A prehistoric cremation burial at Duns Law Farm, near Duns, Scottish Borders
Keywords:
Pit, Human remains, pottery sherd, axehead, beaker
Pit, Human remains, pottery sherd, axehead, beaker
Period(s):
Prehistoric, Neolithic
Prehistoric, Neolithic
Abstract
A large prehistoric pit was uncovered during a watching brief on a water main installation. The pit was partially stone-lined and two small scoops were identified at the base. These contained one complete and one partial Beaker vessel. The fills of the pit produced a small quantity of cremated human bone which represented a minimum of four individuals (three adults and a juvenile). Also mixed into the fills were sherds of other Beaker vessels, a few lithics, a stone axehead, and fragments of Neolithic pottery. Radiocarbon determinations produced early Neolithic dates for four samples of human bone and a grain of wheat, and one human bone sample produced a Bronze Age date later than the generally accepted currency of Beaker pottery production in Scotland. Interpretation of this strange collection of material is discussed with reference to Neolithic and Bronze Age burial practices; the evidence for the use of this pit in the Neolithic for cremation burial is a rare find and provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of this period and type of monument.
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References
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Burl, H A W 1984 ‘Report on the excavation of a Neolithic mound at Boghead, Speymouth Forest, Fochabers, Moray, 1972 and 1974’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 114: 35–73 and fiche 1:A2–C10.
Case, H 1977 ‘The Beaker culture in Britain and Ireland’, in Mercer, R (ed.) Beakers in Britain and Ireland: Four Studies, 71–101. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 26.
Case, H 1993 ‘Beakers: deconstruction and after’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59: 241–68. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00003807.
Clarke, A 2011 ‘Does size matter? Stone axes from Orkney: their style and deposition’, in Davis, V & Edmonds, M (eds) Stone Axe Studies 3. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Clarke, A 2012 ‘Lithic artefacts’, in Johnson, M ‘Urned cremation burials at Carlinwell standing stone, Airlie, Angus’, Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 18: 1–13.
Clarke, D L 1970 Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Close-Brooks, J 1979 ‘A Beaker cist at Skateraw, East Lothian’, Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists’ Society 16: 1–6.
Cochran Patrick, R W 1874 ‘Note on some explorations in a tumulus called the “Court- Hill”, in the parish of Dalry and county of Ayr’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 10: 281–5.
Coles, J M & Simpson, D D A 1965 ‘The excavation of a Neolithic round barrow at Pitnacree, Perthshire, Scotland’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 31: 34–57. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00014705.
Craw, J H 1913 ‘Note of a Cist and Urn of Drinking-Cup Type found at Broomdykes, Edrom, Berwickshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 47: 172–3.
Curtis, N, Wilkin, N, Hutchinson, M, Jay, M, Sheridan, A & Wright, M 2007 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beakers and Bodies Project’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 8: 223–4.
Curtis, N G W & Wilkin, N C A 2012 ‘The regionality of Beakers and bodies in the Chalcolithic of North-East Scotland’, in Allen, M, Gardiner, J & Sheridan, J A (eds) Is there a British Chalcolithic? People, Place and Polity in the Later 3rd Millennium (Prehistoric Society Research Paper No. 4), 237–56. Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books.
Dunwell, A 2007 ‘Cist burials and an Iron Age settlement at Dryburn Bridge, Innerwick, East Lothian’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 24.
Ferembach, D, Schwindezky, I & Stoukal, M 1980 ‘Recommendations for age and sex diagnoses of skeletons’, Journal of Human Evolution 9: 517–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484 (80)90061-5.
Greig, M, Greig, C, Shepherd, A N & Shepherd, I A G 1989 ‘A Beaker cist from Chapelden, Tore of Troup, Aberdour, Banff and Buchan District, with a note on the orientation of Beaker burials in north-east Scotland’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 119: 73–81.
Hedges, J 1983 Isbister: A Chambered Tomb in Orkney. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 115.
Holden, T & Sheridan, J A 2001 ‘Three cists and a possible Roman road at Barbush Quarry, Dunblane, Perthshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 131: 87–100.
Hunter, F 2000 ‘Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery and other sites at West Water Reservoir, West Linton, Scottish Borders’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 130: 115–82.
Johnston, D A 1997 ‘Biggar Common, 1987–93: an early prehistoric funerary and domestic landscape in Clydesdale, South Lanarkshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127: 185–254.
Lanting, J & van der Waals, J 1972 ‘British beakers as seen from the Continent: a review article’, Helinium 12: 20–46.
Lelong, O & MacGregor, G 2007 The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Kinnes, I, Gibson, A, Ambers, J, Bowman, S, Leese, M & Boast, R 1991 ‘Radiocarbon dating and British beakers: the British Museum Programme’, Scottish Archaeological Review 8: 35–68.
MacGregor, G & McLellan, K 2007 ‘A burning desire to build: Excavations at Eweford West and Pencraig Hill (3950–3380 bc)’, in Lelong, O & MacGregor, G The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1, 15–47. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
MacGregor, G & Stuart, E 2007 ‘Everything in its place: Excavations at Eweford West, Overhailes, Pencraig Wood and Eweford Cottages’, in Lelong, O & MacGregor, G The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1, 69–98. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
McKinley, J I 1994 The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham Part VIII: The Cremations. East Anglian Archaeology 69. Dereham: Field Archaeology Division, Norfolk Museums Service.
McKinley, J I 2004 ‘Compiling a skeletal inventory: cremated human bone’, in Brickley, M & McKinley, J I (eds) Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains. IFA Paper No. 7. BABAO and IFA.
Mays, S A 1998 The Archaeology of Human Bones. London: Routledge.
Mays, S A 1999 ‘Cremated bone from CEU excavations, and unpublished bone from earlier work’, in Brown, N R The Archaeology of Ardleigh, Essex: Excavations 1955–1980. East Anglian Archaeology 90. Dereham: Heritage Conservation, Essex County Council.
Milne, J 1892 ‘Traces of early man in Buchan’, Transactions of the Buchan Field Club 2: 97–108.
Needham, S P 2005 ‘Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe: processes of fusion and fission’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 171–217. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00001006.
Parker Pearson, M, Chamberlain, A, Jay, M, Richards, M, Sheridan, A, Curtis, N, Evans, J, Gibson, A, Hutchison, M, Mahoney, P, Marshall, P, Montgomery, J, Needham, S, O’Mahoney, S, Pellegrini, M & Wilkin, N 2016 ‘Beaker people in Britain: migration, mobility and diet’, Antiquity 90(351): 620–37. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.72.
Powlesland, D 1986 ‘Excavations at Heslerton, North Yorkshire 1978–82’, Archaeological Journal 143: 53–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.1986.11021131.
Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group 2010 The Study of Later Prehistoric Pottery: General Policies and Guidelines for Analysis and Publications. Occasional Paper No. 1 and No. 2. 3rd edn revised.
Schweingruber, F H 1990 Microscopic Wood Anatomy: Structural variability of stems and twigs in recent and subfossil woods from Central Europe, 3rd edn. Birmensdorf: Eidgenössische Forschungsandstalt WSL.
Shepherd, I 2005 ‘Radiocarbon dates sponsored by Aberdeenshire Archaeology in 2004’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 6: 184–5.
Sheridan, J A 1997 ‘Pottery’, in Johnston, D A ‘Biggar Common, 1987–93: an early prehistoric funerary and domestic landscape in Clydesdale, South Lanarkshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127: 202–23.
Sheridan, J A 2000 ‘The Pottery’, in Hunter, F ‘Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery and other sites at West Water Reservoir, West Linton, Scottish Borders’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 130: 141–6.
Sheridan, J A 2002 ‘Pottery and other ceramic finds’, in Barclay, G J, Brophy, K & MacGregor, G ‘Claish, Stirling: an Early Neolithic site in its context’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 132: 79–88.
Sheridan, J A 2007a ‘From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the “carinated Bowl Neolithic” in northern Britain’, in Whittle, A & Cummings, V A (eds) Going Over: the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe, 439–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy (=Proceedings of the British Academy 144).
Sheridan, J A 2007b ‘Scottish Beaker dates: the good, the bad and the ugly’, in Larsson, M & Parker Pearson, M (eds) From Stonehenge to the Baltic: living with cultural diversity in the third millennium bc, 91–123. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1692.
Sheridan, J A 2007c ‘Beaker vessel’, in Dunwell,A ‘Cist burials and an Iron Age settlement at Dryburn Bridge, Innerwick, East Lothian’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 24: 14–18.
Sheridan, J A 2008 ‘Upper Largie and Dutch-Scottish connections during the Beaker period’, in Fokkens, H, Coles, B J, van Gijn, A L, Kleijne, J P, Ponjee, H H & Slappendel, C G (eds) Between foraging and farming: an extended broad spectrum of papers presented to Leendert Louwe Kooijmans, 247–60. Leiden: University of Leiden (Analects Praehistorica Leidensia 40).
Sheridan, J A 2010 ‘Dating Scotland’s Neolithic non-megalithic round mounds: new dates, problems and potential’, in Leary, J, Darvill, T & Field, D (eds) Round Mounds and Monumentality in the British Neolithic and Beyond. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers (10), 28–52. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Sheridan, J A, Parker Pearson, M, Jay, M, Richards, M & Curtis, N 2006 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project: Scottish samples’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 7: 198–201.
Sheridan, J A, Parker Pearson, M, Jay, M, Richards, M & Curtis, N 2007 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project, 2007: Scottish samples’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 8: 222.
Suddaby, I 2013 ‘Excavation of post-built roundhouses and a circular ditched enclosure at Kiltaraglen, Portree, Isle of Skye 2006–07’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 54. https://doi.org/10.9750/issn.1773-3803. 2013.54.
Burl, H A W 1984 ‘Report on the excavation of a Neolithic mound at Boghead, Speymouth Forest, Fochabers, Moray, 1972 and 1974’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 114: 35–73 and fiche 1:A2–C10.
Case, H 1977 ‘The Beaker culture in Britain and Ireland’, in Mercer, R (ed.) Beakers in Britain and Ireland: Four Studies, 71–101. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 26.
Case, H 1993 ‘Beakers: deconstruction and after’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59: 241–68. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00003807.
Clarke, A 2011 ‘Does size matter? Stone axes from Orkney: their style and deposition’, in Davis, V & Edmonds, M (eds) Stone Axe Studies 3. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Clarke, A 2012 ‘Lithic artefacts’, in Johnson, M ‘Urned cremation burials at Carlinwell standing stone, Airlie, Angus’, Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 18: 1–13.
Clarke, D L 1970 Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Close-Brooks, J 1979 ‘A Beaker cist at Skateraw, East Lothian’, Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists’ Society 16: 1–6.
Cochran Patrick, R W 1874 ‘Note on some explorations in a tumulus called the “Court- Hill”, in the parish of Dalry and county of Ayr’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 10: 281–5.
Coles, J M & Simpson, D D A 1965 ‘The excavation of a Neolithic round barrow at Pitnacree, Perthshire, Scotland’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 31: 34–57. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00014705.
Craw, J H 1913 ‘Note of a Cist and Urn of Drinking-Cup Type found at Broomdykes, Edrom, Berwickshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 47: 172–3.
Curtis, N, Wilkin, N, Hutchinson, M, Jay, M, Sheridan, A & Wright, M 2007 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beakers and Bodies Project’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 8: 223–4.
Curtis, N G W & Wilkin, N C A 2012 ‘The regionality of Beakers and bodies in the Chalcolithic of North-East Scotland’, in Allen, M, Gardiner, J & Sheridan, J A (eds) Is there a British Chalcolithic? People, Place and Polity in the Later 3rd Millennium (Prehistoric Society Research Paper No. 4), 237–56. Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books.
Dunwell, A 2007 ‘Cist burials and an Iron Age settlement at Dryburn Bridge, Innerwick, East Lothian’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 24.
Ferembach, D, Schwindezky, I & Stoukal, M 1980 ‘Recommendations for age and sex diagnoses of skeletons’, Journal of Human Evolution 9: 517–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484 (80)90061-5.
Greig, M, Greig, C, Shepherd, A N & Shepherd, I A G 1989 ‘A Beaker cist from Chapelden, Tore of Troup, Aberdour, Banff and Buchan District, with a note on the orientation of Beaker burials in north-east Scotland’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 119: 73–81.
Hedges, J 1983 Isbister: A Chambered Tomb in Orkney. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 115.
Holden, T & Sheridan, J A 2001 ‘Three cists and a possible Roman road at Barbush Quarry, Dunblane, Perthshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 131: 87–100.
Hunter, F 2000 ‘Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery and other sites at West Water Reservoir, West Linton, Scottish Borders’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 130: 115–82.
Johnston, D A 1997 ‘Biggar Common, 1987–93: an early prehistoric funerary and domestic landscape in Clydesdale, South Lanarkshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127: 185–254.
Lanting, J & van der Waals, J 1972 ‘British beakers as seen from the Continent: a review article’, Helinium 12: 20–46.
Lelong, O & MacGregor, G 2007 The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Kinnes, I, Gibson, A, Ambers, J, Bowman, S, Leese, M & Boast, R 1991 ‘Radiocarbon dating and British beakers: the British Museum Programme’, Scottish Archaeological Review 8: 35–68.
MacGregor, G & McLellan, K 2007 ‘A burning desire to build: Excavations at Eweford West and Pencraig Hill (3950–3380 bc)’, in Lelong, O & MacGregor, G The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1, 15–47. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
MacGregor, G & Stuart, E 2007 ‘Everything in its place: Excavations at Eweford West, Overhailes, Pencraig Wood and Eweford Cottages’, in Lelong, O & MacGregor, G The Lands of Ancient Lothian. Interpreting the Archaeology of the A1, 69–98. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
McKinley, J I 1994 The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham Part VIII: The Cremations. East Anglian Archaeology 69. Dereham: Field Archaeology Division, Norfolk Museums Service.
McKinley, J I 2004 ‘Compiling a skeletal inventory: cremated human bone’, in Brickley, M & McKinley, J I (eds) Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains. IFA Paper No. 7. BABAO and IFA.
Mays, S A 1998 The Archaeology of Human Bones. London: Routledge.
Mays, S A 1999 ‘Cremated bone from CEU excavations, and unpublished bone from earlier work’, in Brown, N R The Archaeology of Ardleigh, Essex: Excavations 1955–1980. East Anglian Archaeology 90. Dereham: Heritage Conservation, Essex County Council.
Milne, J 1892 ‘Traces of early man in Buchan’, Transactions of the Buchan Field Club 2: 97–108.
Needham, S P 2005 ‘Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe: processes of fusion and fission’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 171–217. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00001006.
Parker Pearson, M, Chamberlain, A, Jay, M, Richards, M, Sheridan, A, Curtis, N, Evans, J, Gibson, A, Hutchison, M, Mahoney, P, Marshall, P, Montgomery, J, Needham, S, O’Mahoney, S, Pellegrini, M & Wilkin, N 2016 ‘Beaker people in Britain: migration, mobility and diet’, Antiquity 90(351): 620–37. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.72.
Powlesland, D 1986 ‘Excavations at Heslerton, North Yorkshire 1978–82’, Archaeological Journal 143: 53–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.1986.11021131.
Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group 2010 The Study of Later Prehistoric Pottery: General Policies and Guidelines for Analysis and Publications. Occasional Paper No. 1 and No. 2. 3rd edn revised.
Schweingruber, F H 1990 Microscopic Wood Anatomy: Structural variability of stems and twigs in recent and subfossil woods from Central Europe, 3rd edn. Birmensdorf: Eidgenössische Forschungsandstalt WSL.
Shepherd, I 2005 ‘Radiocarbon dates sponsored by Aberdeenshire Archaeology in 2004’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 6: 184–5.
Sheridan, J A 1997 ‘Pottery’, in Johnston, D A ‘Biggar Common, 1987–93: an early prehistoric funerary and domestic landscape in Clydesdale, South Lanarkshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127: 202–23.
Sheridan, J A 2000 ‘The Pottery’, in Hunter, F ‘Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery and other sites at West Water Reservoir, West Linton, Scottish Borders’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 130: 141–6.
Sheridan, J A 2002 ‘Pottery and other ceramic finds’, in Barclay, G J, Brophy, K & MacGregor, G ‘Claish, Stirling: an Early Neolithic site in its context’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 132: 79–88.
Sheridan, J A 2007a ‘From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the “carinated Bowl Neolithic” in northern Britain’, in Whittle, A & Cummings, V A (eds) Going Over: the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe, 439–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy (=Proceedings of the British Academy 144).
Sheridan, J A 2007b ‘Scottish Beaker dates: the good, the bad and the ugly’, in Larsson, M & Parker Pearson, M (eds) From Stonehenge to the Baltic: living with cultural diversity in the third millennium bc, 91–123. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1692.
Sheridan, J A 2007c ‘Beaker vessel’, in Dunwell,A ‘Cist burials and an Iron Age settlement at Dryburn Bridge, Innerwick, East Lothian’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 24: 14–18.
Sheridan, J A 2008 ‘Upper Largie and Dutch-Scottish connections during the Beaker period’, in Fokkens, H, Coles, B J, van Gijn, A L, Kleijne, J P, Ponjee, H H & Slappendel, C G (eds) Between foraging and farming: an extended broad spectrum of papers presented to Leendert Louwe Kooijmans, 247–60. Leiden: University of Leiden (Analects Praehistorica Leidensia 40).
Sheridan, J A 2010 ‘Dating Scotland’s Neolithic non-megalithic round mounds: new dates, problems and potential’, in Leary, J, Darvill, T & Field, D (eds) Round Mounds and Monumentality in the British Neolithic and Beyond. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers (10), 28–52. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Sheridan, J A, Parker Pearson, M, Jay, M, Richards, M & Curtis, N 2006 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project: Scottish samples’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 7: 198–201.
Sheridan, J A, Parker Pearson, M, Jay, M, Richards, M & Curtis, N 2007 ‘Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project, 2007: Scottish samples’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 8: 222.
Suddaby, I 2013 ‘Excavation of post-built roundhouses and a circular ditched enclosure at Kiltaraglen, Portree, Isle of Skye 2006–07’, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 54. https://doi.org/10.9750/issn.1773-3803. 2013.54.
Published
20-11-2018
How to Cite
Anderson, S., Johnson, M., Clarke, A., Cressey, M., & Hastie, M. (2018). A prehistoric cremation burial at Duns Law Farm, near Duns, Scottish Borders. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 147, 29–47. https://doi.org/10.9750/PSAS.147.1167
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