PREVIOUS   NEXT   TOP   CONTENTS   HOME 

4.11 Personal Grave Goods - Area patterns

The south west area

The south west area shows an interesting variation from the overall by period picture (Table 296) as presented by Table 287. The incidence of disposal without personal grave goods, having risen with the general trend over 3500-14/1300bc, seems to flatten out rather than decline sharply over 8/700bc- AD43, moving only very slightly down through 71-69-68% over the three periods covering 14/1300bc- AD43. Within the grave good types, however, the rise-fall-rise pattern of incidence is maintained. The south west area does follow the pattern most favouring personal utensils as goods, but their incidence in the last period 100bc-AD43 is substantially lower at 14% against the overall 42%, and the high incidences in the south and south east areas (see below). The numbers that form the base for south west area percentages are not high in four periods, and not much may be inferred from them in isolation.

Taking incidence of grave good type against site incidence (Table 288), items of personal decor appear to occur at twice the site frequency in 100bc-AD43, but no other variations of substance appear to be in evidence.

The south area

This area appears to start from a higher base of sites without grave goods in 3500-2500bc (67% against the average of 56%), falling to exactly the average for 2500-14/1300bc at 62% before following the general movement to a peak in 14/1300-8/700bc and then a decline over 8/700bc-AD43. Again in this area personal grave good incidence follows the general rise-fall-rise pattern elsewhere. The period 14/1300-8/700bc aside, when personal grave goods incidence drops very sharply, the incidence of personal utensils, personal decorative goods and goods of excellence is particularly strong in 2500- 14/1300bc and 100bc-AD43.

Taking incidence of grave good type against site incidence (Table 291), personal utensils, items of personal decor and objets trouvées appear to occur at twice the site frequency in 100bc-AD43, but no other variations of substance appear to be in evidence, saving the complete absence of items of excellence recorded in 3500-2500bc for the south area. Other variances have been remarked upon already.

The south east area

The south east area follows the general pattern for the non-incidence of grave goods over the five periods in Table 293, but does not rise so high in 14/1300-8/700bc (79% against the 87% average), and in its decline falls well below the average in the final period 100bc-AD43 (38% against 49%). The area shows a slightly greater than average incidence of token goods over 3500-8/700bc compared with the other two areas, but is still not high at a range of 10-13% (south west 6-10%, south 3-9%). Personal utensils are very strongly represented in most periods, especially 3500-14/1300bc (33-31%) and in 100bc-AD43 at 54% being the highest of all areas. The low numbers in several periods (Table 292) do not allow too much to be made of the percentages. Personal craft goods do seem to decline quite sharply in incidence after 14/1300bc.


 PREVIOUS   NEXT   TOP   CONTENTS   HOME 

© Internet Archaeology/Author(s)
University of York legal statements | Terms and Conditions | File last updated: Wed Nov 7 2001