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5 
REPORT ON THE STAPENHILL EXPLORATIONS. 175 
Nottinghamshire, Fairford in Gloucestershire, Little Wilbraham in 
Cambridgeshire, Harnham, near Salisbury, and at Stapenhill, near 
Burton-on-Trent. In these localities no traces of barrows or 
tumuli were perceived, but we must not, therefore, conclude that 
such never existed. In some of these burial-grounds the bodies 
were deposited in such close proximity to each other that it would 
be impossible to erect a tumulus over each one, but there can be 
no doubt that mounds, though insignificant as compared with the 
larger barrows, were originally erected over each grave. 
In some parts of the country the Saxons frequently took 
advantage of the previously formed British barrows, and in these 
interred their dead at a few feet below the surface of the mound. 
Saxon or Pagan English graves resolve themselves therefore into 
three classes :— 
1. English barrows proper, usually smaller in size than the 
Bnttish. 
2. English interments in pre-existing British barrows. 
3. Series of very small barrows on elevated lands and corre- 
sponding to our cemeteries. These are in all probability of much 
later date than either of the other forms of barrow, and are 
generally found near the sites of towns and villages, which were 
the headquarters of that tribe or community. 
The Pagan English, like most other barbarous nations of this 
period, practised cremation in the burial of their dead, but this 
does not seem to have prevailed universally, but to have been 
confined to particular tribes or clans ; for instance, in the ceme- 
teries of Kent and Sussex burial by inhumation appears to have 
been the almost exclusive practice. In the counties of Norfolk, 
Cambridge, Northampton, Gloucester, and Derby, the practice of 
burial by inhumation and cremation would appear to have been 
contemporaneous; while in some districts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and 
Derby, burial by cremation seems to have been the sole observance. 
The discovery of cemeteries in these places, where cremation 
seems to have been the almost universal practice, has led many 
archzologists to the conclusion that cremation was the universal 
custom of the Pagan Saxons, as of most of the other races of 
