BARROWS OF DIFFERENT PERIODS. 99 



described in a subsequent chapter), there is, indeed, no known 

 interment which can be referred, with any reasonable pro- 

 bability, to the Palaeolithic age. Still it was the examination 

 of the tumuli which first induced Sir R. Colt Hoare, and 

 other archaeologists, to adopt for Northern Europe the 

 division into three great periods, already indicated by 

 ancient writers. In Denmark, especially, there was sup- 

 posed to be so sharp and well-marked a distinction between 

 the tumuli of the Stone age and those of the Bronze 

 period, that the use of bronze might be considered as 

 having been introduced by a new race of men, who rapidly 

 exterminated the previous inhabitants, had entirely dif- 

 ferent burial customs, and were altogether in a much 

 higher state of civilisation. It was stated that the tumuli 

 of the Stone age were generally surrounded by a circle 

 of great stones, and contained chambers formed of enor- 

 mous blocks of stone, and that the dead were buried 

 in a contracted or sitting posture, with the knees brought 

 up under the chin, and the arms folded across the breast. 

 On the contrary, the burial places of the Bronze age 

 were described as having "no circles of massive stones, 

 no stone chambers ; in general, no large stones on the 

 bottom, with the exception of stone cists placed together, 

 which, however, are easily to be distinguished from the 

 stone chambers ; they consist, as a general rule, of mere 

 earth, with heaps of small stones, and always present them- 

 selves to the eye as mounds of earth, which, in a few rare 

 instances, are surrounded by a small circle of stones, and 

 contain relics of bodies which have been burned, and placed 

 in vessels of clay with objects of metal."* 



Thus, therefore, the barrows of the age of Bronze appeared 

 to be distinguished from those of the earlier period, not only 

 by the important fact, that, " instead of the simple and uni- 

 * "Worsaae's Primeval Antiquities, p. 93. 



