130 REVIEWS. 



as it certainly did iu Denmark and Switzerland. And we strongly 

 incline to Canon Greenwcll's maturer conclusion that many of 

 the ordinary bowl-shaped mounds belong to it. Apart from 

 all other indications, the comparatively brief endurance of the 

 Bronze age and the great number of the round barrows_lead one to 

 conclude that these tumuli could not all have been piled up in so short a 

 time. A period estimated as lasting for only 700 years could hardly have 

 witnessed the accumulation of nineteen out of twenty of the pre-historic 

 cairns. 



Canon Greenwell confirms the opinion that no differences of custom 

 can be traced between the people of the Bronze age and those of the 

 Neohthic age. His Yorkshire evidence agi-ees with the result of the 

 Derbyshire explorations, viz., that there is no reason for supposing that 

 the practice of cremation was a funeral rite distinctive of the Bronze 

 period. Inhumation was equally in vogue. All the evidence goes to 

 show that the general adoption in any particular district of one custom 

 or the other was either a tribal peculiarity, or a superstitious ceremony, 

 or (perhaps more probably) the result of circumstances. Inhumation 

 was the rule on the Wolds, where a tree is now a rarity, and wood must 

 have always been scarce. Cremation was generally practiced in Cleve- 

 land, where the different nature of the soil would admit of the growth of 

 timber. It cannot be said of course that the adoption of cremation was 

 whoUy dependent on abundance of fuel, biit it was probably one of the 

 determining circumstances. Indeed, each addition to our knowledge 

 seems to show that in very early times races and customs were mixed, 

 and that social improvement took place amongst peacefully mingling 

 races, rather than from conquering invaders. Not that there was peace 

 in the land : tribe fought with tribe, and many a hill-fort now-a-days 

 marks the scene of desperate conflicts of old. But modern i-esearch has 

 destroyed the notion that such a momentous change as the introduction 

 of metal was brought about by an exterminating swoop of a foreign and 

 superior race. 



Canon Greenwell makes it clearer than ever that natural conditions 

 will account for many divergences of habit. In Derbyshire, where stone 

 is abundant, nearly every interment is protected by a cist, a rude 

 chamber constructed of rough stone slabs. On the Yorkshire Wolds, 

 where such slabs must have been brought from a distance, cists are 

 almost entirely wanting. The greater frequency of bronze in the 

 southern counties is doubtless due to the opportiinity of dealing with the 

 Phoenician traders, though on the other hand, and curiously enough, the 

 Wold dwellers seem to have been poorer in jet and amber decorations 

 than many of the inland tribes. 



The exact significance of depositing ai-ticlcs of value with the dead 

 is not advanced towards certainty by Canon Greenwell's book. The 

 difficulty is that the custom existed, but by no means to a sufficient 

 extent to equip the deceased for the supposed requirements of the future 

 life. The gift to the dci^arted must be looked upon as sjanbolical, rather 

 than as intended for actual use, and this view seems borne out by the 

 practice of placing vessels, which doubtless contained food, with the ashes 



