A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE in 1880 a few articles of bone were discovered in the earth between the layers of stone, resembling others from the original surface of the soil. They were pronounced at the time to be of Saxon or even earlier date. In a small mound at the top of the embankment there was found at the side of a human skeleton a weapon or part of one, which was recognized as belonging to a type rarely met with in England but common on the continent. It is in the form of a single-edged knife, the edge of which is quite straight and ends in a sharp point ; the back to within a short distance of the point being strong and thick and terminating at the other end in a tang to fasten into the wooden handle, which was also found, but soon fell to pieces on exposure to the air. Another ' scramasax ' was found at Clipstone with a spearhead and knife, and is now in the Northampton Museum. Future discoveries of burial-grounds may correct any conclusions which may be drawn from the material now collected ; but, with this preliminary caution, it may be laid down as a general rule that instances of cremation are met with north of the Watling Street and of the Tove valley, while extended burials of pagans are characteristic of the southern half of the county. Had the older records of dis- coveries given any hint of the orientation of the graves or even given the dimensions of the urns, the dividing line, if such existed, could have been more easily traced. But this grouping of the localities seems to afford a clue that in the present state of knowledge should not be neglected. Assuming for the moment that the north-and-south position marks an earlier period than the east-and-west, we find the earliest Teutonic inhumations at Marston Hill, Badby, Newnham, Norton and probably Welton, these being all south-west of the dividing line, while instances exhibiting a Christian influence are met with at Desborough north of this line, and at Ecton, Islip, and probably Great Addington, all in the lower Nene valley. Cremation not associated with interments of the entire skeleton can on the other hand be traced at Kettering, Woodford, Cransley, Cranford and Peterborough to the north, and at Pitsford and Northampton itself on the limit of the district. The three cinerary urns from Marston perhaps held the remains of Mercians who had come south under Penda, and had met their death before the Gospel had been preached in these parts : these may provisionally be assigned to the second quarter of the seventh century. But apart from these, the discovery of urns and skeletons together in the centre of the county at Brixworth, Holdenby and Desborough, though the cases are not all uniform, suggests that a tribe presumably Anglian barely penetrated into the uplands between Rugby and Naseby before the spread of Christianity ; for urns do not seem to occur as a rule in Northampton- shire with skeletons placed with the head to the south or the south-west in the pre-Christian manner. The excavator of the Desborough ceme- tery regarded these mixed burials as a sign of transition from cremation to inhumation.' This may be true where urns are found with bodies ' Archaok^a, vol. xlv. p. 467. 248
