A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



lacking the decoration characteristic of the advanced Bronze Age. With 

 them were found two small scrapers and other objects of flint, includ- 

 ing a barbed arrow-head, an excellent specimen. Apparently near to 

 these urns was another tumulus of sand with a chamber of hewn 

 stones. These vary in size from about 3 ft. by 2 ft. to about 6 ft. by 5 ft. 

 There may have been more of them, but early last century they were 

 removed to their present position^ where by the name of the Calderstones 

 they are preserved at the foot of Druids' Cross Road. The arrangement of 

 the stones, as has been suggested,^ must have been dolmen-wise. The 

 large flat stones probably formed the cover of a chamber or chambers formed 

 by the smaller ones. Within, there is record of the discovery of several 

 urns and general evidence of burials by cremation. The suggestion of 

 tradition implies that the urns found did not and would not contain all the 

 ashes uncovered. An additional interest is lent to these stones by the ' cup 

 and ring ' markings, designs of spiraloid form, incised upon them. It is diffi- 

 cult to believe that these are earlier than a Celtic age, but they are not 

 necessarily contemporary with the construction of the tomb. The general 

 character of the burial and construction of the tumulus accords with an early 

 date, based upon the results of study in other places of Britain and the Con- 

 tinent. Considering the local history also, probably there is no error in 

 assigning it to a date at least as early as the overlap of Neolithic Age and 

 Bronze Age. 



Some burials found at Stretton, near Warrington, seem somewhat analo- 

 gous. ' The bodies lay in sand, each surrounded with ashlars placed at the 

 side and head and feet, the bones being 16 in. below the surface. The side 

 bones had not been placed perpendicularly, but inclining to one another like 

 the roof of a house.' Two small urns of baked clay, about 4 in. deep and 

 3 in. in diameter, were found, with black ashes, charcoal, and general indica- 

 tions of firing. One of the urns had a pinched ornament on the neck, and 

 another is quite plain. 



2. Interments with Associated Bronze Deposits 



Winwick, in the neighbourhood of Warrington, has yielded up, in some 

 of the interments which have been recorded, evidence of real importance to 

 archceology. That period early in the Bronze Age when as yet only simple 

 weapons and implements were fashioned of that material seems to be indicated 

 by a deposit found in one of the tumuli at Highfield Lane. In it were 

 found a small bronze dagger, with rivet-hole in tang (described above in 

 Plate IV. No. 7), and a small polished stone hammer (Plate 11. No. 5), 

 both within an urn. The decoration of some pottery from the site shows a 

 simple linear design resembling parallel veins of a leaf. The dagger is of a 

 type found in the Yorkshire ' Round Barrows,' and the association of a 

 polished stone implement is not uncommon. The Bronze Age has certainly 

 begun, and it provides a better example of a stone implement than anything 

 of the Neolithic Age. The terminology is obviously not adequate ; the word 

 ' chalcolithic ' might be used to represent this phase. At Winwick also, and 



1 E. W. Cox, Lane, and Ches. Ant. Soc. x. 252 (1892). 



^ Prof. Herdman, 'The Calderstones' 1896, in famfhlet 



240 



