CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 607 



first, that no pattern of fibulae should be considered as peculiar to 

 any one district, except provisionally ; secondly, that a very con- 

 siderable uniformity may have existed in the manners and customs 

 of the Anglo-Saxons throughout the entire length of England ; 

 and, thirdly, that, inasmuch as intercommunication between places 

 as' far apart as Frilford and Driffield must have been diflftcult in 

 those days, the numbers of the invaders of these similar fashions 

 and habits must have been considerable. 



The stones were set round in the grave in but a single row from 

 within outwards, and in height they do not seem to have extended 

 from the bottom of the grave further upwards than a stone coffin 

 (of which they may be supposed to have been a cheap imitation) 

 would have done. The graves here, as at Selzen, are narrowed 

 towards their lower ends ^. In such interments as these the skull 

 may or may not be found to rest upon a stone which had been put 

 under it in the way of support, and which has caused the lower jaw 

 to settle down upon the cervical vertebrae, and to hold them im- 

 pacted between its rami. The Anglo-Saxon habit of thus placing 

 stones beneath the head of the corpse may or may not be adum- 

 brated by the mediaeval stone-pillow in monuments as suggested 

 by the Abbe Cochet ^ ; but, at all events, it goes some way towards 

 proving that coffins were not employed in the interments in which 

 it is noticeable. 



In one of these graves a mass of what has been called a ' scori- 

 form ' lava, though it is different enough from the true scoriae or slag 

 similarly found in Anglo-Saxon graves at Fairford by Mr. Wylie ^, 

 was found at the foot of a female skeleton. The bulk it made up 

 was about that of an orange, and, as it has separated into two 

 co-adaptable halves^ each of which resists very violent hammering, 

 we must suppose that since it was put into the grave it must have 

 been subjected to some disrupting agency which acted upon it with 

 great force, and yet left it, when broken asunder, in situ. It is 

 possible that the piece of lava in question may have been broken 

 into two pieces by the action of a fire lighted in the grave, as, it 



1 See Lindenschmit, ' Archiv fur Anthropologie,' ii. 3. 356, in review of Wanner's 

 Memoir, 'Das Alamannische Todtenfeld bei Schleitheim j' Schaaffhausen, op. cit. 

 pp. 131, 154. 



^ * Normandie Souterraine,' ed. i. p. 192. _ 



' * Fairford Graves,' p. 24. 



