A BRONZE AGE FLAT GRAVE AT THE ROACHES, STAFFORDSHIRE

• Published in: Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions Vol. 49; p. 1
• Main Author: Barnatt, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Walsall South Staffordshire Archaeological 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Archaeology; Bronze Age; Cemeteries; Ceramics; Excavation; Funerals; Human remains; Memorials & monuments; United Kingdom > UK; England; Staffordshire England
• ISSN: 1479-6368

In May 2015 contractors were repairing the public footpath that passes close to the southern edge of The Roaches outcrop; they made an unexpected discovery. While digging a pit for sand, a mattock was put through a collared urn at a place where there had never been a barrow or other known Bronze Age monument. A rescue excavation was mounted by staff of the Peak District National Park Authority and it was found that the small and somewhat squat urn, decorated with twisted cord and incised decoration, lay within a purposefully dug grave pit, most of which survived. The pot had been placed leaning against the pit side, resting on top of a heap of calcined bones which comprised human bones together with those of a pig. In the heap there was also a small bronze awl and broken pieces of a calcined bone toggle. Bone from the cremation produced a radiocarbon date of 1890–1680 cal BC (at 2σ). This flat grave is important in that it is an example of burial practices in the uplands of northern England rarely glimpsed in landscapes which are not often ploughed or otherwise disturbed. The setting is also instructive, for the grave is placed in a saddle below spectacular rock outcrops. These may well have been seen as a special place in prehistory, rising through the tree-covered landscape of the nearby lowlands, an ‘other world’ perhaps ‘created’ by spirits and ancestors. There is recorded folk practice which indicates that one nearby ‘dolmen-like’ rock, the Bawd Stone, has long been venerated.