Coffey — Bouhle-Cist Grave and Remains in Co. Heath. 751 



interments. They are ascribed to the time when stone was already 

 being superseded by bronze for cutting purposes.^ 



In Ireland, jet ornaments appear to be rarer. A number of jet 

 beads of characteristic form are in the Academy's collection, fragments- 

 of necklaces with decorated connecting plates ; others have been noted 

 from time to time, including some large beads of from four to six inches 

 in length- but as far as I have been able to ascertain, the present 

 necklace is the only one definitely associated with an interment. 

 The presence of beads in a grave is generally presumed to indicate 

 a female interment. Jet rings and buttons, or studs have been 

 found with male interments, but where beads or necklaces have 

 been found with skeletons, the sex of which was determined, it 

 would appear from the instances recorded by Mr. Bateman, Canon 

 Greenwell, and the Messrs. Mortimer, that the interments were 



Fig. 3. 

 female.3 Sir John Evans thinks that Mr. Bateman may possibly 

 have erred in some instances,* but this would not apply to Canon 

 Greenwell, who adopts in his most recent reports the presumption that 

 the presence of beads indicate a female interment.^ 



1 Evans — Stone Implements, p. 406. 



"^Journ. Kilkenny Archaological Societtj, vol. i., p. 32, 4 ser., vol. vi., p. 69. 



^ Stone Implements, pp. 411—16. 



'^Ibid., p. 412. 



^ Archceologia, vol. 52, p. 41. 



