Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
Bronze objects follow next, but a long way behind. Of these the most
numerous by far are knife-daggers, the rest consisting of awls, pins,
axes, or celts, etc., and mere fragments. The first are of the early
form, in which the blade was attached to the handle by two or three
rivets, and the axes are of the early flat or slightly flanged form.
Next come objects of bone and deer-horn; the former consisting mostly
of pins and borers, and the latter of hammers. Then follow jet and
Kimmeridge—coal beads, studs, and necklaces, several of these being of
elaborate character. Besides the above, drilled and polished basalt and
granite axe-hammers, whet-stones, rubbers, quartz pebbles, red ochre,
and iron ore are occasionally met with. The animal remains associated
with the interments are those of species still existing in Europe, and
they include the present domesticated animals—the ox, sheep, goat, pig,
horse, and dog. So frequently has a tooth, described as that of an ox
or a horse, been reported that there is little doubt its introduction
had some ceremonial import; perhaps, here again, it was a food offering
reduced to a representative symbol.
Besides the various objects actually found with the interments, others
often occur amongst the materials of the mounds. Some of these may have
been unwittingly gathered up with the materials, and thus be of much
greater age than the barrows in which they are found; others may have
been casually dropped in after times, and have gravitated into the
interior. But a more fertile source of the scattered objects is the
disturbance of the earlier interments by the introduction of the later
ones.
The objects described above fall into two, but not easily separated,
classes—those which were introduced with the wearing apparel of the
deceased, and those with ceremonial import. The vessels are a good
example of the latter, as they differed in a marked degree from those
used for domestic purposes. So also the animals’ bones, especially the
teeth just referred to, as they evidently (as also the drinking-cups
and food-vessels) imply offerings of food to the dead. The absence
of Roman influence is noteworthy, as also is the absence of articles
characteristic of the later Bronze Age, as swords, palstaves, and
socketed axes. The objects indicate in the aggregate a time when stone
implements were going out of use, and bronze was confined to a few
light implements. But it must not be assumed in consequence that the
barrows we are considering were confined to the earlier Bronze Age.
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