Northern Earth Logo

Death & Burial In The Bronze Age

By Mike Haigh from Northern Earth 68

An archaeological mystery is how the dead were 'disposed of' in the British late Bronze Age. In the Middle period, the usual rite was cremation, followed by burial in either a flat cemetery or barrow. From the end of this period to the Iron Age, however, no form of ritual deposition of the dead has been apparent.

Human remains are not of course totally absent from sites of this era. Bones have been found in contexts not suggestive of mortuary ritual, e.g. in places which symbolically emphasise cultural identity or boundaries. At Thwing in Yorkshire a single cremation deposit lay at the centre of a large and important building, implying perhaps a dedicatory burial.

Similarly, human remains are often found in boundary ditches, especially near entrances, such as at Harting Beacon, Sussex, where a skull lay in one terminal of the boundary ditch outside the W entrance. Also, at Pimperne Down, Dorset, various human bones were deposited in pits around the entrance to the settlement.

Some parts of the dead still seem to have a role, perhaps by emphasising the people's links with the land through the ancestors or by acting to avert dangers facing the society. 64% of recovered bones are skulls, 25% long-bones and 11% other bones. This suggests that the dead were disposed of elsewhere and that symbolically or ritually important bones were recovered for ritual deposition. The predominance of skulls indicates that the human head was considered special long before the Celts.

With changing climate, population pressure and the emergence of hillforts, the Late Bronze Age appears to have been a troubled time. These changes may explain why there was this shift from elaborate mortuary ritual to a form that leaves little or no record.

[*J. Bruck, A Place for The Dead, Proc. of the Prehistoric Society # 61, 1995]

Home | Contact Us | Site Map | Search

© Northern Earth