Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Yarnbury Castle, Steeple Langford
Site number 1206
Burial codes 1003 1004 1009 1021 1023 1026 1028 1030 1035 1036 1042 1047 1051 1065 1071 1072 1084 1092 1098 1102 1104 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1121 1127 1128 1129 1143 1151 1153 1181
100bc-AD43 An extensive multi-vallate hill fort with 8 storage pits close to the excavated area of the bank and ditch in two of which were inhumations. Further burials of an adult, a child and infants were found in adjacent ditches. Both pits date to the latter half of the 1st Century BC or early 1st Century AD.

Pit 3 was dug into the filling of the ditch and contained the skeleton of an adult female c30 seemingly casually deposited on the silt layer c15cm from the bottom. The body was crouched on the right side, and associated with the burial were sherds of hand made pot, bead rim sherds in the upper part of the pit fill, and a fragment of an iron (?)brooch.

Pit 4 contained the skeleton of a middle aged female adult lying in the pit filling, contracted on the left side, hands crossed over the chest, and oriented N. The pit fill above and below the body contained sherds of bead rim pottery.

The skeleton of a child with milk-teeth was found crouched on the left side at right angles to the line of the ditch, oriented E, in a grave dug into the filling of the ditch and measuring 0.9m x 0.5m. Associated with the burial were sherds of bead-rim pottery found in the grave filling.

There were the skeletons of 9 infants newly born or very young, either complete or fragmentary found in the silt of the ditch: 5 in Section A, 1 each in C and F, and 2 in Section D.

Human skeletal material fragments were also found casually at different depths in ditch sections F, E, B (2), C (2) and at the south edge of the causeway. There was an inhumation of probable Romano-British date (buried in hob-nailed boots) on the inner edge of the causeway partly dug into the ditch silt.
Remains/Period Y1
County Wiltshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 35
Y coordinate 403
Bibliographic source Cunnington M E 1933, Whimster 1981


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004