burnt human bones. We are certainly not justified in positively denying, that burnt human bones have ever been found in a legitimate grave of the stone-period, but experience has hitherto shewn us that between the tombs of the stone-period and those of the bronze-period, there exists a difference as great, and in fact greater, than that which prevails between the antiquities of the two periods.
The usual mode of interment in the bronze-period appears to have been as follows. A large pile of wood was erected, on which the body was placed. When the pile was consumed, the small bones which remained were collected together with some portion of the surrounding ashes, and placed in an earthen vessel, which was deposited in the midst of the consumed pile and surrounded with stones. In this vessel, in addition to the bones and the ashes, were deposited different small articles of bronze, such as pins, knives, pincers, &c., and together with these the various weapons and ornaments possessed by the deceased. After this the vessel was carefully closed with its usual cover, or, more generally, with a flat stone; the whole was then covered with small stones, which were usually placed in a conical heap, over which the usual barrow of earth was erected. Instead of urns for ashes, very small stone cists about a foot long, formed of four stones placed together, and covered with a fifth, were occasionally used. It is generally speaking characteristic of this period, that the remains of burnt bodies were placed in no definite way and in no definite parts of the hill. In the midst of the consumed pile, the sword and the ornaments of the deceased were occasionally placed, covered with a heap of stones thrown over them, while the urn with the ashes was deposited in the earth which was placed upon them. On the floor of some of these barrows the weapons are preserved in small oval cists of stone, and again in others nothing is found but single portions of bone, while the m-ns with ashes are placed outside. On the very margin of the hill bronze swords and other weapons, as well as ornaments, arc met with, among loose burnt bones,
