TUMULI. 205 



Burial of the entire body in slight excavations of the ground 

 was very generally practised by the British natives of the north 

 of England, but it was not unusual among their Anglo-Saxon 

 successors ; and until a tumulus is opened we cannot positively 

 say whether it belonged to Briton or Roman, Saxon or North- 

 man. Heaps of earth, even if not originally similar, lose in time 

 some of their distinctive marks, and tumuli, whether raised over 

 Greek or barbarian heroes, are pretty much alike in outward 

 show. Only one material character has occurred to us in the 

 fossa which surrounds the tumulus this is usually circular; but 

 all the tumuli at Skipwith and Thorganby are environed by 

 square fossse, and one of those at Arras, near Weighton, has the 

 same character. 



The experience we have gained in opening Barrows in York- 

 shire seems to indicate as of Anglian work the larger and lower 

 mounds, while a few high steep tumuli, and many smaller and 

 lower, are often associated in British burial-places. But our 

 data are too few for the establishment of any general rule. 



The larger tumuli have often yielded little or no remains 

 beyond a few bits of charcoal of the oak. Perhaps these were 

 barbarian cenotaphs, erected in honour of warriors of widely 

 extended renown, whose bodies may ha,ve been laid in other 

 graves, or, in the spirit of the old religion, prepared for disem- 

 bodied souls which for want of the due solemnities might other- 

 wise wander for a hundred years before entering the Elysian 

 plain. 



When opened, the difficulty of determining the owners of the 

 barrows soon vanishes. No purely Roman tumuli have, I 

 believe, been opened in Yorkshire, while a great number of 

 Roman burials without sepulchral mounds have been recognized. 

 A few Anglian tumuli have been opened ; but the far greater 

 proportion of hundreds of these mounds in the eastern parts of 

 Yorkshire may safely be pronounced British. 



In some of these the skeleton, in others the burnt ashes, and 

 in a few both modes of burial occurred. The skeleton was either 



