30 INTRODUCTION. 



been burnt. The proportion therefore is, that about 4 per cent, 

 of unburnt bodies, and about 2\ per cent, of burnt bodies, had 

 articles of bronze accompanying them. This question partly 

 resolves itself into another, whether, in the main, the round barrows 

 of the wolds belong- to a time before the introduction of bronze. 

 As the subject will be considered more at length in the sequel, it is 

 sufficient to remark here that I see nothing to imply that they are 

 the burial-places of a people unacquainted with bronze, and my 

 own impression is that, as a rule, they date from a time after its 

 introduction. 



Burial by inhumation then is so much more common than burial 

 after cremation that, as is shown by the numbers stated above, the 

 latter only amount to rather more than a fourth of the former. 



There can be no doubt that both practices prevailed at the same 

 time, for several instances have occurred where burials after the 

 two modes have been so intimately connected as to prove that they 

 were contemporaneous. This is most clearly shown in five cases, 

 where the burnt bones of one body were placed in such im- 

 mediate contact with the unburnt bones of another, as to demon- 

 strate incontestably that both must have been deposited in the 

 grave together. 



Nor is there any circumstance connecting itself with those bodies 

 buried by inhumation and those buried after cremation which 

 implies that they were of persons of varying conditions \ This is 

 made quite certain by the evidence which two cist burials in a deep 

 grave at Rudstone affords. The cists contained respectively a 

 burnt and an unburnt body, both of adult men, each having a 

 ' drinking cup^ associated with it ; the two cists having, as their 

 construction plainly showed, been made at the same time, and with 

 equal care. The only certainly pre-Roman burial, in a large barrow 

 at Uncleby [No. i], was that of a burnt bod}' in a central grave ; 

 and on Potter Brompton Wold[ No. xviii] a burnt body was also 

 found in a large central grave, with which a fine axe-hammer of 

 stone was deposited. In each of these cases, it is probable that the 

 person who had undergone cremation had been of great social 

 importance. It seems scarcely necessary to remark that many 



' Amongst some semi-savage people, who practise both modes of burial at the 

 present day, a reason is given for the different observance. ' The Curumbalen, a slave 

 caste, who worship the hill god (Malai-deva) and the spirits of deceased aneestoi-s, 

 burn their dead, if good men, and bury them if bad ; the latter become demons, 

 requiring to be conciliated by sacrifice.' Sir Walter Elliot, Jom-nal of Ethnological 

 Society, New Series, vol. i. p. 115, quoting Buchanan's Journal, vol. ii. p. 497. 



