550 LONG BARROWS. 



barrows are unquestionably due to the age of bronze, whilst^ in all 

 probability, the whole of them belong to that period, the argument 

 as to the greater antiquity of the long barrows from the type of 

 skull, the only one found in them, is all but conclusive. I believe, 

 then, that we may safely assign the long barrow^s to a time when 

 metal was as yet unknown in England, and when the conditions 

 of life, consequent on the absence of one of the principal elements 

 of progress in civilisation, were much inferior to those attained to 

 after bronze had been introduced. 



It w^as mentioned, before these general remarks on the nature 

 of the long barrows and their contained interments were com- 

 menced, that there were two mounds yet to be described which 

 only in a superficial way fulfilled the condition of long barrows. 

 The first of them I believe was a true long barrow, though no 

 primary burial was discovered in it ; as to the second, I have con- 

 siderable doubt whether it was more than a mound of the round- 

 barrow period, though of an unusual shape. 



Parish of Gilling, North Riding. Ord. Map. xcvi. s.e. 



CCXXXIII. This barrow is situated upon a high tract of sandy 

 ground, about a mile to the south of the village of Yearsley, and 

 also about the same distance to the north of a group of round 

 barrows on Grimston Moor, the examination of which is described 

 p. 343. The district, it may be remarked, abounds in prehistoric 

 sepulchral and other remains. Several of the barrows in the 

 immediate neighbourhood were opened some years ago, a partial 

 record of the examination of them being preserved in Gill's ' Vallis 

 Eboracensis,' from which account it appears that interments, both 

 after cremation and by inhumation, were met with. Moreover, when 

 a part of Yearsley Common was being brought under cultivation, 

 during the years 1868, 1869, several burials, made in cists, were 

 discovered ; they were placed below the surface of the ground, but 

 were unmarked by the presence of any mound. In four of these 

 eases, of which I had an account from the workmen, three of the 

 bodies contained in the cists had been placed in them at full length, 

 the fourth being in a contracted posture. The cists were made of 

 flat stones set on edge, with cover-stones, and there was nothing 

 whatever in the shape of implement, ornament, or pottery found 



