DUEHAM. 



The county of Durham, though it lies between districts which 

 abound in the various remains of pre-Roman times^ and thoug-h it 

 presents natural features apparently well adapting it for early 

 occupation, is strangely deficient as well in the weapons and 

 implements of stone and bronze using people, as in the dwelling- 

 places of the living and the graves of the dead. Comparatively 

 very few articles in stone or bronze have been found within the 

 limits of the county, and so far as I know, not above eight places 

 of burial have been met with during the various operations of 

 agricultural and other work. The west of the county, consisting 

 of a tract of high land which has never been cultivated, would in 

 other and similarly-circumstanced parts of England have been 

 occupied with the cairns and barrows of the people who once lived 

 there ; but such memorials of the dead are almost entirely if not 

 altogether w^anting on the Durham moorlands. Camps or other 

 fortified places are very uncommon, and seem, with the exception 

 of some of doubtful date on Cockfield Fell, to be confined to the 

 valley of the Wear. Before giving an account of the examination 

 of the only barrow which has come under my own notice, it may 

 be well briefly to put on record the few facts relating to ancient 

 sepulture with which I have become acquainted. 



In the year 1814 some urns, apparently, from the description 

 given of them\ Ancient British, were discovered on Tunstall 

 Hill, near Sunderland, accompanying burnt bodies ; and in the 

 year 1873 at Humbleton Hill, in close proximity to Tunstall 

 Hill, three cinerary urns, one of uncommon type, with a raised 

 zigzag band upon the overhanging rim, were found in enlarging 



' Surtees, Hist, of Durham, vol. i. p. 219. 



