30 INTRODUCTION. 



then to have been considered sufficient that fire should be applied 

 to the body, without reducing- it completely to ashes ; and if so, 

 it is quite possible to understand how the application might in 

 some cases be so trifling as to leave upon the bones no indications 

 of fire having been in contact w^ith the body \ This appears to 

 me to afford a clue to the explanation of the occurrence of char- 

 coal in connection with the unburnt body. It may l)e the 

 remains of fire through which the corpse was passed where burning 

 the dead had become, to some extent, a merely representative rite ^. 

 If this suggestion is the true solution of the reason why charcoal 

 accompanies the body, then the practice of cremation was universal 

 amongst these people, for every corpse was either burnt actually, 

 or was subjected so far to the influence of fire that the obligation 

 of burning was supposed to be fulfilled. The substitution of 

 aspersion for immersion in the rite of baptism may be regarded 

 as a somewhat analogous instance, where a partial application has 

 taken the place of a complete one. 



The whole question of fire, the purifier, in its connection with 

 funeral rites, is of the deepest interest ; and there is a large amount 

 of evidence bearing upon it, which has been collected from many 

 different countries and belonging to ages w'idely apart, but to con- 



througli the fire, and in other cases the head with some portions of the body, as the 

 hands and feet, are calcined, the remainder of the skeleton being left unburnt. V^on 

 Sacken, Grabfeld von Hallstatt, pi. iv, p. 13. The same feature has been observed in 

 graves in 'Mahren, Rheinhessen, Thiiringen und Luxemburg,' where generally it 

 was the skull that was preserved intact. Essay by Professor Unger in Mittheilungcn 

 aus dem Gottinger Anthropologischen A''ereinc, vol. i. p. 32, 1874. 



1 ' At Elze, near Hildesheim, a barrow was removed. Upon its basis there were found 

 six holes or kists, as they are sometimes called. Five of these were nearly filled with 

 ashes of wood, and over each a skeleton lay at full length upon its back.' Horae 

 Ferales, p. 98. Mr. Kemble thinks that the intention was to apply fire surreptitiously, 

 and that the persons may have been half-converted Christians, or pagans living under 

 Christian rule. The explanation does not, however, appear to be a probable one. 



2 This idea had suggested itself to Mr. Kemble. He says, Hora; Ferales, p. 101 : 

 ' In a vast number of burials, where interment is the rule, there are signs of crema- 

 tion ... the body was not reduced to ashes, but it was singed. ... I believe that we 

 may thus best account for the few remains of charcoal (sometimes exceedingly minute) 

 which are often found in tumuli where skeletons are deposited entire. A little fire 

 was probably considered sufficient to symbolise the ancient rite.' 



This partial burning appears to have been practised at a time possibly antecedent 

 to that of the wold bairows, or of those interments refen-ed to by Mr. Kemble, though 

 the time of the burials at Solutre is very doubtful. MM. de Fen-y and A. Arcelin, 

 in a paper, ' L'age du remie en Maconnais,' printed in the Norwich volume of the 

 International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology, mention, p. 342, that at Solutre, 

 ' Qu'un grand nombre des os des squelettes portent des traces de brulure. Ce fait 

 vaut une etiquette, et prouve d'une fa9on irrefutable que les corps ont ete deposes sur 

 les foyers mal eteints, ou au moins encore chauds, avant leur enfouissement par 

 consequent.' 



