A Bronze Age barrow cemetery and a medieval enclosure at Orchardfield, East Linton, East Lothian (original) (raw)
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Records of Buckinghamshire, 2007
An excavation and watching brief was carried out in advance of gravel extraction on a group of seven ring ditches and three rectangular enclosures situated on the floodplain of the River Great Ouse, near Newport Pagnell. A double ring ditch, Barrow 2, still survived as a low earthwork. It was of Early Bronze Age date, with a sequence of five central burials. The primary inhumation, of a young man within an oak-lined chamber, radiocarbon dated to 2200–2050 Cal BC, was directly accompanied only by a pig fore limb. However, the inner barrow ditch contained the partial skeletal remains of some 300 cattle, deposited on the gravel mound but later raked down and buried. A preference for limb bones indicates that the animals had been slaughtered elsewhere, and the lack of butchery marks suggests that the carcasses had been exposed to decay naturally, and may have formed a symbolic feast for the dead rather than an actual feast for the living. Subsequently, an outer ditch was dug and the mound was enlarged twice and also re-capped with fresh gravel, with these events presumably contemporary with the secondary burials inserted into the central grave. These comprised a cremation deposit, a crouched inhumation of an older man in a timber-lined chamber, a further cremation and a final cremation within a Collared Urn. Accompanying grave goods include antler and bone spatula, a perforated bone pin and a few flint tools. The six other ring ditches had been ploughed flat in antiquity, and only two contained surviving cremation deposits, including an urned cremation with a small Collared Urn as an accessory vessel. These later and smaller satellite barrows were of Early Bronze Age date, with use of the cemetery continuing to around 1450 Cal BC. A system of undated linear ditches is interpreted as part of a Middle-Late Bronze Age boundary system. This may have influenced the setting out of a pit alignment, which had a sequence of development with circular pits replaced by rectangular pits, and a later partial re-cutting as an interrupted ditch. The final filling of one rectangular pit has been radiocarbon dated to the Early Iron Age, 800–520 Cal BC. Three small rectangular enclosures were of Middle Iron Age date. There was a crouched inhumation burial in the ditch terminal at the entrance to one enclosure, and just outside the same enclosure there was a cremation of Late Iron Age/early Roman date. The mound of Barrow 2 had been a focus for burial in the late Roman period, with five inhumations surviving, one of which was a decapitation burial.
The excavation of a Bronze Age cemetery at Seafield West, near Inverness, Highland
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Excavations in 1996 in advance of a major commercial development at Seafield West revealed a Bronze Age cemetery. Inside a ring-ditch were two adjacent graves with wooden coffins, one a boat-shaped hollowed tree-trunk, the other plank-built. Both had probably contained crouched inhumation burials. Grave goods in the former included a bronze dagger of ‘Butterwick’ type whose scabbard of wood and cattle hide produced a date of 3385 ± 45 BP (1870–1520 cal BC at 2s), slightly later than expected; those in the latter included an ‘Irish Bowl’ Food Vessel, believed to date to c 2000 BC. Both items indicate links with Ireland. Also inside the ring-ditch were: a short stone cist; a pit containing cremated human remains accompanied by three burnt barbed-and-tanged arrowheads and a mandible fragment, probably of a dog or fox; and three pits, at least one of which might have been an inhumation grave. Outside, and to the east, was a second short stone cist with a Beaker; to the west, a cluster o...
Fieldwork at Newton Farm, Cambuslang (NGR NS 672 610) was undertaken in advance of housing development in 2005–6. A cluster of six shallow Neolithic pits were excavated, and a collection of 157 round-based, carinated bowl sherds and a quern fragment were recovered from them. The pits produced a date range of 3700 to 3360 cal BC. Most of the pits yielded burnt material, and one of the pits showed evidence of in situ burning. The pottery may form ‘structured deposits’. A Bronze Age adult cremation placed in a Food Vessel dated to 3610±30 BP (2040–1880 cal BC) was set in a wider landscape of single and multiple cremations and inhumations on the river terraces overlooking the Clyde. A possible unurned cremation was also identified. This was cut by the course of a small ring-ditch dated to the very late Bronze Age or early Iron Age 2520±30 BP (800–530cal BC).
Middle Bronze Age Cremation Burials
2020
An investigation by Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd took place in early 2013 in advance of a housing development at Ness Gap, Fortrose, Highland. The excavation revealed domestic activity dating from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. A cluster of Neolithic pits provided insights into the development of agriculture in the area, with evidence for cereal production and the gathering of wild resources. The use of the site changed in the Bronze Age, with the landscape utilised for funerary practices, which were represented by stone cists and cremation burials, both urned and unurned. Analysis has further informed on the burial practices of the Bronze Age and added to our understanding of a unique peninsular landscape rich in prehistoric activity.
An Early Bronze Age Cremation Cemetery at Beggarwood Lane, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Hampshire Studies, 2019
An archaeological excavation was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology in February 2016, on land at Beggarwood Lane, Basingstoke, Hampshire. The excavation area was targeted on archaeological features identified by evaluation. Excavation identified a small Early Bronze Age cremation cemetery, comprising twenty-three pits containing deposits of cremated bone or pyre debris, seven of which were associated with urns. The identified vessels included both collared urn and 'food vessel' types, which are well-represented in cremation cemeteries of this date elsewhere in Hampshire. Cremated human bone was recovered from only nine features, of which three were associated with urns and six were unurned. Two pits contained possible evidence of post settings, and a small number of undated features had no association with cremation-related material, and were of unknown function. A single feature, of Roman date, contained a deposit of iron nails which, together with charred plant remains, su...
2002
Excavation of a cemetery of the first millennium AD revealed the remains of over 100 burials, amongst which were the most southerly examples of square-ditched graves so far excavated in Scotland. The burials were of mixed type and included numerous stone long cists, an unusual fourposted dug grave, two square-ditched graves, one of which may have had a wooden structure around or over it, dug graves with evidence of log coffins and pebble-lined or long-cist infant burials. An extensive suite of radiocarbon dates, the largest from a cemetery of this type, was obtained, the results of which suggested a floruit in the middle of the first millennium AD. The cemetery overlay late prehistoric boundary features associated with a ring-groove structure. Adjacent to the cemetery site, an enigmatic rectangular structure was excavated and radiocarbon-dated to the Late Bronze Age.
Archaeological Journal, 2016
Excavation undertaken at the Upper Severn valley round barrow cemetery at Four Crosses, Llandysilio, Powys, between 2004 and 2006 has increased the known barrows and ring ditches to some twenty-seven monuments within this complex, and revealed additional burials. Based on limited dating evidence, and the data from earlier excavations, the majority of the barrows are thought to be constructed in the Bronze Age. The barrows are considered part of a larger linear cemetery. The landscape setting and wider significance of this linear barrow cemetery are explored within this report. Dating suggests two barrows were later, Iron Age additions. The excavation also investigated Iron Age and undated pit alignments, Middle Iron Age copper working and a small Romano-British inhumation cemetery and field systems. Much of this evidence reflects the continuing importance of the site for ritual and funerary activity.
A cremation pit at Howford, Strichen, Aberdeenshire
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
A small emergency excavation was undertaken under extreme conditions in 1984 after receiving a report that a Bronze Age urn was visible in an eroded embankment after a heavy frost. Cremated remains of a female adult and infant, 11 burnt flints, a possible fragment of ivory and five pierced clay ornaments were subsequently recovered from the remains of a cremation pit, but no urn was recorded. A radiocarbon determination 3510 ± 30 bp (SUERC-33727) was obtained from birchwood charcoal within the pit and a date from oak charcoal of 3600 ± 30 bp (SUERC-33728). Unfortunately, a few of these artefacts have been mislaid since deposition in a museum so were unavailable for analysis. The same site produced two other cremation pits, one in 1970 and another later in 1986, which produced a date of 3460 ± 35 bp (GrA-28622), suggesting a larger cemetery exists.