A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



The normal position of the primary interment that over which 

 the mound was raised is the centre of the site, and upon or below the 

 old natural surface ; whereas secondary interments are found in any 

 position, central or otherwise. In the following, it cannot be doubted 

 that the central were the primary interments : In a small barrow at 

 Lidlow near Youlgreave, a skeleton occupied a cist in the centre, while 

 near the edge of the mound was a deposit of burnt bones under a ciner- 

 ary urn. 1 In another at Blakelow, a central grave contained the skeletons 

 of a woman and infant, with a drinking cup, while in a cist at a higher 

 level near the edge were six more skeletons with a food vase. 2 In another 

 on Hartle Moor was a deposit of burnt bones with a food vase in a 

 central cist, and near the margin a cinerary urn with its contents. 3 In 

 these cases all the interments were of the Bronze age, but in a dozen 

 or more barrows containing, in addition, interments known to belong to 

 later times, these were found to occupy higher levels or other positions 

 marking them as the latest introductions in their respective mounds. 



While the centre is the normal position of the primary interment, 

 it has occasionally happened that no interment was found at that point. 

 In some cases we may suspect that the explorers forgot that the primary 

 interment is frequently in a grave below the old natural level. On the 

 other hand, a little carelessness on the part of those who originally raised 

 the mound might easily have resulted in this interment being out of 

 centre. The same result may also have been brought about by additions 

 to the original mound. These additions were really new mounds raised 

 over secondary interments. Their effect was to increase the height of 

 the barrow, when the secondary interment was placed upon the original 

 summit, and to extend it when it was on one side. Derbyshire has 

 supplied examples of both. On some of the Bronze-age barrows 

 containing interments of a later age, have been observed perceptible 

 cappings of earth which appertained to these later interments, and it 

 is likely enough that the alternation of materials in some barrows 

 which have yielded only Bronze-age relics may be due to a similar 

 cause, and not to a peculiarity of the original structure. A bar- 

 row on Ballidon Moor * consisted of an inner cairn surmounted with a 

 thickness of earth. The cairn contained several interments, while upon 

 its summit was an ashy layer representing the site of a funeral pile, and 

 in the earth above, the remains of a cremated interment, from which it 

 would seem that the earth was introduced upon the occasion of this 

 interment. The addition of new material to one side of the mound is 

 probably responsible for the half-dozen or more elongated and oval bar- 

 rows in the county, and several such additions might produce the irreg- 

 ular outline of the great Ringhamlow barrow. A curious barrow at 

 Crakendale Pasture near Bakewell, 5 with three radiating prolongations, 

 may have owed its form to the same cause. The fact that in the accounts 



1 Vestiges, p. 33. * Diggings, p. 41. 



3 restiges, p. 72. * Diggings, p. 57. 



8 Ibid. p. 71. 



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