A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE the Benty Grange helmet and drinking-cup ; but a Christian source does not prove that their owners were Christians. As Mr. Roach Smith wrote, ' Christian emblems on early works of art cannot probably be considered other than a fashion growing out of the spread of Christianity in the south of Europe.' Paganism, it is reasonable to think, would sur- vive longer in a wild highland region like the Peak of Derbyshire than in the more fertile lowlands of our island. It is not unlikely, there- fore, that when the latest of these Peakland barrows were raised, Chris- tianity had already become the accepted religion of the people generally. It is probable that burial in a flexed or contracted posture was really more common during the Roman and post-Roman periods than is gener- ally supposed. Burial in this posture is popularly regarded as an ancient British trait, hence in the absence of grave goods the skeleton's posture is held to determine the age. This is a good working rule, and there is no doubt that the great majority of these deficient interments in Derby- shire have been rightly assigned to the pre-Roman period upon this ground. But now and again some little feature of the mound, or other indication, leads one to suspect whether the interment may not be of a later age. For instance, in 1887 the writer examined an elongated cist near Over Haddon, 1 which had been broken into by labourers. The cist contained the flexed skeleton of a man laid on his right side with the head to the west. Amongst the debris was a fragment of a quern, which either had been used in the construction of the cist or had been near it in the mound. If the former, the interment must have been of late character ; if the latter, the fragment may have been a late introduction in the mound, connected perhaps with a secondary interment which had disappeared. In other cases the reference to hard potsherds or the presence of fine soil or clay in the grave should, in a similar manner, deter us from the hasty application of the above-mentioned rule. The remains other than of a sepulchral nature in Derbyshire, which are sometimes regarded as of this era, are few and of very doubtful attri- bution. Some of the defensive earthworks referred to in the ' Early Man ' section are popularly attributed to the Danes, notably one near Hathersage church. There are earthworks near Eckington, known as the Danes Balk. Near the Trent at Repton is an oblong entrenchment con- taining two mounds, which is known as the Buries, and is also ascribed to the Danes. These mounds were examined by Mr. Bateman, who, however, found nothing to throw light on their use or age." A sketch- plan is given in the Rev. F. C. Hipkin's History of Repton. The Saxon castles of Derby and Bakewell are certainly later than the pagan period, and of course the fine examples of pre-Norman crosses and monuments carry us far into Christian times. It is therefore to the sepulchral remains that we turn for evidence of the ' wondrous skill of our forefathers in goldsmith's work, of their knowledge of the manufac- ture of glass into beads and drinking vessels, of their high cultivation of 1 Journ. Dtrb. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc. x. 47. * Diggings, p. 93. 276
