AN ANCIENT BRITISH BURIAL AT ILDERTON. 143 



XIII. — On an Ancient British Burial at Ilderton, Northumber- 

 land, with Notes on the Skull. By the Eev. "W". Greenwell, 

 M.A., and D. Embleton, M.D. (Plates XIII, XIV.) 



The district where the discovery was made, an account of which 

 is now laid before onr Society, is one peculiarly rich in various 

 remains of the tribes which occupied Northumberland, before 

 and at the time of the Roman invasion. Fortified places are 

 found upon almost every hill end. At Old Bewick, close to the 

 fine camp there, is a rock, covered with the circular markings — 

 mysterious symbols, which have as yet eluded any solution of 

 their meaning ; whilst, from time to time, numerous discoveries 

 of burials, both of burnt and unburnt bodies, associated, in many 

 cases, with sepulchral urns and other articles, testify to the large 

 population, which, in former ages, dwelt along the fertile valley 

 of the Till. After an examination of many places of sepulture 

 of British times, and from a careful study of this subject, we 

 may come, without much doubt, to the conclusion, that, as a 

 rule, during the later British times, the ordinary mode of inter- 

 ment was by inhumation. In the earlier* part of the bronze 

 period the body was usually burnt, the bones being then enclosed 

 in an urn, a small cist, or a circular hollow sunk in the natural 

 surface of the ground, or simply placed upon the ground, in each 

 of these cases a barrow being afterwards raised over the remains. 

 But though this was the ordinary mode, burials by inhumation 

 are found so intimately associated with burnt bodies as to prove 

 that both modes were sometimes practised at the same period, 

 and by the same tribe. The reason of these diverse manners of 

 burial is at present unknown, but it is quite possible that, by fur- 

 ther examination, we may be able to arrive at some just conclu- 

 sion on the point. Burial after cremation seems to have been 

 replaced, in the main, by burial by inhumation, a practice which 



* There is reason to suppose that, before the period during which the body was burnt, 

 there was an earlier one, when the body was interred in the flesh ; but it is most probable 

 that this was practised by a different race, to whom the use of metal was unknown. 



