130 ON SOME DIGGINGS NEAR BRASSINGTON, DERBYSHIRE. 



flame their spirits would pass away to the world of spirits ; the 

 unconsumed flint implements being broken to prevent them being 

 used again. Such customs are wide-spread ; the Chinese habit 

 of burning imitation cardboard money to enrich the soul of the 

 dead is obviously a survival. It is curious that the implements 

 were found only in the gallery, and none in the chamber. 



It is plain enough that this barrow was at some former date 

 almost demolished, and at the same time the chamber and its 

 contents were much disturbed. Some of the details of this work 

 can be made out. North and north-west of the chamber, the 

 despoilers removed the barrow almost to the natural surface, and 

 then pushed off the capstone of the chamber into this excavation, 

 and rudely tossed a number of its bones (including two, at least, 

 of the skulls) into the western portion of the hollow (Trenches B 

 and E), subjecting, at the same time, the lower central contents 

 of the chamber to much disturbance. Lastly, all were covered 

 up again, apparently with the smaller debris of the mound ; the 

 filling-in including sundry potsherds of the Romano-British village 

 or of a secondary burial in the barrow, and several of a later date 

 (the glazed pieces), and a fragment of iron. It is improbable that 

 the human remains of Trench A came from this chamber ; there 

 are indications of another chamber on the east side of the area. 

 How long it is since this event took place, it is impossible to say. 

 In Derbyshire, the barrows were extensively demolished at the 

 close of the last, and beginning of the present centuries — the era 

 of commons-enclosing — their stone being much used for fences. 

 The condition of the turf and filling-in points to this as the 

 minimum length of time ; the maximum being the date of the 

 glazed pottery and iron, probably the Middle ages. The much 

 more decayed condition of the bones outside the chamber and 

 those of its central portion, compared with the skulls, which on 

 account of the inward sloping of the sides of the chamber were 

 less exposed to the action of rain, indicates, however, a much 

 longer time than the minimum above. Whenever it was, it is 

 clear that the skulls were in the same fractured condition as we 

 found them. And it is equally clear, that if these remains were 



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