Note 637 — Chapter XIX · THE CAUSES AND ANTECEDENT CONDITIONS OF THE HEROIC AGE

Cremation may have a common origin in the two cases; but this practice appears to have been introduced into the North at least fifteen centuries before the Heroic Age. It has been suggested that the origin of the practice may be found in the late neolithic settlements in the district of the Dniestr and Dniepr—dating probably from the latter part of the third millennium (cf. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums2, I § 537). Evidence however is now accumulating to the effect that cremation was practised in Crete in Early Minoan times.