44 



INTRODUCTION. 



under the head of the plain axe, dagger, knife-dagger 1 , knife, 



drill, and awl. 



It appears strange that out of all these implements and weapons 

 belonging to the bronze period in Britain, only 

 the six above mentioned should have been found 

 in the barrows, and the fact is not easily to be 

 accounted for 2 . It has been stated, indeed, and 

 Dr. Daniel Wilson, in the Prehistoric Annals of 

 Scotland, mentions it as not an uncommon 

 occurrence, that bronze swords have been dis- 

 covered in barrows, buried with the dead 3 . I 

 cannot, however, find a single authentic instance 

 of their occurrence. It is probable that a mis- 

 conceived view about the finding of swords with 

 burials has arisen from the loose way in which 

 casual discoveries have frequently been recorded. 

 It has happened (and I know of such a case) 

 that a sword was found in the neighbourhood 

 of a barrow, where it may have been lost or 

 concealed at some other time than that when 

 the mound was constructed, and a careless 

 method of recording has referred it to a position 



1 The knife-dagger and knife of the barrows are quite 

 different implements from the knives which frequently form 

 part of the hoards of bronze articles, such as swords, spear- 

 heads, &c. 



2 I have only met with three doubtful instances in Eng- 

 land of the alleged finding of a bronze socketed celt in 

 connection with an interment. In an account of the opening 

 of some barrows in East Devon, by the Rev. R. Kirwan, it 

 is stated that this implement was found in the deposit made 

 by the remains of the funeral pyre. This statement occurs 

 in the text, but on the plate the celt is described as coming 

 out of a kistvaen. Trans. Devon. Assoc., 1870. See also 

 Evans, Coins Anc. Brit. p. 102 ; and Archaeol. iv. p. 24. 



To show Ipw uncommon is its occurrence in France, it 

 may be mentioned that in a letter from the Abbe Cochet to 

 M. de Mortillet (Mat. pour 1'hist. de 1'homme, N. S. i. 73) 

 he says that one was found by M. de Ring of Bischeim in a 

 barrow in the forest of Brumath, Alsace, and that it is the 

 only instance of the kind with which he is acquainted. 



3 Vol. i. p. 394. Dr. Wilson here speaks of the swords as 

 being found broken, but in doing this he seems to confuse 

 tne contents of Danish with those of Scotch burial mounds. 

 In Denmark it is true that bronze swords, both entire and 

 broken, have been met with occasionally, associated with both 



Fig. 35. y. burnt and unburnt bodies. 



