New Evidence for Iron Age Burial and Propitiation Practices in Southern Britain

Abstract

Summary It has been 30 years since the first scheme that categorized fragmentary Iron Age human remains in southern Britain (Wilson 1981), and nearly 20 years since Cunliffe's paper ‘Pits, Preconceptions and Propitiation’ was published (Cunliffe 1992). This study integrates the osteological, forensic and field evidence to identify archaeological signatures from three interrelated areas. The results show different depositional trends for five sites in Hampshire, and that the hillforts studied – Danebury (Hampshire) and Maiden Castle (Dorset) – demonstrate yet another pattern. Three main depositional practices were observed; intentional exposure, propitiatory deposits, and intentional practices, in which the body was kept whole in death, ran in parallel with each another.

Dennis W. Harding . Death and Burial in Iron Age Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 328 pp., 60 figs., hbk, ISBN 978-0-19-968756-5)

“…For instance, Chapter 4, on the burial of the dead within settlements, presents the reader with a seemingly endless catalogue of ‘burial types’—in pits on fortified sites, in pits on non-fortified sites, in pits in settlements but also containing some artefacts, deposits in enclosure ditches, etc.—that underscores the overall variety of ways human remains were treated by Iron Age people. However, in detailing the many non-normative ways Iron Age people treated the dead, Harding has an opportunity to explore in detail the motivation and beliefs that underlie the associated behavioural practices, perhaps drawing inspiration from some of the recent work in Wessex (Tracey, 2012) and north-central England (Chadwick, 2012) to flesh-out an interesting story, but it is often left to the reader to connect the pieces and provide the interpretation. Understandably, the nature of the dataset is such that much of the detailed information available comes from three primary areas of Britain (East Yorkshire, Wessex, and south-east England), but Harding's thematic approach should allow for him to transcend the kinds of regional discussions that can be found in other books—such as Sharples’ (2010) discussion of death and burial in relation to Iron Age society in Wessex or Giles’ (2012) examination for the Iron Age people in East Yorkshire.…”