THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL. 501
502 INHUMATIOX, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL.
If we turn to England, the question of inhumation and
met with, but they also have very often undergone the process of
cremation appears more complicated.
burning. A cairn at Crosby Garrett contained the burnt body
The researches into British barrows show that in the
of an adult woman, and immediately overlying the calcined
Neolithic and Bronze Ages, whilst inhumation was by far the
bones and in contact with them were the unburnt bodies of
more frequent practice on the Yorkshire wolds, in some groups
two infants \
of barrows, which had nothing to show that they were earlier or
The proportion of burnt to unburnt bodies differs very
later than the general mass, cremation was the rule.
" For
considerably in different areas. In the Cleveland district of
instance, at Gardham there were six burials contained in four
Yorkshire very extensive investigations did not produce a single
barrows, five being of burnt and one of an unburnt body. At
instance of an unburnt body. Similarly, a large series of barrows
near Castle Howard also contained nothing but burnt
Enthorpe, in the same locality, there were twenty-eight burials
in six barrows, of these eighteen were after cremation and ten
bodies. In Derbyshire the proportion is slightly
in favour of
by inhumation."
unburnt bodies
;
whilst in Wiltshire burnt bodies are as 3 : 1
Out of 870 burials opened by Canon Greenwell on the
unburnt, in Dorsetshire they are 4:1, and in Cornwall cremation
seems to have been by
wolds, only 79 were after crematicju, while 301 were by inhumation
^
counties of Denbigh, Merioneth, and Carnarvon cremation
far the more common. In the
It cannot be maintained tiiat cremation was the practice of
seems to have been almost universal ;
in Northumberland the
the Bronze Age, for out of 14< instances whore the same archaeologist
discovered bronze articles associated with an interment,
The frequency of cremation in Northumberland, Cumber-
proportion of burnt bodies is 2 : 1-.
"it was only in twf) that the body had been burnt." About
land, Cleveland, Denbigh, Carnarvon, and ^Merioneth, is not
4 per cent, of unbui-iit bodies and about 2 per cent, of burnt
without significance when we recall the existence in this area
bodies had articles of bronze accompanying them. There can
of the Cymry, even though ])hilologists deny that they were
be no doubt that both inhumation and cremation were Cimbri from practised
at the same time.
" There ai-e cases where the burnt
mation was almost universal in the Bronze Age.
Denmark (the Cimbric Chersonese) where cre-
bones of one body wei'e ]>laee(l
in such immediate contact with
In view of the fact that inhumation was by
far the more
the unbui'nt l)ones of aiioth