CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 605 



taining an Anglo-Saxon skeleton, but I have never come upon 

 nails in such numbers as to make me think it probable that they 

 had come there otherwise than accidentally, nor have I ever found 

 in such interments that all but infallible sign of a coffin having 

 been employed, namely, coffin-hooping. The shallow Anglo-Saxon 

 graves do not appear to have had stones set round their edges ; and 

 the absence of such stones is another, and complementary, illustra- 

 tion of the carelessness which appears to have characterised the 

 performance of these burials. Wherever stones have been found 

 set round a grave, the grave has had the semi-oriented bearings of 

 the Romano-British interments, and has all but universally the 

 same depth as these graves, and may hence be considered to belong 

 to a distinct era of inhumation. 



V. Of Anglo-Saxon Interments in the way of inhumation in graves of 

 the same compass-hearings , and usually of the same depths as the 

 Romano-British graves , hut differing from them in having stones 

 set along the edges of the grave^ and in containing insignia to- 

 gether with the skeletons. 



I have not at Frilford come upon a grave with stones set round 

 its edges which had not the Romano-British direction towards 

 E.S.E., and which did not contain a skeleton with the insignia of 

 the Anglo-Saxon race. Following the Romano-British direction, 

 these interments have followed the same precedent ordinarily as to 

 depth also, and the like, it may be noted, has been observed by 

 Wanner of the Alemannian interments at Schleitheim ^. The 

 closeness of the stones to the sides, head, and feet of the skeleton 

 seems to preclude the notion of coffins having been employed in 

 these interments, and the fact that the sides of these stones, which 

 looked towards the skeleton, were in some cases reddened in a way 

 in which actual experiment shows that similar stones of the neigh- 

 bourhood do redden under the action of fire, makes it appear all 

 but certain that the charcoal found in these graves around and 

 even under the skeleton must have been produced by a fire lighted 

 in the grave before, or indeed after, the corpse was put into it ^, 



^ 'Das Alamannische Todtenfeld bei Schleitheim,' pp. Ii, i8. 

 * In a note from Professor Pearson to me, in which he gives much valuable infor- 

 mation upon other points relating to the history of this country in the times with 



