118 INTRODUCTION . 



The whole evidence of the barrows appears to show that the 

 people living* on the wolds were, to some extent, isolated from the 

 rest of the country, with which they seem to have held little in- 

 tercourse; this state of things originating partly in the natural 

 features of the district in which they dwelt, surrounded, as it was 

 on all sides, by low-lying ground, swampy and largely covered 

 with wood. They were apparently not possessed of much in the 

 shape of gold, bronze, amber, or glass. Their condition may per- 

 haps be described as that of people who were living in the pastoral 

 state, but at the same time cultivating grain, though probably not 

 extensively. Their clothing no doubt consisted largely of skins, 

 though they certainly used textile fabrics ; and such ornaments as 

 they possessed were of a simple, though by no means of an unar- 

 tistic, description. The presence of a lump of ochre, which has 

 been found in more than one instance associated with the body, 

 may perhaps be considered as affording some evidence of the use of 

 colour as a means of personal adornment ; nor is it easy to account 

 for its occurrence on any other supposition. When these people 

 are compared with the inhabitants of some other districts in Britain, 

 as for instance of Wiltshire, and even of Derbyshire, who, to judge 

 by the pottery, implements, and ornaments, must have been occu- 

 pying the country at the same time, they cannot be regarded as 

 having been in possession of the same amount of wealth of various 

 kinds, as of bronze and other materials, or to have arrived at quite 

 the same height of cultivation. 



It cannot be expected that the contents of the burial mounds 

 should give much information upon, the social relations of these 

 people, the position the wife occupied in the family, and questions 

 akin to this. Some few inferences may, however, be drawn from 

 the facts which the barrows have disclosed. For instance, the cen- 

 tral and indeed the sole burial in a barrow upon Heslerton Wold 

 [No. iv], was that of a very young child, placed in a grave sunk in 

 the chalk ; and in the largest barrow I have opened on the wolds, 

 at Rudstone [No. Ixvii], the primary burial, over which the whole 

 mound had been raised, was that of an infant 1 . Numerous other in- 

 stances have occurred where quite young children had been buried 

 with associated vases, and in a manner which betokens that much 

 care was bestowed upon the burial, as in a barrow at E/ud stone 



1 Mr. Jones records the fact that in a barrow in Liberty County, Georgia, U.S.A., 

 the sole interment was that of a young child, whose bones were enclosed in an urn. 

 Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 455. 



