ON THE INTERMENTS OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 59 



characters of their owners, I conceived the idea of pre- 

 serving accurate representations of these skulls, and placing 

 on record all their peculiarities, as well as a correct des- 

 cription of all the relics disinterred with them, which 

 seemed to me distinctly requisite, because the skulls them- 

 selves are disinterred from the barrows in an exceedingly 

 fragile and perishable condition. It was this idea that 

 ultimately led to the preparation and issue of the "Crania 

 Britannica." 



In order to indicate the singular, sometimes even bizarre, 

 positions in which the remains are found in barrows, my 

 description of the Parsley Hay Low may be quoted from 

 the work just mentioned. It is there related that the 

 Parsley Hay Low is a tumulus of stone situated in the 

 parish of Hartington, in the county of Derby, which was 

 opened on the 6th of March, 1848, by the late Mr. Bate- 

 man. The section of the barrow (No. 6.) will convey 

 better than any words the position of the skeleton. 

 "It had been deposited in a narrow oval fissure of the 

 rock, about three feet deep, too narrow to admit of recli- 

 nation in the usual primitive flexed position. The body 

 had consequently been placed in a sitting posture. In 

 this respect it is perhaps unique amongst the Derbyshire 

 barrows hitherto examined, although such mode of deposit- 

 ing the body has been observed by Sir R. C. Hoare in a 

 Wiltshire barrow ; and Dr. F. C. Lukis, in the cromlech 

 du Tus of the island of Guernsey, found two skeletons 

 kneeling in opposite directions back to back. The sitting 

 posture is very general in the tombs of the native tribes 

 of America, from one end of the continent to the other. 

 The soil that had been washed into this natural cist in 

 the course of long ages, to which indeed we are indebted 

 for the great preservation of the bones, contained some 



