18 INTRODUCTION. 



which it appears difficult to account for even on the supposition, 

 mentioned above, that they are the remains of bodies of relations 

 disturbed by the introduction of subsequent burials. They present 

 exactly the appearance of bones, which might have had the flesh 

 removed, in one way or another, sometime previous to that of 

 their final interment, and then placed in order by persons whose 

 knowledge of their precise juxtaposition was not minute. The 

 absence of parts of the skeleton, in these instances, is also in favour 

 of this view, for we can more readily understand that one or more 

 bones might be lost in the interval between the removal of the 

 flesh and their final burying, than that any should have disappeared 

 during the process of taking up the bones and at once replacing 

 them. Upon the whole it may be said, that though the theory 

 which regards these as the remains of disturbed skeletons is quite a 

 tenable one, the other explanation possesses greater claims to be 

 considered the true one. At the same time it is probable that 

 in these disturbed bodies we have the evidence of both practices ; 

 and, indeed, it is scarcely possible to believe that when secondary 

 interments took place, which the internal appearances of the bar- 

 rows show to have been a very common occurrence, the displaced 

 bones of the first occupant should in all cases have been treated 

 with that want of reverence which it is evident they frequently met 

 with. The pious care of relations must undoubtedly have some- 

 times operated to cause the bones to be taken up and re-interred 

 with attention and respect. It is possible that in some of the cases 

 where imperfect or irregularly-arranged skeletons have been met 

 with, and where no signs of disturbance are apparent in the mound, 

 they may represent persons who had died at a distance from 

 the ordinary place of burial, and whose bodies could not at once be 

 taken to that place. It has been the habit of many peoples to retain 

 the bodies of those who died away from the usual cemetery of the 

 tribe, until a suitable occasion happened to transfer them there, 

 and it does not seem unlikely that a similar custom may have pre- 

 vailed amongst the inhabitants of the wolds. 



The dead were buried in the barrows both by inhumation, where 

 the body was interred in the condition in which it was left when 

 life departed ; and after cremation, when it had undergone the pro- 

 cess of burning 1 . This applies both to primary and secondary 



1 Amongst the Greeks both practices prevailed at the same time. The Romans at first 

 buried the dead without burning them, afterwards they practised cremation, and finally 

 reverted to the first mode ; but at no time was the observance in either way universal. 



