ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS feet 6 inches wide, which contained hundreds of potsherds, bones of the domesticated animals, and chippings and fragments of flint ; a few pieces of coal, a coin of Antonia, mother of Claudius ; and a few other odd- ments. The pottery was mostly Romano-British and Roman, but some Saxon occurred near the surface. No whole vessel was found, and the fragments had a cleanly broken appearance, thus contrasting with those associated with the interments. Mr. Heron suggests that the ditch was merely ' a convenient receptacle for the bones of these animals whose flesh was cooked and eaten at the funeral feasts, as well as for various other waste and refuse arising from the burial customs of our pagan English ancestors.' But the absence of Saxon pottery except near the surface, the fresh appearance of the Roman pottery, and the early period of the coin (even if a barbaric copy) suggest a pre-Saxon age for the ditch, unless indeed, as was probable, Roman pottery continued in general use long after the occupation. This cemetery, therefore, affords an interesting point tTappui for different types of burials, which are not found intermingled elsewhere in the county. The particular association of these at Stapenhill points to contemporaneity ; the general dissociation, to local differences. This distribution suggests the presence in our district of communities practis- ing different customs, and yet upon a friendly footing with one another. This is consistent with the view that these were, in great measure at least, Anglo-Saxon settlers who had brought with them the different customs of their ancestral homes on the continent. All this in a general way : we must not press the identity of period or of origin too far. Some extended burials which have been found in the county may be Romano-British. It is impossible to separate the interments inhumated, at least of the Roman and the post-Roman periods by any hard and fast line, for the presence of Roman objects is not determinative, seeing how numer- ous they were at Stapenhill. This may seem to prove that the Romano- British culture passed by gradual transition into the Anglo-Saxon, but not necessarily so. Even if we suppose that the manufactures established in the island by the Romans had disappeared with the legions, there is little doubt that those established on the continent continued long after- wards, and that their products were dispersed far and wide by commerce. The general absence of characteristic Roman objects from the Peak barrows of this era may be held to favour the theory of a break between the two cultures ; or with equal propriety, these burial-places may be regarded as so much later than the cemeteries of the southern part of the county, that sufficient time had elapsed for Roman things to fall out of use. The presence of spiral and other designs derived from a Late-Celtic ancestry with some of the former, and their absence from the latter, tend to corroborate the second surmise. These designs occur on Saxon and Irish missals and gospels, and thus connect these interments with Christian times ; and we can hardly withhold a Christian source from the White-low gold cross and the silver crosses on 275
