A Bronze Age barrow cemetery, and associated settlement at Roxton, Bedfordshire

Bibliographic Data

ID11615573
AuthorsAlison F Taylor (corresponding author), Peter Woodward (0000-0002-6768-9477), Peter J Woodward, Granville Rudd, Arthur P ApSimon, R Allen (0000-0003-2826-0990), Roger C Allen, John R Arthur, J R B Arthur, R Bradley (0000-0003-2184-7844), Bernard Denston, K Field, Katharine G Field (0000-0002-8246-6933), Julie Gardiner, Julie P Gardiner, Annie Grant, Helen Keeley, H C M Keeley, Carole Keepax, Robin Taylor (0000-0002-0391-2609)
Year1985
Volume142
Issue1
Pages73-149
Publication date1985-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueArchaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-5983 • E-ISSN: 2373-2288
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00665983.1985.11021060
OpenAlexW2332929651
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

The excavation of a cropmark complex (TL157535) on the flood plain of the Great Ouse concentrated on the examination of five ring-ditches and parts of a system of associated rectilinear enclosures and other features.Although three of the ring-ditches surrounded no surviving burial, all could be shown to be the surviving structures of a Bronze Age barrow cemetery. Carbon dates from the two surviving urned primary cremations gave a construction date early in the second millennium B. C. On certain of the ring-ditch sites stratigraphy was such that the height of the mounds, the sequences of construction, and the equivalent barrow type could be suggested; one ditched bowl, one bell, one saucer, and two of a bell/saucer type. However, it is suggested that these funerary monuments could be better defined as ring-barrows. An early burial and associated post structure was also independently sited outside one of the ring-ditches.It could be demonstrated that this cemetery was located on a site of earlier settlement; post-structures were sealed below the barrow mounds, an earlier flint industry was identified, and knapping foci could be suggested.The cemetery continued to be used during the Bronze Age. Carbon dates from two secondary cremations gave dates in the late second millennium B.C. A contemporary flint industry was indentified in the naturally developed soil profiles in the ditch silts of two barrows.This cemetery was turned into arable land during the Iron Age and fields systematically laid out in the late Iron Age and Romano-British period. The associated rectilinear and other cropmarks were of this date or later. The material and structural evidence for this and earlier periods suggests that the occupation episodes were short and seasonal. It is likely that the main focus of settlement was at some distance above the flood plain of the river valley.Burials of the Romano-British and Saxon period were identified on two ring-ditch sites. This suggests that the barrows were then still visible as earthworks. Careful contour surveying across the ring-ditch sites also indicates that they may have survived as shallow mounds until relatively recent times.This report confines itself to a detailed description of the Bronze Age Cemetery and the pre- Iron Age settlement. The post-Bronze Age settlement has been described in the Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal (Taylor and Woodward 1982)

Arable land · Archaeology · Bronze · Bronze Age · Ditch · Excavation · Geography · Radiocarbon dating · Settlement (finance · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

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