58 THE CELTIC TUMULI OF DORSET. 



more simply, in cists or graves dug in the soil, or, by heaping the 

 remains of the funeral pile on the surface of the soil and covering 

 them with earth deposits, was more in vogue in the asra when these 

 Tumuli were raised, than the alternative practice of burying the 

 body without subjecting it to the action of fire ; still it is shewn 

 that this older custom still prevailed along with the other in the 

 Bronze Age. There are evidences of its existence in 72 of these 

 Tumuli, 45 per cent. ; but the predominance of cremation is attested 

 by the contents of 121 of these Tumuli, 75 -6 per cent. Here is a 

 difference of 30 per cent, between the two modes of disposal of the 

 dead in favour of the practice of cremation. 



As regards inhumation, the number of the Tumuli in which 

 skeletons alone were found, either placed in a contracted or extended 

 position, without any other kind of interment, amounts to a total 

 of 39, or more than 24 per cent., of which 23, or about 14 per 

 cent., are found in the South, 11, or about 6 per cent., in the North, 

 and 5, or about 3 per cent., in the Central Districts. 



The question may be raised, I think, as to whether the con- 

 tracted form of burial may not have been continued in the later 

 period as a venerable and honourable form of interment. It is 

 noteworthy that the bronze dagger-blade and the ornamented 

 drinking cup, which may, perhaps, indicate the superior rank of 

 their possessors during life, have been almost exclusively found 

 with skeletons buried in this manner. This was Sir R. C. Hoare's 

 experience of the Wiltshire Tumuli ; in fourteen instances of the 

 discovery of bronze dagger-blades two only were found with 

 interments by cremation. Bateman met with only three instances 

 in his explorations in Derbyshire with calcined bones, and, as a 

 rule, with skeletons placed in a contracted position. Greenwell, in 

 Yorkshire, testifies to the same fact.* 



TABLE II. 

 In this table we have a computation of the whole number of 



* Hoare's Ancient Wilts. Bateman's " Ten Years' Diggings," p. 103. 

 Canon Greenwell's "British Barrows." 



