Skip to main content
Read page text
page 24
ENGLAND Anglo-Saxon burials 4th century 5th century LEFT Map showing the development of Wasperton cemetery from the 4th through to the 7th centuries. 5th-6th centuries 6th century Later 6th century 6th-7th centuries 0 50m the River Avon as it flows through Warwickshire, between Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. This is prime aggregates country, but also an area of early prehistoric settlement, with innumerable crop marks on the well-drained river terraces attesting to early fields and enclosures. In order to make sense of this and to learn more about the prehistoric exploitation of the Avon valley as a whole, the county archaeologist, Helen Maclagan, decided in the late 1970s on a strategy of maximum archaeological recording of the 45ha of land zoned for gravel extraction in the fields south of Wasperton. Between 1981 and 1985, Gilles Crawford, of the Warwickshire Museum, directed the excavation of 10ha in total, working almost continuously with a team from theManpowerServices Commission work-creation scheme, designed to take people out of unemployment. BELOW Cropmarks at Wasperton show Bronze Age and Iron Age enclosures in the centre and Roman and Early Medieval ditches and enclosures to the left; the cemetery was found within and around the largest of the three enclosures at bottom left. ll Press Boyde : IMA GE AND PHOTOS 24 current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk Recent publication This pre-PPG16 dig has only just been written up, though the early prehistoric phases were published by Gwillam Hughes and Gilles Crawford in the Warwick Transactions for 1995. The Roman and early Medieval cemetery has just appeared as a monograph from Boydell, written principally by Martin Carver; this new study largely confirms the account given in CA 126 (1991), which was based on the preliminary report of the excavator and featured by Simon Esmonde Cleary in his book The Ending of Roman Britain. Delay has had one advantage, in that scientific techniques have been employed in the post-excavation analysis of the cemetery finds that were not available 30 years ago. In the last few years, carbon-dating techniques have been refined and sharpened, and stable isotope analysis is providing a new way to study humanremains, informing us about the likely geological background and diet of the people interred in the cemetery. This, in turn, has thepotential to thrownewlightonquestionsthat have long been at the forefront of Anglo-Saxon studies, such as whether there was a migration into Britain from Germanic northern Europe, when and to where, and on what scale? Martin weaves a complex narrative in addressing this question and his analysis of the cemetery will set the agenda for discussing what happened during this period in English history for some years to come. In the case of Wasperton, he was fortunate to come across a very rare example of a cemetery that continued in use from the late Roman period through to the 7th century. Equally rare was the opportunity to excavate the cemetery and immediate surroundings in their entirety. Because the cemetery was so closely packed with inter-cutting graves, it was also possible to build up a relatively objective burial sequence, based on stratigraphic relationships and alignments, and thus see how burial rites and cultural ideas developed and changed over this key period. Reuse of a Roman enclosure The Wasperton story begins when a disused Roman agricultural enclosure was brought into new use as a cemetery in the late 4th century – although this is, of course, not really the beginning, for the enclosure itself has a history, as do the round and long barrows that were constructed long before the enclosure. Was the choice of the September 2010 |
page 25
enclosure practical or symbolic? Arguably, the choice of a redundant enclosure was simply a matter of convenience but it could also be seen as part of a larger national trend away from roadside cemeteries towards enclosed graveyards that, in turn, reflects a Christianisation of the landscape. Was it even based on a sense of kinship with previous occupiers of the land: was this community aware that the place they inhabited had deep prehistoric roots and that its territorial boundaries, albeit renamed by Latin speakers, were the same as those of their Iron Age ancestors? Such are the questions that Wasperton raises, even if it is not always easy to provide an answer. Because somuchof the surrounding landscape has been excavated, it is possible, however, to link the people who created the cemetery to the people whose late-Roman farmstead was excavated nearby. This had numerous corn-driers, ovens and wells constructed on a scale that indicates that wheat was being grown, harvested, dried, milled and turned into bread in industrial quantities, not just for local consumption. This was a specialist production centre, in other words, which in itself casts an interesting light on the late-4th century because it implies the existence of a sophisticated economic infrastructure – whether some kind of command economy or a free-trade system is again a question that the archaeology itself cannot answer, though it can provide tantalising hints. Late Roman family plots The 23 inhumations of the cemetery’s first phase seem to be grouped into family plots, separated by blank ribbons of ground resembling paths. They ABoVE LEft Although most of the finds from The Meads were AngloSaxon, there is evidence of much earlier activity: this Beaker vessel was one of four associated with nearby Neolithic and Bronze Age features. ABoVE RIGht This Anglo-Saxon garnet-inlaid brooch from The Meads cemetery shows artistic influences from West, rather than East, Kent. RIGht An example of a timber coffin with stone inclusions; the stone is probably symbolic rather than structural, and graves of this type, with their westerly distribution, might owe something to the Iron-Age tradition of cist burial, though these graves probably date from the 5th century AD. | Issue 246 are mainly oriented with the head to the north, thus looking south, though some are oriented with the head to the west looking east. Four were decapitated burials, with the skulls placed below or to the side of the feet. The one rite that all these late-Roman period burials have in commonis the furnishing of the feet of the deceased with hobnailed boots or shoes, metaphorically providing them with footwear for the journey to the afterlife. Two of the dead carried lead curse scrolls, though when one of these was unrolled it was found to be puzzlingly bank. The other grave goods of this period include neck rings, bracelets, pins, and pendant rings, as well as fibulae, ear scoops, nail cleaners, and keys.  ll Press : Boyde photo www.archaeology.co.uk | current archaeology 25

Page Text

View plaintext

ENGLAND Anglo-Saxon burials

4th century

5th century

LEFT Map showing the development of Wasperton cemetery from the 4th through to the 7th centuries.

5th-6th centuries

6th century

Later 6th century

6th-7th centuries

0 50m the River Avon as it flows through Warwickshire, between Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. This is prime aggregates country, but also an area of early prehistoric settlement, with innumerable crop marks on the well-drained river terraces attesting to early fields and enclosures.

In order to make sense of this and to learn more about the prehistoric exploitation of the Avon valley as a whole, the county archaeologist, Helen Maclagan, decided in the late 1970s on a strategy of maximum archaeological recording of the 45ha of land zoned for gravel extraction in the fields south of Wasperton. Between 1981 and 1985, Gilles Crawford, of the Warwickshire Museum, directed the excavation of 10ha in total, working almost continuously with a team from theManpowerServices Commission work-creation scheme, designed to take people out of unemployment.

BELOW Cropmarks at Wasperton show Bronze Age and Iron Age enclosures in the centre and Roman and Early Medieval ditches and enclosures to the left; the cemetery was found within and around the largest of the three enclosures at bottom left.

ll Press

Boyde

:

IMA GE

AND

PHOTOS

24

current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk

Recent publication

This pre-PPG16 dig has only just been written up, though the early prehistoric phases were published by Gwillam Hughes and Gilles Crawford in the Warwick Transactions for 1995. The Roman and early Medieval cemetery has just appeared as a monograph from Boydell, written principally by Martin Carver; this new study largely confirms the account given in CA 126 (1991), which was based on the preliminary report of the excavator and featured by Simon Esmonde Cleary in his book The Ending of Roman Britain. Delay has had one advantage, in that scientific techniques have been employed in the post-excavation analysis of the cemetery finds that were not available 30 years ago. In the last few years, carbon-dating techniques have been refined and sharpened, and stable isotope analysis is providing a new way to study humanremains, informing us about the likely geological background and diet of the people interred in the cemetery. This, in turn, has thepotential to thrownewlightonquestionsthat have long been at the forefront of Anglo-Saxon studies, such as whether there was a migration into Britain from Germanic northern Europe, when and to where, and on what scale? Martin weaves a complex narrative in addressing this question and his analysis of the cemetery will set the agenda for discussing what happened during this period in English history for some years to come. In the case of Wasperton, he was fortunate to come across a very rare example of a cemetery that continued in use from the late Roman period through to the 7th century. Equally rare was the opportunity to excavate the cemetery and immediate surroundings in their entirety. Because the cemetery was so closely packed with inter-cutting graves, it was also possible to build up a relatively objective burial sequence, based on stratigraphic relationships and alignments, and thus see how burial rites and cultural ideas developed and changed over this key period.

Reuse of a Roman enclosure

The Wasperton story begins when a disused Roman agricultural enclosure was brought into new use as a cemetery in the late 4th century – although this is, of course, not really the beginning, for the enclosure itself has a history, as do the round and long barrows that were constructed long before the enclosure. Was the choice of the

September 2010 |

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content