Christopher Evans

Sam Lucy

Ricky Patten

The 2010-11 excavations along Trumpington's riverside proved extraordinary on a number of accounts. Particularly for its 'dead', as it included Neolithic barrows (one with a mass interment), a double Beaker grave and an Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery, with a rich bed-burial interment in the latter accompanied by a rare gold cross. Associated settlement remains were recovered with each. Most significant was the site's Early Iron Age occupation. This yielded enormous artefact assemblages and was intensively sampled for economic data, and the depositional dynamics of its pit clusters are interrogated in depth. Not only does the volume provide a summary of the development of the now widely investigated greater Trumpington/ Addenbrooke's landscape - including its major Middle Bronze Age settlements and an important Late Iron Age complex - but overviews recent fieldwork results from South Cambridgeshire. Aside from historiographical-themed Inset sections, (plus an account of the War Ditches' Anglo-Saxon cemetery and Grantchester's settlement of that period), there are detailed scientific analyses (e.g. DNA, isotopic and wear studies of its utilised human bone) and more than 30 radiocarbon dates were achieved. The concluding chapter critically addresses issues of local continuity and de facto notions of 'settlement evolution'.

Neolithic Barrows, a Beaker Grave, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Burials and Settlement at Trumpington, Cambridge

Riversides

Excavations at Mucking, Essex, between 1965 and 1978, revealed extensive evidence for a multiphase rural Romano-British settlement, perhaps an estate center, and five associated cemetery areas (170 burials) with different burial areas reserved for different groups within the settlement. The settlement demonstrated clear continuity from the preceding Iron Age occupation with unbroken sequences of artefacts and enclosures through the first century AD, followed by rapid and extensive remodeling, which included the laying out a Central Enclosure and an organized water supply with wells, accompanied by the start of large-scale pottery production. After the mid-second century AD the Central Enclosure was largely abandoned and settlement shifted its focus more to the Southern Enclosure system with a gradual decline though the 3rd and 4th centuries although continued burial, pottery and artefactual deposition indicate that a form of settlement continued, possibly with some low-level pottery production. Some of the latest Roman pottery was strongly associated with the earliest Anglo-Saxon style pottery suggesting the existence of a terminal Roman settlement phase that essentially involved an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ community. Given recent revisions of the chronology for the early Anglo-Saxon period, this casts an intriguing light on the transition, with radical implications for understandings of this period. Each of the cemetery areas was in use for a considerable length of time. Taken as a whole, Mucking was very much a componented place/complex; it was its respective parts that fostered its many cemeteries, whose diverse rites reflect the variability and roles of the settlement’s evidently varied inhabitants.

Excavations by Margaret and Tom Jones, 1965–1978

Romano-British Settlement and Cemeteries at Mucking

This account of death and burial in Anglo-Saxon England offers insights into the society and customs of the Anglo-Saxons, their way of life and their understanding of the world. A detailed study of cemeteries, grave-goods and human remains is included.

Sam Lucy

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