292 YORKSHIRE. EAST HIDING. 



rim, 7|-in. high, 5f in. wide at the mouth, and 3| in. at the bottom. 

 The rim is ornamented with three bands of alternate series of 

 vertical and horizontal lines of thong-impressions counterchanged ; 

 below the rim the urn is marked, for a space of an inch in 

 depth, with four encompassing rows of thong-impressions horse- 

 shoe-shaped. Amongst the materials of the barrow were a single 

 potsherd, a flint core, and a round but flattened water-rolled quartz 

 pebble, 2 in. in diameter, which has the centre of each face 

 roughened by picking, probably to enable it to be the more 

 firmly held between the finger and thumb. It shows many signs 

 of use all round the edge, such as might have been produced 

 by the action of taking flakes oif a block of flint. 



This was one of the most curious burials it has been my fortune 

 to meet with, and it appears to supply some information as to the 

 way in which the body was laid upon the funeral pile. It also 

 suggests some considerations connected with cremation, which it 

 may not be out of place here to entertain and weigh. It would 

 appear then that the body was placed upon the wood before the 

 burning, in the same contracted position in which I have, except 

 in four instances, invariably found unburnt bodies deposited in their 

 graves. Every bone could be identified most clearly, and each limb 

 had been arranged after a fashion which, as we have seen, has been 

 a very common one in the barrows. The knees were drawn up 

 towards the head, which was brought somewhat forward towards 

 the chest, and the hands were placed up to the face. The accom- 

 panying urn also occupied a position which is not unfrequent in the 

 case of inhumed bodies, namely, in front of the face. In this re- 

 markable cremated interment we thus obtain another point of con- 

 tact between the practice of cremation and inhumation, in addition 

 to those which similarity of weapons, implements, ornaments, and 

 pottery, in either case deposited, has hitherto afforded, and one 

 which seems to be even more important than they are. Whatever 

 may have been the object or purport of placing the body in the 

 ground in the contracted position, it was evidently thought to 

 be a matter of equal importance, and to be equally observed, 

 when the body was first subjected to the process of burning. 

 It will have been observed that this flexed position of the body 

 could not have originated in any mere desire to get it into as 

 small a space as possible, for there are many instances, in the 

 accounts above given, where in a grave more than fully long enough 

 to have allowed a man of the largest stature to be laid at full 



