ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



which is the western extremity of the same ridge. The site has been 

 under the plough for many years, and the soil is from one to two feet 

 deep on the top of limestone rock. 



The first skeleton was discovered in November, 1 842, and ex- 

 cavations were carried on in the early part of the following year. Many 

 of the bodies were in pairs, and all were found to lie in graves which 

 may have been marked by small hillocks such as are to be seen in church- 

 yards at the present day. In the excavated space which was about i 50 

 feet by 100, there were found in all thirty-two human skeletons, all lying 

 nearly in the same direction with the feet to the north-east. Most of 

 them lay about eighteen inches below the surface face upwards, and the 

 graves were in great part filled with the fine mould which is frequently 

 found in such interments. There were discovered twenty-five skeletons 

 without weapons, seven with weapons, one skeleton of a horse, and 

 three or four urns containing burnt human bones. It will be observed 

 on the plan of the cemetery that accompanies the account, that three of 

 the bodies were deposited with the knees doubled up, a circumstance 

 that has been commented on by the Abbe Cochet,' who met with 

 similar cases in Normandy ; while it was the general rule in a cemetery 

 at Sleaford, Lines. ^ 



A detailed list of the contents of the thirty-seven graves is given by 

 Sir Henry Dryden, whose accuracy has made this find an important addi- 

 tion to archsEology, and furnished a model on which such excavations as 

 these should be conducted and put on permanent record. A glance at 

 plate xxii. accompanying his account will at once prove that the position 

 of the bodies was not accidental, but was dictated by the funeral customs 

 of the group of settlers who used the cemetery. This uniformity not 

 only indicates that the burials belong to a definite period during which 

 the rites of burial were not interfered with to any extent, but also 

 warrants the conclusion that the cemetery ceased to be used before the 

 introduction of Christianity into this part of England had caused the 

 dead to be buried with the head to the west. It was apparently in the 

 middle of the eighth century that burial-grounds within the walls of 

 towns became general in England, and it seems reasonable to refer to the 

 intervening century, from about 650 to 750, the east-and-west burials in 

 the open country which are sometimes found in cemeteries that also 

 contain pagan interments. The funeral rites of the pre-Christian period 

 would not be stamped out at once by the missionaries of the Gospel, and 

 the compromise here indicated seems to have been generally accepted 

 during the first century of Christian England. 



Though the burials of the Marston cemetery are all in the same 

 direction and generally belong to the same period, there is an instructive 

 combination of elements in the objects recovered from the graves. The 

 contrast of two characteristic groups of ornaments is shown by plates 

 xxiii. and xxiv. illustrating the report, the former for the most part 



* Normandie Soulerralne, p. 218 (2nd ed.). 



* Archttologia, vol. 50, p. 385. 



229 



