Iron Age Mystery Warrior exhibition, Chichester 2020

Archaeology International, 2002

The significance of the decision to bury an individual with martial objects during the British Iron Age cannot be overstated. It is a rare subset of funerary practice, conferred upon select individuals. This article examines martial burials, firstly summarising past research, then presenting an overview of martial object classes, and their treatments in funerary practice. There is a particular focus on the Arras Culture of East Yorkshire, which dominates the data due to the highly unusual, almost unique, ritual in which spears appear to have been thrown at the corpse as part of the funeral. The analysis presented here highlights the importance of non-offensive martial objects, and demonstrates that there is much greater diversity in Iron Age martial burial practice than previously recognised.

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 2014

A rare find was made in 2012 when a metal-detectorist on land near Bridge, a few miles south of Canterbury, Kent, recovered a copper alloy brooch, other metal items, and a quantity of burnt bone contained in a near complete, probably imported Gallic, helmet of Iron Age type. Excavation was undertaken to ascertain the immediate context of the helmet, confirm that it represented a cremation burial, and determine if it formed part of a larger funerary deposit. The helmet and brooch suggest a burial date in the mid-1st century BC and the apparently isolated cremation burial, of a possibly female adult, can be broadly placed within the Aylesford-Swarling tradition; the helmet taking the place of a more usual pottery cinerary urn. Cropmark evidence suggests that the burial was made within a wider landscape of Iron Age occupation.

Britannia, 2014

Damage to part of the earthwork at Dyke Hills, Dorchester on Thames, provided the opportunity to recover the badly disturbed remains of a late Roman burial which had contained an elaborate belt set and an axe. This burial, of a type very unusual in Roman Britain, is argued to be of early fifth-century date and to be directly comparable with well-known burials recovered near by in 1874 which formed a starting point for the ‘soldiers and settlers’ debates of the 1960s and beyond. The Dorchester burials are seen here as those of late Roman military personnel, and their local and wider context is discussed.

Acta Archaeologica Carpathica LV. 71–90., 2020

This is a preliminary publication of a warrior barrow grave with local cremation found in Csengersima (North-Eastern Hungary). From the point of view of the burial rite, it can be-in many regards-connected to certain barrow graves of the Przeworsk culture, and also to the barrow graves of the Early Roman Age found in the Upper Tisza Region (Slovakia and Transcarpathian area of Ukraine). Most of the objects find analogies in the Przeworsk culture. The unique find of the Csengersima grave is a combined chain-scale armour with scales leafed with gold.

2016

A mid-6th century grave on a spur just east ofTidworth was found to contain the bodies of jour male adults, all buried at the same time and accompanied by weapons. The nature, location and date of the grave make it seem possible that it was connected with the resurgence of military activity in this area after AD 552. DISCOVERY AND E X C A V A T I O N In 1992, soldiers digging a trench just east of, and above, South Tidworth came across human bones. The military authorities notified one of the authors (RE) who began a rescue excavation which uncovered the remains of three skeletons. Because of time constraints, the excavation of what had by then been recognized as an Anglo-Saxon multiple grave had to be stopped, and the excavated area was backfilled. The excavation was concluded in the summer of the same year by the other author (HH) with archaeology students from the University of Reading. The site (SU 24254755) is located on Salisbury Plain, virtually on the Hampshire-Wiltshire bor...

Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club & Archaeological Society (Hampshire Studies) , 2015

Archaeological investigations at The Bourne, Bournefields, Twyford, Winchester, revealed parts of a 'Celtic' field system and an isolated Late Iron Age-Early Romano-British grave containing the remains of a woman who was most probably in her late thirties when she died.

Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society , 2017

Evaluation of Beckfoot Roman cemetery, 2006: published in 2017 by Christine Howard-Davis, Ruth Leary and Margaret Ward . The Roman cemetery at Beckfoot, c. 350m to the southwest of the auxiliary fort (NY 0876 4868), and in the proximity of Milefortlet 15, was subject to evaluatory excavation in 2006 by Oxford Archaeology North, in advance of increasing coastal erosion. Although relatively well known, the site had hitherto seen only small-scale rescue excavation, as burials were exposed by erosion and dune collapse. The 12 evaluation trenches revealed general evidence for a prehistoric presence, and more detailed information on three phases of cremation burials dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, artefact evidence suggesting that the cemetery had been in use as late as the 4th century. There was, however, no evidence to confirm the position of Milefortlet 15. Importantly, the finds, environmental evidence and scientific dating were able to elucidate funerary practice at the site and add significantly to the still scant information for this in Cumbria and the wider region. Previous British reports on such deposits have tended to be limited in geographic scope, being concentrated within the South-East and concentrating on vessels inserted as grave-goods and in particular formal burials - although occasional reference has been made to the presence of material that had been burnt on the pyre. Few Roman cemeteries in northern England have been excavated, and very few of those have yielded, or are recorded as having yielded, samian ware. The absence of references to samian ware in some overviews of Roman cemeteries makes it difficult to be sure how many northern cemeteries may have included this ware. In the North, the major military centres at York and Chester included samian wares deposited in cemetery contexts. In contrast, funerary groups at most of the 'lesser' north-western and north-eastern sites include no samian ware. However, locally to Beckfoot, samian was present in large quantities at Brougham cemetery, both as grave-goods and in pyre deposits, amongst material published by Hilary Cool in 2004. Further information will be found in: https://www.academia.edu/50242347/Ward_2014_Beckfoot_cemetery_2006_samian_ware_with_appendix Earlier finds at Beckfoot are reviewed by Ward. Samian dating, forms and iconography at Beckfoot and other cemeteries are considered.

Peritia, 2008

This study examines the motif in early medieval Irish literature of a sentinel warrior, buried near a territorial boundary, facing enemy territory to protect his people/territory against that enemy. Since there is not to date any physical manifestation of this type of burial in early medieval Ireland, a possible source for the motif in early Irish authors may lie in an awareness of early Anglo-Saxon contexts, and to this end several possible archaeological examples of such burials located on territorial boundaries in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon England are adduced.