A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



and the cinerary urns the least. Some of these Derbyshire vessels are 

 cited by Mr. Romilly Allen, F.S.A., in a recent article in which he has 

 systematized the decoration of the Bronze-age funeral ware. 1 



The most frequent accompaniments, however, are implements, flakes, 

 and fragments of flint. The implements comprise all the ordinary forms 

 of the period : arrow, javelin and spear-heads, daggers, knives, scrapers, 

 fabricators, axes or chisels, and others which are simply described as ' im- 

 plements,' of every grade of workmanship down to doubtful pieces which 

 simulate recognized forms. About 300 implements and pieces of flint 

 are recorded as having been found associated with Bronze-age interments 

 in Derbyshire. Of these, about 64 have been described as arrow, javelin, 

 and spear-heads, 32 as scrapers, 47 as simply ' implements,' and about 

 half as flakes, ' flints,' flint-chippings, etc. That so many of these should 

 be of an indeterminate nature or simply flakes and chippings, seems to 

 indicate that the placing with the dead of things useful in life had 

 degenerated into a merely symbolic ceremony during the course of the 

 period. 



The objects of bronze follow next, but a long way behind, as only 

 38 have been reported. Of these, nearly half have been described as 

 the blades of knife-daggers ; 6 as awls ; 4 as pins ; 3 as axes or celts ; 

 i each as a knife, ear-ring, ring, tube, strip, and spear ; and 3 as 

 ' fragments.' The knife-daggers were of the early form in which the 

 blade was attached to the handle by two or three rivets. The object de- 

 scribed as a ' spear ' was probably also one of these blades, for its identifi- 

 cation as such rested upon the evidence of the rustics who broke into the 

 vault which contained it, years before they were interrogated. 2 The 

 axes were of the early flat or slightly flanged forms. Next come objects 

 of bone and deer-horn, the former consisting mostly of pins and borers, 

 and the latter of hammers. Then follow jet and Kimmeridge-coal beads, 

 studs, and necklaces of which six have been recorded, several being 

 elaborate examples of pre-historic personal ornaments. Besides the 

 above, drilled and polished basalt and granite axe-hammers, whetstones, 

 rubbers, quartz pebbles, red ochre and iron ore, have been occasionally 

 met with. The animal remains associated with the interments have 

 been those of still-existing species in Europe, and they include the present 

 domesticated animals the ox, sheep, goat, pig, horse and dog. So fre- 

 quently has the presence of a tooth, described as that of an ox or a horse, 

 been reported, that there can be little doubt that its introduction had some 

 ceremonial significance. 



The absence of Roman influence from these 'grave-goods' is note- 

 worthy, as also is the absence of articles belonging to the later Bronze age, 

 as swords, palstaves and socketed axes. In the aggregate they indicate 

 a period when stone implements were going out of use, and bronze was 

 confined to only a few light implements the period of the bronze flat 

 and flanged axes and the simple knife-dagger. These objects must not 



1 Archeethga Cambremii, ser. 6, ii. 182. * Ptstigei, p. 47. 



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