A Bronze Age Urn Cemetery at Kimpton, Hampshire

Abstract

Summary. An extensive urn cemetery associated with a complex flint platform, excavated by Max Dacre between 1966 and 1970, included burials of late Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age (‘Deverel-Rimbury’) and Late Bronze Age date. The cemetery developed organically from a late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age focus which had evolved around one or more large sarsen stones.The pottery sequence is of particular interest. The chronological precedence of all the barrel urn types of Central Wessex has been demonstrated for the first time and the Deverel-Rimbury phases contain pottery which relates both to the local Wessex sequence and to the Lower Thames Valley assemblages. The later Deverel-Rimbury phases also include vessels of the post-Deverel-Rimbury tradition and the final burials were interred in Late Bronze Age jars.Analysis of the associated cremations gives some indication of the age and sex structure of each phase of burials, although identification proved difficult owing to the post-incineration process of pulverization to which the remains had been subjected in all phases. The existence of a range of age groups and both sexes in each phase serves to confirm the hypothesis that modular units within such later Bronze Age cemeteries represented the burial places of individual small social groups.The urn cemetery developed gradually over a period of 1500 years (from c. 2100 to 600 BC).

Revisiting Old Friends: The Production, Distribution and Use of Peterborough Ware in Britain

“…The use of grog in Fengate Ware fabrics is attested at 21 sites for which information was available in the wider survey reported here, including Lower School, Wallingford in Oxfordshire (Richmond ), Astrop in Northamptonshire (Smith ), Peterborough in Cambridgeshire (Smith ), Baston Farm, Hayes in Kent (Philp ), Kimpton in Hampshire (Dacre and Ellison ), and Overton Hill in Wiltshire (Smith ). But Fengate ceramics can also be distinguished by a finer and more carefully prepared clay matrix achieved through the removal of coarse inclusions.…”

Fragmentation, Personhood and the Social Construction of Technology in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain

“…While some burials were placed within a ceramic vessel, others were accompanied by broken potsherds. The evidence from Kimpton in Hampshire (Dacre & Ellison 1981) suggests that, in several cases, pots were deliberately smashed on the pyre or at the pyre-side. Sherds from the same vessel appear to have been subjected to differing degrees of burning, suggesting that these were not simply collected from nearby middens to accompany the dead.…”

“…3). Plo�ing the location of individual sherds in the ground indicates that the pot had not broken in situ but had been smashed elsewhere and carefully collected for redeposition (Dacre & Ellison 1981). Here, both the dead and the pots that sustained them during life were burnt and broken (cf.…”

“…McKinley (1997, 142) has pointed out that the majority of multiple deposits consist of an adult or subadult with one or more children (e.g. Dacre & Ellison 1981;Dodwell 1998), again underlining the importance of relational aspects of social identity (in this case perhaps kinship; interestingly, the adult individuals can be either sex).…”

“…It is difficult to prove this suggestion archaeologically, although there is some evidence in favour of such a proposal. For example, at Kimpton in Hampshire, a series of cremation burials and associated pyres was excavated (Dacre & Ellison 1981). It was noted that the pyres contained much less residual cremated bone than one might have expected given the relatively small size of most of the cremation burials (the mean weight of the burials was 322 g: Everton 1981, 185).…”