The limits of the tumuli or barrows of the bronze-period cannot be so well defined, since these, as regards their form and general arrangement, have much similarity with most of the tumuli of Germany and other European countries of that period, in which the practice of burning the dead generally prevailed. Barrows which contain bronze objects with spiral ornaments, like ours in Denmark, do not occur farther south than in Mecklenburg, and possibly in Hanover; and on the contrary, barrows, with bronze articles of somewhat different character, occur in most countries of the south and west of Europe, both on the coasts and in the interior parts.
The barrows in the three northern kingdoms differ very much from each other. The cromlechs and giants' chambers of the stone-period, which occur generally in Denmark, meet us only in the south-western part of the present Sweden, particularly in the old Danish country of Skaane in West Gothland, in Holland, and Bahuslehn; but they are not found at all in the north-east and north of Sweden, nor in the whole of Norway. The barrows, cairns, and stone circles of those districts have a totally different character; the large and peculiar cromlechs disappear both from the exterior and interior of the barrows. Above all, however, it is to be observed, that the bodies have not been deposited unburnt, except at a much later period; in the more ancient, burnt remains are always met with. Although this mode of interment was prevalent in Denmark during the age of bronze, yet the barrows in Norway and Sweden which lie north and east of the limits of the cromlechs of the stone-period, have scarcely any resemblance to the barrows of Denmark of the age of bronze; for these have about the same limited extent in the peninsula of Scandinavia, as the cromlechs and giants' chambers of the stone- period. A short description of the monuments of Sweden and Norway will illustrate the difference of the graves in the three kingdoms of the North.
As soon as we penetrate from the completely Danish districts of the south-west of Sweden, with, a new aspect of
