A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE The normal position of the primary interment that over which the mound was raised is the centre of the site, and upon or below the old natural surface ; whereas secondary interments are found in any position, central or otherwise. In the following, it cannot be doubted that the central were the primary interments : In a small barrow at Lidlow near Youlgreave, a skeleton occupied a cist in the centre, while near the edge of the mound was a deposit of burnt bones under a ciner- ary urn. 1 In another at Blakelow, a central grave contained the skeletons of a woman and infant, with a drinking cup, while in a cist at a higher level near the edge were six more skeletons with a food vase. 2 In another on Hartle Moor was a deposit of burnt bones with a food vase in a central cist, and near the margin a cinerary urn with its contents. 3 In these cases all the interments were of the Bronze age, but in a dozen or more barrows containing, in addition, interments known to belong to later times, these were found to occupy higher levels or other positions marking them as the latest introductions in their respective mounds. While the centre is the normal position of the primary interment, it has occasionally happened that no interment was found at that point. In some cases we may suspect that the explorers forgot that the primary interment is frequently in a grave below the old natural level. On the other hand, a little carelessness on the part of those who originally raised the mound might easily have resulted in this interment being out of centre. The same result may also have been brought about by additions to the original mound. These additions were really new mounds raised over secondary interments. Their effect was to increase the height of the barrow, when the secondary interment was placed upon the original summit, and to extend it when it was on one side. Derbyshire has supplied examples of both. On some of the Bronze-age barrows containing interments of a later age, have been observed perceptible cappings of earth which appertained to these later interments, and it is likely enough that the alternation of materials in some barrows which have yielded only Bronze-age relics may be due to a similar cause, and not to a peculiarity of the original structure. A bar- row on Ballidon Moor * consisted of an inner cairn surmounted with a thickness of earth. The cairn contained several interments, while upon its summit was an ashy layer representing the site of a funeral pile, and in the earth above, the remains of a cremated interment, from which it would seem that the earth was introduced upon the occasion of this interment. The addition of new material to one side of the mound is probably responsible for the half-dozen or more elongated and oval bar- rows in the county, and several such additions might produce the irreg- ular outline of the great Ringhamlow barrow. A curious barrow at Crakendale Pasture near Bakewell, 5 with three radiating prolongations, may have owed its form to the same cause. The fact that in the accounts 1 Vestiges, p. 33. * Diggings, p. 41. 3 restiges, p. 72. * Diggings, p. 57. 8 Ibid. p. 71. 176
