Summary
Anglo-Saxon cemetery in use from the end of the C5 to the middle of the C7.
Reasons for Designation
Flixton II Anglo-Saxon cemetery in use from the end of the C5 to the middle of the C7 is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Potential: the buried deposits which, if subjected to excavation and scientific analysis, will provide important information about the population, social structure and ideology of the community that used the cemetery and its position in the wider social, economic and political landscape;
* Cemeteries of this period offer our principal sources of archaeological evidence about the Early Anglo-Saxon period;
* Survival: evidence from the excavation of approximately 25 per cent of the cemetery indicates the high level of survival of grave cuts, burials and grave goods. A further 138 burials remain un-excavated;
* Group Value: the spatial relationship between the cemetery, Boys Hall medieval moated site, and Flixton Augustinian Priory adds considerably to our understanding of the current settlement of Flixton, and the spatial relationship with prehistoric and Roman features illustrates how the Anglo-Saxon community respected and utilised the earlier ritual landscape.
* Documentation: for the archaeological documentation and record that has resulted from the excavation of part of the site.
History
Large scale quarrying operations in the vicinity of Flixton Park have been carried out since the middle of C20. The original planning consent covering the extraction at Flixton predated archaeological planning guidance (PPG16, 1990) but renewal of this consent in 1995 resulted in the addition of an archaeological condition requiring a programme of archaeological provision prior to extraction. Since then all new quarry areas have been comprehensively recorded by continuous monitoring and where necessary open area excavation. This work has revealed a chronologically broad and archaeologically rich landscape with the most complex areas including a late Neolithic ring ditch and post-hole circle, a late-Iron Age/early Roman post-hole circle and early Anglo-Saxon cemetery, each being treated as set-piece excavations using a strip and record policy.
At Flixton, two Anglo-Saxon burial grounds were recorded; Flixton I and II. A single grave was discovered at Flixton I in 1990 and finds suggest at least one other burial in the same area, but these were fully excavated. It is Flixton II which forms the focus of this scheduled monument, it was the more substantial of the two and was partially excavated in two phases; in 1998-1999 and 2001 (2012 Boulter and Walton Rogers). Forty-five inhumations were uncovered in 1998 while the limits of the cemetery and a further 17 inhumations were excavated in 2001. Eleven of these were associated with a previously known ring ditch feature. The ring ditch is included in the scheduling and would have almost certainly been marked by an internal barrow mound and it is this which will have formed the focus of the burials. It is estimated there were approximately 200 graves originally of which 62 have been excavated, a cluster of which focused on the Bronze Age barrow.
The main group of burials occupied a tightly defined rectangular plot. There was no surviving evidence of a physical boundary around the main area of the cemetery but the presence of some form of demarcation can be conjectured due to the regular shape of the distribution. To the south of the main plot there was a separate group of 11 graves on and around the barrow, these are later burials and predominantly male, a pattern that can be found elsewhere and one which coincides chronologically with the raising of new barrows at Snape and Sutton Hoo. The cemetery as a whole was in use from the end of the C5 to the middle of the C7 (Boulter and Walton Rogers 2012).
At the time of the excavation a decision was taken to leave the remainder of the Flixton II cemetery unexcavated and for it to be taken out of the area of active mineral extraction. The site was marked out using 5ft steel posts, and 400mm of topsoil was laid over the remaining graves to ensure preservation.
Flixton lies to the west of a small string of Anglo-Saxon sites along the Waveney Valley that include Bungay on the Suffolk side of the river, and Broome, Earsham, Stockton and Kirby Kane on the Norfolk side. They are to the south of the much larger group of cemeteries on the river systems of east-central Norfolk, which include Caistor by Edmund (Scheduled Monuments, National Heritage List for England 1003163 and 1003953), Bergh Apton, Spong Hill and Morning Thorpe. Flixton is now separated from these other sites by the county boundary but it originally lay inside the old Iceni territory and there would have been access to Venta Icenorum (now Caistor St Edmunds) and the rest of the Norfolk group via the Roman road that crossed the river at Bungay.
Upriver from Flixton, to the west, there is a cluster of sites with C5 material, in the valleys of the upper Waveney and its tributary the Dove. Beyond these on the opposite side of a shallow watershed, is an arc of C5 and C6 sites on the rivers flowing into the Fens, such as the settlement at West Stow and the Cambridgeshire cemeteries. In the opposite direction, down river, there may have been early post-Roman activity at Burgh Castle, close to the coast, but generally C5 evidence from the lower Waveney Valley is sparse and the settlement at Bloodmoor Hill, Carlton Colville, does not appear to have been founded until C6. Further away to the south on the other side of the claylands, lies the Sandlings province, where barrow burials at Snape and Sutton Hoo mark the rise of a new elite in the later C6 and C7 centuries. This process runs parallel to the documented rise of the Wuffings, whose ruling dynasty eventually established control over East Anglia. All of this would have put Flixton and its neighbouring sites in a significant position in the shifting politics of East Anglia.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The Flixton II Anglo-Saxon cemetery lies immediately above the 16m contour within a small, north-facing promontory overlooking the western end of a shallow eastern-facing depression immediately to the north. It is situated on a spur of land 500-600m directly south of the Anglo-Saxon settlement which itself looked northwards to the River Waveney and southwards to the prehistoric monuments and the cemeteries. Approximately 138 unexcavated burials lie within the scheduled area. A comprehensive and detailed publication of the surrounding and associated excavations (2012, Boulter and Walton Rogers) offers clear evidence of the archaeological potential of the unexcavated areas and much of the detail within this assessment draws heavily on this publication.
DESCRIPTION
The graves are aligned roughly west-south-west to east-north-east, which is comparable to most East Anglian cemeteries but slightly modified by the topography of the site. This stretch of the Waveney Valley runs south-west to north-east and the graves follow both the contours of the land and the alignment of the Romano-British field system to the south. Most variation is in the southern cluster of graves where the round barrow and its surrounding ring ditch have influenced the orientation of the burial. Where there was evidence for the orientation of the bodies in the graves they were found to be almost exclusively head to the west. Where the burials are reversed it is women who are being treated differently, with their heads to the east.
The graves were cut in a range of shapes, from oval, through parallel-sided with a rounded end, to rectangular, but there was no detectable pattern in relation to date, gender or age. Grave size, however, had more significance, and there were obvious differences between the smaller graves in the early, northern part of the main plot and those to the south. The latter appear to have been dug to a greater depth than the others. The southern graves were also longer and wider, often over 2m long, even though there was no clear evidence for coffins or biers, and no grave goods large enough to warrant the extra space. Following analysis of the excavated material it can be shown that grave size was related to both gender and date. The smallest graves, less than 1.5m in length have been classified as the burials of children.
In the tight northern part of the cemetery some graves overlapped and in one case appeared to have been reopened in a deliberate act of reuse. These consecutive ‘stacked’ burials often involve a man and a woman and have sometimes been interpreted as burial in a grave of a pre-deceased spouse. There were also three examples of two bodies being buried in the same grave, seemingly at the same time. In each case the bodies had been laid out side by side with heads pointing in the same direction. This practice is found in all parts of early Anglo-Saxon England, and several different combinations have been noted, the most common being a woman with a child, closely followed by a man with a woman. A family relationship is often assumed in double burials that include a child.
The preservation of skeletal remains and other organic materials, including containers in which the bodies had been placed, was poor throughout the site but enough evidence was retrieved to imply the common use of a bier, animal hide or heavy wool rug in the burial practices. In one grave, dark linear soil stains indicate either a coffin or a timber grave-lining was used and another four graves suggest the use of a small chamber, coffin or rectangular bier. These were found in the northern area of the cemetery but one example of timber preserved on a shield boss in the southern area does suggest a coffin or wooden planks were laid over the burial. Other organic wrappings of textile, leather or vegetable matter, which have largely been destroyed by post-depositional processes, have been identified in mineralised products on grave goods.
In the northern third of the main plot a series of post holes were recorded close to the edges of the graves. The number of instances where graves encroached upon an earlier burial was small and their overall arrangement indicated a deliberate semi-formal layout with graves lined up on a south-west to north-east orientation end-to-end rows and also positioned side by side. This implies a grave marker or above ground structure was employed in order to recognise earlier burials and deter encroachment.
A degree of organisation in the cemetery is also recognised, in the northern part of the main cemetery the graves of men, women and children from different phases were mixed together. To the south and on the mound there is evidence for some form of segregation. There is a small group on the ring ditch (included in the scheduled area) that includes a child and possibly an adult woman but most of the burials on or next to the mound are male. A cluster of four small graves in the south-east corner also suggests special grouping.
Despite the poor preservation of the skeletons, it is clear from the surviving artefacts and their disposition in the grave that the dead were placed in the grave fully clothed, and weaponry and personal equipment arranged on and around the body. The artefacts can be grouped according to function, as garment fasteners (brooches, clasps, pins and buckets), decorative accessories (necklaces and a finger ring), girdle groups (bag fittings, rings and keys, female-gender accessories suspended from the belt), knives and tools, weapons (shield fittings, spear heads and ferules) and domestic utensils (glassware and ceramics). The preservation of organic material is poor but fragments of mineralised cloth, leather, wood and horn has enabled reconstruction and interpretation of a considerably wider range of grave goods. The artefacts have enabled a good understanding of the status of the people buried in the cemeteries; most are simple, plain artefacts which were found to be worn, damaged or repaired. Repairs to metalwork are not unusual in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries but the re-use of broken artefacts is particularly common at Flixton. The metalwork is typically Anglo-Saxon but the textiles indicate some survival of Romano-British skills. More surprisingly among the women’s garment accessories, there is a small group of finds with features of design and technology that have parallels, not in the local sites but at Empingham II, Rutland, and its neighbouring cemeteries.
The Anglo-Saxon evidence from Flixton indicates both the settlement and cemeteries are directly related; artefacts from the settlement excavation are consistent with those deposited as grave goods in the cemetery, both chronologically and economically. They are generally not exceptional in terms of status and wealth and as such are considered to represent an average section of the population. Flixton is considered to represent a community on the outskirts of a major territory, evolving and restructuring to meet changing circumstances, before finally disappearing back into the landscape of barrows in which it had first appeared.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
On the ground, the cemetery currently (2016) appears as a relatively flat area of grassland. It measures approximately 50m by 100m, marked by a series of 5ft steel poles. It is understood there is an overhead electric line, supported on poles, one to the south abutting the scheduled monument and another on the northern limit of the monument.
EXCLUSIONS
The steel poles defining the site and those supporting the overhead power line are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath each of these is included.
