A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE many animals' teeth and bones, mostly showing the action of fire. The indications of fire are not uncommon in these late graves. There was an abundance of charcoal and burnt earth around the Winster interments above referred to ; and other Derbyshire examples have been met with. 1 The following is a summary of the objects associated with these inhumated interments : (1) Nine vessels of the dark hand-made and ill-fired pottery of the period. Several of these were taller and better finished than the rest, and are distinguished as drinking-cups. (2) Fourteen articles of iron, consisting of i spear-head, 3 javelin-heads, 5 knives, I buckle, I umbo of shield, and 3 ' lumps.' (3) Twelve bronze objects : the frame of a bag (?), 3 brooches, 3 buckles, I pair of tweezers, I pin, and several fragments. (4) About thirty-four beads of various kinds amber, glass (many of Roman character), terracotta, drilled garnet, etc. The two finest were of coloured pastes, and were supposed to be of Egyptian origin. (5) Potsherds and flints : not found with the first seven or eight interments, probably through being overlooked, but more careful search proved their presence with all the remaining interments by inhumation. (6) Miscellaneous objects : spindle-whorl of Kimmeridge coal, wooden 'wedge,' and Roman coin of the Constantine period. We may thus distinguish two classes of articles in these graves : (i) those which were useless in themselves, as the potsherds and flints, or which appear to have been made solely for funeral purposes, as the occa- sional vessels found with the dead ; and (2) those which were obviously of use in life, as the brooches and buckles introduced into the grave with the apparel of the deceased, or the spears and shields, the jewellery and other trinkets, placed by his or her side with probably no other motive than that they were his or her cherished possessions. The potsherds were ' some of Roman, others of Saxon manufacture, all old and weathered,' and evidently had been buried as sherds. The flints, too, appear to have been mere shapeless fragments. The presence of these potsherds and flints had doubtless, as was stated in the ' Early Man ' section, a symbolic meaning. As was mentioned above, only three cremated interments were found in this Stapenhill cemetery. The large cinerary urns which enclosed these appear to have been precisely similar to those of King's Newton ; but instead of the contents of all three urns being human remains only, as was the case there, two contained, in addition, the following : in the one, a deer-horn spindle whorl or amulet, decor- ated with concentric circles ; and in the other, thirty-six beads, some of glass of Roman type, some of coloured pastes and one of amber, and a circular bronze brooch. These interments were so distributed among the inhumated interments that the contemporaneity of the two can scarcely be questioned ; and this applies with equal force to the two varieties of the inhumated burials, the extended and the flexed. A curious feature of the cemetery, and one which has been observed in similar cemeteries elsewhere, was a ditch 92 feet long and about 5 1 Festigti,?. jz ; Diggings, pp. 46, 86. 274
