308 STUDY OF HIGH ANTIQUITY. 



The question of the special position [gisanent in French, laderung in Ger- 

 man) in which objects are found, so important in geology, is not less so when 

 we consider the traces of the human past. The peculiar position of antiquities in 

 the various places where they are met with has often a special signification. 

 Thus, to return to the graves, their interior, carefully examined, will often 

 reveal the funeral customs and may furnish us with notions respecting the 

 religious ideas of the time. Sometimes, and it is found to be generally the 

 most ancient mode, the body was bent up, with the knees joining the chin, as 

 if to occupy the least possible space. Later the dead Avere usually burnt, 

 which might lead us to suspect the worship of fire. Then again the body has 

 been found stretched out horizontally. When several contemporary skeletons 

 are discovered in the same mound, their relative positions may lead us to infer 

 the practice of human sacrifices. In this case the victims will generally be 

 found lying scattered about irregularly, as if they had been thrown in carelessly, 

 while the centre of the grave has been reserved for the individual in whose 

 honor the funeral rites and sacrifices were instituted. By observing the posi- 

 tion of some broken pebbles and of fragments of pottery in the earth covering 

 certain ancient tombs. Dr. Keller, of Zurich, inferred the custom of casting in 

 these objects while raising the mound — a practice which a curious passage 

 from Shakspeare, (Hamlet, act V, scene I,) seems to confirm.* It would 

 appear that the funeral was occasionally combined with a feast on the spot, 

 and that the earthenware which had been used was broken up and scattered 

 over the grave. At other times the entire vases, or such as have been only 

 crushed by the pressure of the earth, seem to have contained food for the 

 departed, with Avhom were also frequently interred his trinkets, his arms, the 

 emblems of his trade, sometimes his dog, his horse, and even his wife. 



The question of superposition is connected with the preceding. It plays 

 here as essential a part as in geology, which it furnishes with the chronological 

 succession of the different strata, since, evidently, an overlying bed must be 

 more recent than the one beneath it. The antiqiiary meets rarely with series 

 of strata as regularly superimposed as those of the geologist. The case would 

 be more frequent could we examine the deposits which are formed at the 

 bottom of lakes and seas. But, then, the geologist would have taken the 

 advance, and would himself have retraced the history of the human race, leav- 

 ing but scanty gleanings for the succeeding explorers. The materials of the 

 antiquarian are iisually buried in a thin layer of vegetable mould, though even 

 that is sometimes wanting. There are, however, on terra firma, cases of super- 

 position of deposits containing human relics. They are of great value, for 

 they establish more surely than could be done in any other manner the chro- 

 nological succession of the diff'erent ages. In fact, every distinction between 

 ages should invariably rest upon some direct observation of superposition. 

 We have seen how the northern antiquaries arrived at their three ages of 

 stone, bronze, and iron. Their results are satisfactory, but still, having been 

 obtained somewhat indirectly, they are even yet occasionally disputed. Such 

 facts, however, as the following are of a nature to settle the question defini- 

 tively : 



Graves of the early iron age, established upon sepulchral mounds of the 

 bronze age, and, in other cases, interments of the bronze age upon the site of 

 those belonging to the stone age, have been accidentally noticed in Denmark 

 and in the adjoining duchy of Mecklenburg. But the most complete example 

 of such superpositions has been observed, and carefully, too, at Waldhausen, 

 near Lubeck. One of those ancient tombs existed there, in the shape of a 

 mound or barrow, 13 feet high and 161 feet in circumference. It was levelled 

 to the ground to insure a thorough examination, as serious research requires. 



* Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries at Zurich. Vol. Ill, part V, ] 845. 



