The Hinxton Rings – A Late Iron Age Cemetery at Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, with a Reconsideration of Northern Aylesford-Swarling distributions (original) (raw)

Bridlington Boulevard Revisited: New Insights into Pit and Post-hole Cremations in Neolithic Britain

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2024

The majority of excavated human remains from Neolithic Britain emanate from monumental sites. However, it is increasingly recognized that multiple funerary practices are often attested within these monuments, and that diverse treatment of the dead is evident contemporaneously at non-monumental sites. In this paper, we highlight such variation in non-monumental funerary practices in Neolithic Britain (c. 4000–2500 BC) through the biographical study of an assemblage from a large post-hole at Bridlington Boulevard, Yorkshire. Through osteological and taphonomic analysis of the human bones and technological and microwear analysis of the accompanying axehead, we infer complex funerary processes, with the expediently manufactured axehead potentially featuring in the funerary rites and subsequent post-raising before being deposited in the feature. Bridlington Boulevard represents one element of a varied funerary complex—cremations in pits and post-holes—at a time when most individuals were not deposited in monuments, or indeed were not deposited at all. Compiling these non-monumental cremations across Britain causes us to look beyond categorizing these assemblages as funerary contexts, and instead suggests important cosmological associations and forces were brought together in pit and post-and-human cremation deposits.

New light on an old rite: reanalysis of an Iron Age burial group from Blewburton Hill, Oxfordshire.

In the late 1940s the skeletons of a human, a horse and a dog were found in association at the base of the defensive ditch of the Iron Age hillfort at Blewburton Hill, Oxfordshire. This article presents reanalyses of these skeletons employing up-to-date methods and approaches. The importance of reanalysis of finds from older excavations is stressed, especially where hypotheses are based on small numbers of archaeological finds. Without returning to source data, out-of-date information and interpretations can remain fixed and unchallenged in the literature. This paper forwards fresh data, and suggests a more complex meaning and set of associations than previously assigned to this deposit.

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...

Neolithic cremation burials at Milton Ham, Northampton

Northamptonshire Archaeology, 2012

In 2008 Northamptonshire Archaeology carried out a strip, map and record excavation of a Romano-British settlement at Milton Ham on the south-western outskirts of Northampton. This report focuses on a small and unexpected bonus: the recovery of three pits containing cremation burials, one of which has been radiocarbon dated to the late 4th millennium BC, the Middle Neolithic period. The burials were associated with several other small pits, three of which may have been truncated burials, while two larger pits may have held wooden posts, perhaps cemetery marker posts. These burials add to a growing body of evidence for cremation burial in the Middle Neolithic and they also add to the developing picture of Neolithic and Bronze Age activity in the environs of the Briar Hill Neolithic causewayed enclosure.

A Bronze Age barrow cemetery and a medieval enclosure at Orchardfield, East Linton, East Lothian

Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports

Three ring-ditches, interpreted as a Bronze Age barrow cemetery, and a large ditched enclosure of likely medieval date were excavated at East Linton (NGR: NT 588 771) in advance of residential development. Cremation burials were recovered from all three of the ring-ditches, from their upper ditch fills and from a central pit in one of the ring-ditches. Also mixed into the fills were sherds of pottery, a few lithics, and two stone grinders/rubbers. A large pit close to one of the ring-ditches, which may have been used to dispose of the residue ash from one or more funeral pyres, was also excavated and provides an insight into the wider ritual activity taking place on or near the site. To the east of the barrow cemetery, a meandering length of ditch is considered to be medieval in date and probably forms an enclosure. Radiocarbon determinations produced Middle Bronze Age dates for samples of cremated human bone, with charred grain producing Iron Age and medieval dates.