Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Brean Down
Site number 313
Burial codes 4001 4006 4021 4023 4026 4028 4030 4035 4042 4048 4051 4065 4075 4084 4098 4104 4111 4129 4143 4153 4156 4181 3002 3006 3021 3023 3026 3028 3030 3035 3036 3042 3045 3051 3053 3065 3075 3084 3098 3104 3111 3127 3128 3143 3151 3181 3200
2500bc-14/1300bc A presumed Beaker burial or cremation in a pit dug into Pleistocene rubble. There was a charcoal heap near the centre of the pit [which may not, however have been of the same event as the burial], and traces of yellow sand. There was a probable cist built on the old land surface which is now tide covered foreshore. There were two Beakers, one a fine Maritime Beaker, the other with fingernail decoration.

RC: from pit charcoal HAR-8547 1510 +/-80 [late for the Beaker]
14/1300bc-8/700bc In the 1983-87 excavations, 22 pieces of human bone were found in 3 Bronze Age contexts all in one distinct zone (Unit 4 skull fragments and other bones in an occupation horizon with a midden-like anthropogenic accumulation, a ditch and a stone wall, the pottery being of post-Deverel Rimbury type; Unit 5b the main occupation horizon with two circular structures and Trevisker ware pottery; and Unit 6 colluvial deposit, imported silt and ash with biconical urn pottery, and an oval stone structure). Some bone fragments were embedded, as opposed to being likely blowout deposits from erosion of soil. The bone may have been brought into the settlement area from another area where exposure or burial had taken place, but no bone exhibited signs of rodent or canine activity. Some bone was found in midden-like deposits, other in contexts suggesting their retention in huts.

RC: Unit 4 HAR-9151 780 +/-70*, HAR-9153 1150 +/-100, HAR-9155 1450 +/-90, Unit 5 HAR-7016 1470 +/-100, HAR- 7019 990 +/-100, HAR-7018 920 +/-80,
HAR-7017 780 +/-100*, Unit 6 HAR-7021 650 +/- 90*, HAR-8992 820 +/- 90, HAR-8991 1170 +/-90, HAR-7020 1360 +/-80. The first three are associated with the silt and ash, the last with the oval stone structure. *[All of these three inexplicably late for the overall sequence, the excavator considering them to have been reworked or otherwise acted upon].
Remains/Period Y4 Y3
County Somerset
Region SW
National grid square ST
X coordinate 295
Y coordinate 588
Bibliographic source Taylor and Taylor 1949, Bell 1990, Bruck 1995


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004