Death on the frontier: Military cremation practices in the north of Roman Britain

Abstract

Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract:The study of cremated human remains from archaeological contexts has traditionally been viewed as less valuable than the study of inhumed bodies. However, recent methodological and theoretical developments regarding the taphonomic processes that transform the human body during cremation have highlighted their potential for understanding past cultural and funerary practices. This study combines the first application of spectroscopic with more traditional methods of studying cremated bone to examine Romano-British contexts, with the aim of better understanding funerary practices along the military frontier. Five RomanoBritish military sites from northern England (Beckfoot, Carlisle, Herd Hill, Lincoln and Malton) were studied, with remains excavated from a range of cinerary urn contexts. Despite the known heterogeneity of the ethnic composition of the Roman army, analyses revealed a surprising consistency with respect to the cremation practice, implying shared knowledge of pyre procedure and, possibly, a prescribed funerary practice amongst military communities in the Roman North. The consistency within these five northern provincial sites in Britain stands in contrast to cremation contexts from Roman sites elsewhere in Europe, as well as other periods of the British past. The associated material culture recovered from these cremation deposits, however, does provide evidence for differences in dress and bodily display. This contrasts with the homogeneity of the cremation technology and highlights the importance of these individualizing features for signalling identity amongst Roman military communities in Britain.

A re-evaluation of manner of death at Roman Herculaneum following the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius

“…Collagen yield is commonly expressed as a percentage of the bone's overall mass (for full details of the method, see Martyn et al (2018)). Following cleaning, the remaining bone samples were crushed into a granular powder using a pestle and mortar, prior to analysis by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR; for a detailed protocol, see Thompson et al 2013Thompson et al , 2016. The scans were performed using a Nicolet 5700 FTIR spectrometer controlled by OMNIC 7.3 software.…”

“…The numbers in these measures relate to positions on the FTIR spectra, and the ratios themselves examine different aspects of heat-induced change as influenced by burning conditions (Thompson et al 2013(Thompson et al , 2016. Therefore, the use of all seven indices allows for the analysis of a range of possible burning intensities: C/P, CO/CO 3 , CO 3 /P, CO/P and linewidth best describe low-temperature burning.…”

“…With this in mind, attempts have been made to offer refined interpretations of funerary behaviour based on cremated human remains (Gonçalves & Pires 2015;Thompson 2015a). A recent study of Roman soldiers along the Northern Frontier, for example, demonstrates the potential for inferring aspects of individual identity through the combined analysis of microscopic heat-induced changes in cremated bone and pyre artefacts (Thompson et al 2016). Squires (2015: 168) undertook a similar approach to the study of Anglo-Saxon remains from the UK, noting that "it is equally likely that the time and resources expended on the cremation process were just as significant [as those invested in creating the grave good assemblages]".…”

“…Crystalline structure Figure 6 presents the combined CI and C/P data, an effective method of highlighting burning intensity. Comparative baseline C/P and CI values for bones exposed to low-, medium-and high-intensity burning are presented, collected in accordance with the same methodology (for method and summary data, see Thompson et al 2016).…”

The Body in the Ditch: Alternative Funerary Practices on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire?

“…2 e.g. Beauchesne and Agarwal 2014;Chenery et al 2010;Eckhardt et al 2009;Killgrove 2010; Killgrove and Montgomery 2016;Leach et al 2009;Müldner et al 2011;Prowse et al 2004;Redfern and Bonney 2014;Redfern et al 2015;Thompson et al 2016. art, and material culture along with the skeletal remains to create a more holistic understanding of Roman society and death. Cremation and inhumation burials in Roman Britain were the normative style of disposal of the dead in the province, but new finds and new interpretations challenge this impression.…”