of the rest of the North is therefore as follows. In Denmark and the south-west portion of the present Sweden there are numerous cromlechs of the stone-period and barrows of the bronze-period, and but a few tombs from that of iron, and those only from the most recent period. On the other hand, in the rest of Sweden and in Norway there are neither cromlechs from the stone-period nor barrows of the bronze-period, but in their stead a number of peculiar barrows and stone enclosures, which are different from those of Denmark, and which belong both to the earliest and latest period of the age of iron[1].
The tumuli, therefore, fully accord with the antiquities, since they shew that the stone and bronze periods do not apply to Norway and Sweden as they do to the ancient Danish districts, and that the later period of the iron age comprises all three kingdoms; that Norway and Sweden, however, were immediately its home, whence it perhaps extended itself at a later period over Denmark. This fact clearly indicates that in very ancient times Denmark was more fully peopled than the other nations of the North.
It is worth observing, that the same mode of interment which prevailed in Denmark in the later part of the iron- period, viz., that of burying the dead unburnt in large burying places, without raising tumuli or barrows over the graves, also prevailed both in the north and south of Germany, in Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, in Switzerland, Alsace, France, and in England. In all those countries this mode of interment undoubtedly was used immediately before the introduction of Christianity. In some of these burying places there have been found Christian crosses or ornaments, and also Christian inscriptions.
Since we are thus enabled by a knowledge of the arrangement, the age and the relations of which the barrows of Den-
- ↑ Cf. Worsaae, Blekingske Mindesmorker for Hedenold, translated in Zur Alterthumskunde des Nordens. Leipzig. 1847. 4to.
