Warning: Images of human remains feature in this post

Several of Allen Archaeology’s recent site excavations have revealed a particularly interesting aspect of ancient mortuary practice: human cremation burial urns.

Some of the pots we have retrieved date from the Bronze Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods, and are known to have been used as early as the Mesolithic in Britain (c.5500 BC), although this method began to fall out of favour following the widespread adoption of Christianity in Western Europe.

Early Anglo-Saxon (5th–6th Century AD) stamped cremation urn found near Fakenham, Norfolk

Unlike modern cremations practices that produce ‘ash’, archaeological cremation burials consist of pieces of bone of varying size, often being quite large and identifiable. The reason for this difference is down to the processing method. Whilst modern crematoriums use industrial furnaces (that burn at temperatures of 870-980 °C) and a machine to pulverize the dry bone fragments into a fine powder, cremations in the past would have been performed much differently. The deceased would have been placed on a wooden pyre and required constant attention to keep the fire burning, particularly when the weather would not cooperate (surely not?!). The result is a lot of small chunks of cracked and discoloured bone which are then placed (in part or altogether) into a pre-made urn, and buried.

Due to the fragility of the urns and their importance as a burial, they are carefully removed on site and sent back to the office to be excavated – this happens exactly the same way as on site, but at a much smaller scale! The contents of the urn are removed in levels or ‘spits’, and records including photographs and drawings are taken before and after the removal of each cross-section and full layer. Due to having to work in a pot with a diameter of roughly 13cm compared to a pit or ditch of 1 to 2m, a completely different set of tools is needed. Lay down the shovel and trowel, and pick up your clay art tools and tweezers! Once the bone is removed it is passed through several sieves (10mm, 5mm & 2mm), with the remains of varying sizes weighed rather than counted. These are then bagged according to their size, with any recognisable elements bagged separately.

Excavating a cremation burial

So now the bones have been excavated, what can we tell from them? More than you think. The colouring of the remains, the amount the bones have warped from their original shape and their completeness can reveal information about the temperature of the fire, if there were any problems during burning (such as weather or incomplete incineration), how the body might have been placed on the pyre and whether the body was clothed or burned as dry bone. Duplicate elements of bone will also alert you as to whether more than one individual is present within the urn, as can the cumulative weight of the fragments.

Also, other remains such as macrobotanical or charcoal fragments can aid in the interpretation of the pyre construction, whilst ‘grave goods’ given to the cremated individual might also survive.

Fragments from a Romano-British cremation urn burial found at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire