Before the food-vase ran its course, cremation, in the proper sense of the term, made its appearance, and soon became the general fashion. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that it _supplanted_ inhumation. For anything we know to the contrary, the latter still continued in vogue in some parts of the country to the Roman period. At first, it would seem, the cremated remains were deposited in cists, or otherwise entombed after the manner of unburnt bodies; but soon the more appropriate cinerary urn made its appearance, as also the changeful and enigmatical little incense-cup. That the cinerary urn was derived from the food-vase is almost beyond doubt, for although Derbyshire has not supplied examples bridging the two, vessels of intermediate form and associated with burnt remains, but not containing them, have been found in the north. Meanwhile, the objects placed with the dead became fewer and more meagre in character, until at length they were reduced to little more than fragments of flint, representing a rite, perhaps, with a lost meaning. Less care was expended on the sepulchral vessels as time went on, but the delicacy of some of the incense-cups proves that this was a rule with exceptions. The general trend of evidence goes to show that the later mounds raised over the dead were smaller and less stereotyped in form than those of old. Ringed barrows and the smaller “circles” are associated with cremated interments, especially those of the cinerary-urn stage, in Derbyshire. “Late” Prehistoric Barrows. The interval between the last barrows and the Roman period presents many difficulties to the student of the ancient sepulchral remains of Derbyshire. A few—barely two dozen—barrows have been opened in the county which had certain features in common that markedly differentiated them from those of the Bronze Age on the one hand and from the post-Roman or Anglo-Saxon on the other. Some of these, perhaps most, can certainly be assigned to this interval; and of the rest, several seem to as conclusively belong to the Roman period. As these differ much from the typical Romano-British barrows, they may be held to prove that the Romanization of the natives of the district was a slow and retarded process. From the extremely ruined condition of these barrows and their usually meagre contents it is only by comparing them together, and especially with the larger number of the same type in the adjacent parts of Staffordshire, that anything conclusive can be learned of their original characteristics.