Classification and Analysis of Archaeological Contexts for the Reconstruction of Early Romano-British Cremation Funerals

Abstract

This paper reassesses analytical categories commonly used to reconstruct the 'funerary sequence' of cremation and associated deposition in early Roman Britain, looking in particular at pre-pyre and pyre activity, burial, and other forms of primary deposition. In order to develop a clearer picture of the actual contexts of ceremonial performance and installation, and even to begin to disentangle the manifold meanings these events would have held for original participants, it is first necessary to refine a 'forensic' approach to the data, remaining constantly aware of how our own assumptions about funerary behaviour can heavily influence what we think we see in the archaeological record.

Birds, Beasts and Burials: A study of the human-animal relationship in Romano-British St. Albans

“…While not a primary concern for this thesis, archaeologists have examined charcoal and charred seeds found in association with pyre material in order to gain an idea of the type of wood used as fuel and kindling used to sustain the fires (Davis and de Moulins 2000;Campbell 2004;Mould 2004;Watson 2004). Burnt nails and burnt clay have also been collected and examined as they are thought to be evidence for the pyre structure (or possible reuse of wood/biers, or other wooden objects for fuel) or a possible result of bone collection and pyre clearing procedures (Weekes 2008). The 1970s the 'processual' approach to ancient societies focused on burial evidence as a resource from which social complexity were thought to be reflected by the use of ethnographic evidence to establish cross-cultural models relating to society.…”