our ever-extending chain of knowledge. To the graves, then, of our earliest ancestors, must we mainly turn for a knowledge of their history and of their modes of life; and a careful examination and comparison of their contents will enable us to arrive at certain data on which, not only to found theories, but to build up undying and faultless historical structures. As, wherever the country was populated, interments of the dead must, as a necessity, have taken place, these all-important store-houses of after-knowledge exist, or have existed, to more or less extent in almost every district throughout the land, and give evidence, whenever opened by experienced hands, of their historical value and importance. The earliest grave-mounds are mostly found in the mountainous districts of the land—among the hills and fastnesses; the latter overspreading hill and valley and plain alike. Thus, in Cornwall and Yorkshire, in Derbyshire and in Dorsetshire, in Wiltshire and in many other districts, the earliest interments are, or have been, abundant; while the later ones, besides being mixed up with them in the districts named, are spread over every other county. In the counties just named Celtic remains abound more than those of any other period. In Dorsetshire, for instance, that county, as the venerable Stukeley declares, “for sight of barrows not to be equalled in the world,” the early mounds abound on the downs and on the lofty Ridgeway, an immense range of hills of some forty miles in extent, while those of a later period lie in other parts of the county. In Yorkshire, again, they abound chiefly in the wolds; and in Cornwall, on the high lands. The same, again, of Derbyshire, where they lie for the most part scattered over the wild, mountainous, and beautiful district known as the High Peak—a district occupying nearly one half of the county, and containing within its limits many towns, villages, and other places of extreme interest. In this it resembles Dorsetshire; for in the district comprised in the Ridgeway and the downs are very many highly interesting and important places, around which the tumuli are most plentiful.
