1888.] 251 { Mooney. 
not within the kistvaen, wer found four urns containing incinerated 
human remains. These wer either a later burial or wer the remains of 
victims sacrificed to the manes of the heros intombd within the kistvaen. 
In 1849 four skeletons wer found near Cushendall, County Antrim. 
“What adds particular interest to these human remains is, that a small 
stone celt or hatchet, and two bronze celts, wer found along with them ; 
these weapons enable us to form some conjecture of the probuble age of 
the skuls, and also show that the bronze and stone weapons wer used at 
the same time in this country ; but that which fixes the date of the inter- 
ment of these skeletons was the discovery of two small Saxon silver coins | 
of the early part of the ninth century.”’ * : 
Several considerations render it probable that the instances of extended 
burial ar not of Irish, but of Danish origin. The Danish and Seandina- | 
vian pirates began their inroads upon the east coast of Ireland in 795, and 
\ continued their plundering expeditions for over two centuries until their 
power was broken by the battle of Clontarf in 1014, During this period 
they establishd themselves so firmly in the principal seaport towns that 
Dublin itself became a Danish settlement. The.few instances of extended 
burial ar found chiefly along the east coast, within the area of Danish in- 
vasion, while the articles found in the tombs correspond with the contents 
of Danish sepulchres. The Saxon coins found in the tomb at Cushendall 
fix the date within the Danish period, at a time when the Danes wer as 
much dreaded in England as in Treland. Moreover, we hay the testimony 
of Mallet that at this period—just before their conversion to Christianity— 
the Danes and Scandinavians practiced this mode of burial.+ The pres- 
ence of stone implements along with those of bronz has been noted also 
in the English mounds by Rooke Pennington, who is of the opinion that 
) this may be due ‘to a veneration for the stone instrument as an amulet 
after it had been superseded in actual use by the metal weapon. t 
We come now to cremation and those large burial mounds which hav 
their typical example in that of New Grange. As this celebrated tumulus 
is the largest and most elaborate of its kind in Western Europe, a some- 
what extended notice is here in place. Tt must be stated at the outset 
that, altho its purpose is undoubtedly sepulchral, there is no proof that 
human remains hav ever been found within it, but from the account of 
the first writer who described it in 1699 there is every reason to believ 
that it had been enterd and despoild long before, probably by the Danes, 
who bad one of their principal settlements at Drogheda, in the immediate 
vicinity of New Grange. It would be the more likely to suffer at their 
hands as it was the most conspicuous monument in that region. Indeed, 
we hav the positiv statement in the Annals that the principal grave 
* W. RB. Wlide, The Boyne and the Blackwater, 2d ed., 239, Dublin, 1850. 
+P. UL. Mallet, Northern Antiquities, Bohn’s edition, 203-211, London, 1847, 
¢~ Tumuli and Stone Circles near Castleton, Derbyshire. Jour Anth. Inst., iv, 383, 
London, 1875, The same idea is advanced by an author noted in Mallet’s Northern An- 
tiquities, Bohn’s edition, 211, London, 1847. 
oft 
