A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



all presumably pre-Roman. The same gentleman obtained from a cave 

 in Hartle Dale near Bradwell rude pre-historic pottery. 1 At Creswell 

 nothing apparently intervened between the Pleistocene and the Romano- 

 British remains. 



Pit Dwellings, Sites of Habitations, etc. Very little has been done to 

 elucidate this class of Derbyshire antiquities, but it is obvious that there 

 must be many remains of this kind in a county so rich in pre-historic 

 archaeology. Writer after writer has enlarged upon the ' supposed site 

 of a British town ' at Linda-spring near Crich, but no one seems to have 

 thought of applying the evidence of the spade to the depressions." The 

 sites of ancient huts have been recorded on Hartle and Abney Moors, 

 and at Over Oldhams and Smerill Grange, near Youlgreave. On these 

 sites have been found a great variety of objects indicating a lengthened 

 occupancy, extending from pre-historic times into the Roman period. 3 

 The writer excavated such a site on Harborough Rocks, and concluded 

 that it was British of late pre-Roman or Roman age,* and Mr. Salt has 

 in hand some curious and most promising pits on Ravenslow near 

 Buxton. 



' Late ' Interments. In Derbyshire the interval between the barrows 

 last described and those of the Pagan English, presents many difficulties. 

 In the first place, the sepulchral remains which can with certainty be 

 assigned to this interval are singularly few ; and next, there is a doubt 

 as to how far they can be regarded as pre-Roman, hence how far they 

 come within the purview of this section. 



These remains consist of barrows, of which barely two dozen have 

 been opened in this county. From their extremely ruined condition, 

 little could have been gathered as to their original state, except by com- 

 parison with the much larger number which have been investigated 

 in the adjacent parts of Staffordshire. They have certain points of 

 resemblance among themselves, which mark them off as a class from 

 those already considered. They are wholly or largely built up of fine 

 materials, as earth, clay, sand and gravel ; and if large stones enter into 

 their composition, these are not intermixed with the finer ingredients, but 

 form a platform, a layer or a capping. 



In every known instance, the interment over which the mound was 

 originally raised had undergone cremation, and this applies to the few 

 secondary interments which have been observed. These interments had 

 invariably been burned on the spot, whereas those of the earlier barrows 

 were more often cremated elsewhere ; in fact, the hard baked floors, 

 strewn with charcoal and ashes, are a notable feature of these ' late ' 

 barrows. The excessive heat to which the bodies were subjected has 

 resulted in calcined fragments of bone so small as often to escape detec- 

 tion, hence these mounds have sometimes been regarded as cenotaphs. 



1 Barrows and Bone Caves, pp. 53-8. * jirclnfolopa, x. 114. 



1 Vestiges, pp. 126 et seq. * Journ. Derb. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Sot. xii. 109. 



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