On an ancient British burial at Ilderton, Northumberland, with notes on the skull / by W. Greenwell and D. Embleton.

  • Greenwell, William, 1820-1918.
Date:
[1865?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On an ancient British burial at Ilderton, Northumberland, with notes on the skull / by W. Greenwell and D. Embleton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    continued down, through the time of the introduction of iron* into Britain, until the Roman occupation, and no doubt also dur- ing that period; for though the Roman custom of burning was adopted by many Romanized Britons, others still held to the ancient custom, as examinations of Roman cemeteries abundantly show. During the later part of the Pre-Roman period, these burials by inhumation, at all events in the North of England, appear frequently to have taken place without any harrow hav- ing been raised over the body; for certainly in most instances, where they have been discovered, there is no appearance of any mound having ever existed above the cist which contained the interred body. Ploughing may have obliterated all trace of a very small harrow, but we are inclined to think that in many cases the cist was sunk in the natural surface, and that no harrow was ever placed above it. It is not an unfrequent thing to find several cists of this kind placed near each other, too near to have had each its separate barrow, and yet covering too large a space to have had a mound over all small enough for every trace of it to have disappeared in course of cultivation, for we have seen such cists in old grass pastures where there is no sign of the plough ever having been used. These burials in cists, where there is no appearance of a barrow, are frequently found accompanied by urns of excellent shape and manufacture, and elaborately orna- mented over their whole surface—many of them, of what has been called the “ drinking-cup” type, and which were very pro- bably placed there to receive food or drink for the use of the person whose body they accompany. Bronze daggers, of very skilful make, are also commonly found with males; whilst neck- laces of jet, beautifully figured with rows of dots, forming vari- ous patterns, sometimes made by minute points of gold being inserted into the jet, more usually by punctured holes, are the frequent adjuncts of females. * Iron was in common use in Britain when Cassar landed, and it must have been there- fore known for some considerable time before that date. We cannot, I think, place the introduction of iron later than two centuries before our era, if indeed it does not reach to an earlier period.