29 1 
MORTIMER: SUMMARY OF SO-CALLED " DANES' GRAVES." 
together, they are never massed like graves in a churchyard, as 
at the ' Danes' Graves.' The crania, as will be seen from Dr. 
Thurnam's account on the next page [which gives an average 
breadth-index of -73] are not of the Brachy cephalic type, so dis- 
tinctive of those found in the round barrows and stone cists, but 
approach nearer to the long Scandinavian type ; a fact of great 
importance, when the number of skulls examined is considered. 
"The pottery is neither in shape nor colour like that of which 
so many specimens are described in this memoir [referiing to 
' Ancient British Pottery '] and it also differs from it in the absence 
of ornamentation ; but it is still more unlike Scandinavian or Anglo- 
Saxon ware. The presence of iron indicates a comparatively late 
period ; but the nature of the objects found, whether of iron or 
bronze, give little, if any, clue to the origin of these barrows. 
I, therefore, prefer, in the absence of any distinctive data, to offer 
no conjecture as to the people to whom these burials belong, nor do 
I think that further examination would add much information to 
that which we already possess." Thus concludes Canon Greenwell's 
report. 
Not concurring with the Canon's closing remarks, and believing 
that a further careful search, in some of the few mounds which have 
not yet been disturbed, would now greatly aid us in adding some- 
thing more to the very little we at present know of this ver}- 
in teres ting and extensive group of barrows, I wrote to W. H. 
Harrison Broadley, Esq., M.P., asking permission to open two or 
three of them, thinking that probably it would enable us to make 
out approximately the period when the mounds were raised, and 
also something more of the small community which must have 
been, as suggested by Canon Greenwell, in quiet possession of the 
neighbourhood for a considerable time. I regret to say that 
I received the following reply : — 
"Welton, Brough, Feb. 6th, 1871." 
" Sir^ — I am very sorry indeed that I cannot comply with the 
request you have made, for these reasons. First, the 'Danes* 
Graves' on Mr. Allanson's farm at Danesdale, and also on Mr. 
Gofton's at Pockthorpe, if there are any there, have been so 
frequently and so thoroughly examined that there can be nothing 
