Excavation of a Bronze Age Cemetery at Ewanrigg, Maryport, Cumbria

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Abstract
Excavations at Ewanrigg, Maryport, Cumbria (NY035353) took place in 1983 and 1985–87. The site of a Bronze Age cremation cemetery was discovered whilst fieldwalking a crop-mark enclosure site; this site had been trial excavated in 1956 and shown to be a Romano-British settlement. During the excavations 28 burials were discovered, 26 being cremations and two inhumations. Both inhumations, one a Beaker burial and the other a cist burial with a Food Vessel, had been disturbed. The Bronze Age pottery assemblage was a mixture of Collared Urns and Food Vessel Urns; the Collared Urns are mainly Secondary Series with one showing some Primary Series traits. Fragments of two Beakers were discovered, one an N/MR Beaker and the other more in the long-necked Northern series tradition. All the pottery, except the N/MR Beaker, was made from local clay. Within one of the cremation burials a clay connecting rod for a furnace was discovered and apart from one other site this is the only discovery which shows any link between metal-working and the burials within the Collared Urn tradition. Also within the cremations were a number of toggles and pins made from animal bone. The human cremated bone was sufficiently well preserved to allow analysis to show that there were six female and five male burials. Radiocarbon samples, mainly on charcoal, gave a date range for the Collared Urns of 2460–1520 BC (calibrated to two standard deviations).

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