THE HUMAN BONE FROM GODMANCHESTER, CAMBRIDGESHIRE (1988-92 EXCAVATIONS
Author(s): Simon Mays
Forty-seven cremations (most of which were inurned) and 4 inhumations from a small, ditched cemetery of second century date are reported on. Within particular burials different bone fragments often show great differences in degree of firing as did internal and external surfaces of individual fragments. A reason for this may have been that, with the corpse placed on the hotter, upper parts of the pyre, the bones shattered from the heat of the pyre with different fragments falling to hotter or cooler areas. Some cremations had suffered loss of bone due to plough damage, but even those where this had not occurred showed only about one third of the weight of bone expected from a complete skeleton. It was difficult to determine what factors might be responsible for these bone losses, but it seemed more likely to be a result of incomplete retrieval of bone from the pyre in antiquity rather than destruction of bone in the soil. It seemed unlikely that the urns were completely filled with bone in antiquity and there was no correlation between the volume of the urn and the weight of the bone inside. A small number of cremations and inhumations unassociated with the Romano-British cemetery are also reported upon.
- Report Number:
- 39/1993
- Series:
- AML Reports (New Series)
- Pages:
- 24
- Keywords:
- Human Bone Human Remains
