

YORKSHIRE, NORTH RIDING, 



BEFORE describing the few barrows I examined in Cleveland, a 

 district extremely rich in various remains of pre- Roman times, I 

 propose very briefly to notice some discoveries made by other 

 explorers, in order that the reader may become acquainted with the 

 mode of burial which appears to have been adopted in that part of 

 Yorkshire. A very large number of barrows have been most 

 systematically and carefully opened by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson of 

 Danby, some of the results of which were published by him in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine 1 . Others have been opened by different 

 persons, amongst them by Mr. Ord, author of the History of 

 Cleveland, who has recorded some facts in that work 2 . The 

 examination of these barrows has shown that, without any exception, 

 the interments in the extensive district in question have been after 

 cremation, the bones having been placed in urns and cists, and 

 more frequently without any protection, at the centre and other 

 parts of the barrow. Nor, so far as I can learn (and I believe I 

 can speak with certainty on the point), has any article of bronze or 

 other metal been discovered with any of the sepulchral deposits, 

 except in the case about to be mentioned. The only instance that 

 I know of where an unburnt body appears to have been met with in 

 Cleveland was near Egton Bridge, where in widening a road at a 

 place called Orchard Hills the workmen came upon a cist. It 

 contained a ' drinking cup,' a portion of which has been preserved 3 , 

 and three pieces of bronze, probably the remains of a knife-dagger. 

 There was nothing left in the shape of bones ; from which I infer 



1 Vols. Ixii. 84; Ixiii. 16. 



2 Ord's Hist, of Cleveland, p. 106. 



3 The fragment of the ' drinking cup ' is engraved in the Journal of the Archaeo- 

 logical Institute, vol. xxii. p. 262. fig. 18. 



