memorials, and these have been regarded as relics of our National
Church in its primitive state. It is also suggested that these stones
may be of Druidical origin, but there is nothing to support the
theory. Among the aboriginal Britons the custom of simple inhumation
was probably prevalent, but there are not wanting evidences in
support of the belief that cremation also was sometimes practised in
prehistoric times. An instance of early interment was discovered in
a tumulus at Gusthorp, near Scarborough, in 1834. In a rude coffin
scooped out of the trunk of an oak-tree lay a human skeleton, which
had been wrapped or clothed in the skin of some wild animal, fastened
at the breast with a pin or skewer of wood. In the coffin were also a
bronze spearhead and several weapons of flint--facts which all go to
establish a remote date. The absence of pottery is also indicative of
a very early period. Regarding the skins, however, it may be remarked
that Cæsar says of the Britons, when he invaded the island, that "the
greater part within the country go clad in skins."

[Footnote 3: The ancient Jewish burial-ground had to be no less than
2000 cubits (or about a mile) from the Levitical city.]

Christian burials, as we have seen, cannot be dated in England earlier
than the eighth century, and monuments at the grave may have possibly
originated about the same period, but there is nothing whatever to
sustain such a belief, and we cannot assign the earliest of existing
memorials to a time prior to the eleventh century. Indeed it is very
significant to find that the tombs within the churches are only a
trifle older than the gravestones outside, scarcely any of them being
antecedent to the sixteenth century. As burials inside churches were
not permitted until long after the churchyards were used for the
purpose,[4] it is indeed possible that no memorials were placed in the