342 The Grave-mounds of Derbyshire, and their Contents. 



THE GRAYE-MOUNDS OF DERBYSHIRE, AND 

 THEIR CONTENTS. 



BY LLEWELLVNN JEWITT, E.S.A., ETC., ETC. 



{Continued from page 266.) 



THE ROMANO-BRITISH PERIOD. 



As I have said earlier on, tlie greater part of the Grave-mounds 

 of Derbyshire belong to the Celtic period; the intermediate 

 number to the Anglo-Saxon, and by far the least of all to that 

 now under notice, the Romano-British. There is, both in the 

 lowlands of the county, and in the higher or mountainous 

 districts of the Peak, abundant evidence of Roman occupation, 

 and of the arts practised by that people, but very little know- 

 ledge indeed is to be gained there as to their funeral customs 

 or their modes of sepulture. Of the living Roman and of his 

 avocations, indications are not unfrequently brought to light 

 by the burrowing miner, or by the surface-working agricul- 

 turist, but of the dead it is rarely indeed that any remains are 

 exhumed. 



In Derbyshire the Roman was, it would seem, more of a 

 C( bird of passage" (as well as, to some extent, a " bird of 

 prey") than a settler, and the consequence is that no remains 

 — or next to no remains — of villas or of settlements are found, 

 and that where burial has taken place it has not unusually been 

 in the same mound with those of an earlier period. The 

 Ancient Briton raised the mounds over the remains of his own 

 people, and his Roman subjugator, as occasion required, took 

 possession of them, and therein laid his own dead. Thus the 

 same barrow is sometimes found to contain, besides its primary 

 Celtic interment, and others belonging to the same race, later 

 deposits (nearer to the surface or to the side) of the Romano- 

 British or of the Anglo-Saxon periods. 



The Roman roads of Derbyshire were many in number, 

 and some of them are of considerable importance. The prin- 

 cipal line (as well, most probably, as some of the others) was 

 formed on an old British way ; while other roads were con- 

 structed by them for the convenience of working, and for greater 

 facility in transporting the produce of, the mines, in Avhich 

 a profitable trade was carried on. The principal road, the 

 Rykneld Street, entered the county from Staffordshire, and 



