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



member that the finding of a Eoman coin in a barrow is no 

 evidence of that barrow being raised by the Romans, or even of 

 the person interred being of that race. " The Britons, looking 

 upon these tumuli as a kind of sacred ground, continued, in 

 many instances, to bury in the same barrow for ages after its 

 first construction, and deposited with their dead in later times 

 the coins of their Roman masters, on the same principle as that 

 which prompted them in earlier times to inter the rude weapons 

 or ornaments of flint or bone. ;J 



The interments which have been discovered exhibit both 

 burial by inhumation and by cremation. Of the former, ex- 

 amples have been brought to light at Little Chester in the 

 course of excavations both for building purposes, and in 

 the formation of the railway works. A skeleton of a man 

 found there some years ago, lay full length on its back, the 

 arms straight down by the sides. Iron rivets, which were found 

 much corroded, lay near various parts of the body, and a thin 

 stratum of ferruginous matter encased the skeleton at a little 

 distance from the body and limbs. From these circumstances 

 it is to be inferred that the deceased was interred in his armour. 

 Ofcher interments by inhumation have recently been discovered 

 in the same neighbourhood, but without, in some instances, the 

 ferruginous appearances. The remains of horses were found 

 along with them. Interments by inhumation have also been 

 found at Brough and at other stations, and, as later deposits, 

 in Celtic barrows. Those where the bones have been found 

 in situ, appear, like the one I have spoken of at Little Chester, 

 to have been laid at full length on the back, the arms straight 

 down by the sides. They appear in most instances to have 

 been simply laid in a very shallow grave, but little below the 

 surface of the already formed mound, and to have been then 

 covered to no great thickness with earth. Where interment 

 has been by cremation, the urn, sometimes covered with a small 

 fiat stone, containing the burnt bones, has been placed in a 

 small hole dug in the earth, or in a Celtic barrow, and 

 covered over. Not unfrequently domestic vessels Lave 

 been placed with the cinerary urn, as will bo hereafter 

 described. 



As the interments of the Romano-British period in Derby- 

 shire are, as I have said, but few, so, naturally, the articles 

 found with them are far from numerous. They embrace, how- 

 ever, pottery and glass, coins, fibulas, armillas, and other orna- 

 ments of bronze and iron, knives, spear-heads, combs, etc., 

 etc. Of fibulas, the three examples here engraved will convey 

 a very tolerable idea. The first was found with a Roman inter- 

 ment in a Celtic barrow near Monsal Dale ; the centre one was 

 dug up with a quantity of human bones at Little Chester ; and 



