PARISH OF HVI.S'lOX. S77 



when we compare this burial with some others found in this country, 

 and with those which have occurred in Denmark, we can further 

 have little doubt about attributing it to the time when bronze was 

 in iise for weapons and implements. The mode of interment in the 

 hollowed trunk of a tree placed within a barrow is no doubt rare, 

 although burials in cleft and hollowed trees placed in the ground 

 without any superincumbent grave-mound are not so uncommon ^ ; 

 many of these however are not to be referred to a very early period, 

 and indeed probably belong to a time several centuries after the 

 Christian era. 



have occurred. In Yorkshire the most noteworthy is the well-known Gristhorpe 

 burial, the remains from which (including a bronze knife) arc i^reserved in the 

 Scarborough Museum, and which are engraved, together with a plate of the skull and 

 a full account of the discovery, in Crania Britannica, as well as in a monograph by 

 Professor Williamson, F.R.S., of Owens College, Manchester. I am acquainted with 

 three other cases in Yorkshire where an oak coffin has been found in a baiTow. One 

 was at Sunderlandwick, near Driffield, where I believe nothing besides the skeleton 

 was met with. A second was discovered on the wolds near Finiber, by Mr. J. R. 

 Mortimer. It was under a mound which had been previously disturbed, and where, in 

 a hollow sunk in the rock, a coffin made from a cleft and hollowed oak tree was met 

 with, unfortunately much damaged by the former ojjening; with the remains of the 

 coffin were fragments of bones and some portions of an urn. The third was in 

 a barrow called ' Centre Hill,' at West Tantield, near Ripon, where the Re^'. W. C. 

 Lukis in 1864 found the remains of a body lying N.E. and S.W., and placed within 

 a wooden coffin, probably the trunk of a tree. It had been placed in a cavity li ft. 

 deep. With the body were associated a vessel of pottery and a flint implement. In 

 the southern parts of England the same mode of interment was sometimes adopted ; 

 at Hove, near Brighton, a tree-coffin was found to contain a skeleton, with which were 

 associated an axe -hammer of stone, a knife-dagger of bronze, a whetstone, and an 

 amber cup. Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. ix. p. 120. Sir R. Colt Hoare met with three 

 instances in Wiltshire where a barrow contained a body placed in a hollowed tree- 

 trunk ; with each of these bronze articles were deposited. Ancient Wilts, vol. i. 

 pp. 52, 122, 125. Mr. Lukis also found one in the same county at Collingbourne 

 Ducis. In Dorsetshire, in a grave-mound called ' King Barrow ' at Stowborough, 

 which was opened in 1767, was discovered an oaken trunk hollowed, in which were 

 the remains of a body wrapped in deer's-skins sewed together, and apjiarently passed 

 several times round the corpse. At the south-east end of the coffin was a small 

 wooden or probably shale vessel of very unusual character, which is figured in 

 Hutchins's Dorset, vol. i. p. 25. When we pass beyond the limits of Britain we find, 

 in Denmark, still more interesting burials to have been made in tree-coffins. The 

 bodies there were found to have been placed in the grave with the different articles 

 of clothing which had been worn during life, together with bronze swords and other 

 implements of bronze and flint. The coffins and other things connected with inter- 

 ments of this kind in two barrows called ' Trenhoi ' and ' Kongehoi ' will be seen 

 engraved in Madsen's beautiful book, ' Af bildninger af Danske Oldsager og Mindes- 

 mserker,' and some of them are reproduced in Sir John Lubbock's Prehistoric 

 Times (3rd ed.), pp. 46, 47, 49. A discovery very similar to these last mentioned 

 was made at Boldernp, near Haderslev, and will be found described in Nordisk 

 Tidskrift for Oldkyndighed, vol. iii. 



' They have been discovered in Yorkshire, at Selby and near Beverley. In other 

 parts of England they have repeatedly occurred. 



