SO BARROWS AT HADDON FIELDS, DERBYSHIRE. 



quarried. These worn slabs were perfectly sound and extremely 

 hard, and their smooth surfaces had an earthy ferrugineous dis- 

 colouration, which slightly penetrated the stone; they were also dinted 

 in places, as though by hammering. One slab (which, when the 

 pieces were collected together, measured 19 by 18 inches, and about 

 five or six inches thick), had several grooves from one- eighth to 

 one-quarter inch broad on its smooth surface, evidently caused by 

 sharpening some pointed instrument, — the hollow in breadth - 

 section being V-shaped. 



We then turned our attention to three of the other low mounds in 

 the field. The first, a small circular mound, about 180 feet to the 

 west of the above, gave no signs of an interment, although we cleared 

 nearly all of it away, and dug down to the undisturbed ground. 

 Only a few splinters of bone and stag's horn were picked up. The 

 next, about half-way between the above, covered a larger area, the 

 circular sweep of which was most noticeable, except on the south 

 side, where were signs of the mound having been on some former 

 occasion dug into. We cleared out the central region, and soon 

 found evidence of its artificial character in two small pieces of grit- 

 stone, one of which was smoothened on one side, and a fragment of 

 pottery. Fragments of bone were picked up — one possibly human, 

 and a large limestone slab, which may have formed part of a cist at 

 one time, but it was very evident that the barrow had been previ- 

 ously rifled. The fragment of pottery (which is about ij inches 

 thick), has not been submitted to an expert, but all I have shown it 

 to, consider it Romano-Celtic : however this may be, it is of quite 

 a different colour and paste from the " Celtic " pottery of the barrows. 

 Internally its paste is of a light brick red colour, but which changes 

 to a pale orange at the surfaces, which are rough and devoid of glaze ; 

 and quartz-sand, to probably the extent of 25 per cent., is present. 

 It must have belonged to a globular bowl of some eight or nine 

 inches in diameter, and wheel-made : this is clearly indicated by 

 striae on the inner surface. Bateman records the occasional 

 presence of " red pottery " — presumably of the same kind as the 

 above, and also of wheel-made pottery in the barrows of the district, 

 but in no case do we read of them as associated with " Celtic " 





