Delivering Bodies unto Waters: A Late Bronze Age Mid-Stream Midden Settlement and Iron Age Ritual Complex in the Fens

Abstract

This paper describes a Late Bronze Age midden settlement and a later Iron Age ritual complex on Godwin Ridge, a sand ridge that formerly lay mid-stream within the lower reaches of the River Great Ouse, in the Cambridgeshire fens. Numerous ritual deposits and significant quantities of human remains were recovered; some of the latter show signs of having been modified or dismembered. The ritual focus of the ridge was a riverside platform; associated with this was an important assemblage of wetland bird bone. The paper explores the implications of these practices and compares the finds to those from neighbouring and regional later prehistoric settlements, including those with major bird bone assemblages. The ridge-end's findings clearly resonate with human remains retrieved from other watery contexts, such as those associated with the River Thames. The evidence suggests that Godwin Ridge was, during the later Iron Age, a major site for mortuary rites involving riverine interment.

Challenges for incorporating long‐term baselines into biodiversity restoration: A case study of the Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus) in Britain

“…Pelican bones are only positively identified as Dalmatian Pelican from four British sites through taxonomic assessment of diagnostic characters (Burwell Fen, Glastonbury Lake Village, Godwin Ridge, Haddenham V), with other specimens only identified to genus level (Forbes et al . 1958, Evans & Hodder 2006, Evans 2013). No specimens are directly dated, and the ages of pelican specimens from all British sites are poorly constrained (Table 1).…”

“…The existence and dynamics of such practices are almost certainly impossible to reconstruct or even identify in the archaeological record, further challenging our ability to understand whether direct human pressures drove regional pelican extinction. Evans (2013) provided the intriguing suggestion that pelicans (along with other birds including coots, ducks, geese, buzzards, cormorants, herons and corvids) might have been sacrificed at a Romano‐Celtic shrine at Haddenham, possibly performing a role as ‘winged messengers’ and/or used for entrail augury, and being equivalent in terms of ‘sacrifice’ size to a lamb or sheep. Serjeantson (2006) reported that many of the pelican bones from Haddenham exhibited cut‐marks and evidence of butchery indicative of feather removal and possible consumption, and suggested that pelicans might have been primarily hunted in Britain for trade in feathers (with their meat potentially fed to dogs rather than eaten by people).…”