Message #232974

[Robin Barquenast]

A Bronze Age funerary landscape – an Iron Age equine mystery

Archaeological deposits from this period comprise burial activity, and later the construction of a series of ditches, possibly relating to the formation of an estate. The Early Bronze Age saw limited occupation activity, demonstrated by four pits containing pottery from this period.  It also witnessed the interment of a cremation within a ring ditch.  During the Middle Bronze Age the evidence is purely for funerary activity, with a single inhumation and a small cremation cemetery consisting of 10 cremations.

The main ditch system persisted into the Iron Age at which time the enclosed area was subdivided into smaller fields by two lines of regularly spaced pits.  In total 108 pits were excavated, though aerial photographic evidence suggests these alignments extend further across the landscape.