Ingleby
Barwick Cemetery
When
police found human remains at a Stockton building
site foul play was suspected. However the bodies
turned out to be over 4000 years old and are an
almost unique example of an Early Bronze Age cemetery
with an unparalleled wealth of metalwork and grave
goods.
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In
late November 1996 builders cutting a new road
found human bones in their spoil. The police and
Tees Archaeology were called to the site to investigate.
Initial examination showed that two individual
burials had been disturbed. A piece of Beaker
pottery dating to between 2100BC and 1700BC was
also discovered. It soon became apparent that
the human remains were extremely ancient and the
site was subject to a rapidly organised salvage
excavation.
The
surrounding area was cleared and a large oval
pit was discovered. The pit contained a rectangular
block of darker material which appears to have
been a former timber structure, possibly a cist
. Inside the structure were the remains of
two groups of bones, each of which consisted of
a skull and several long bones. These individuals
were probably excarnated before being
placed in the timber cist. Excarnation is the
practice of allowing a body to decay before it
is buried by leaving it in an exposed location.
The bones are then collected and deliberately
placed in a grave or tomb.
Nearby
was a second oval grave. This contained the complete
skeleton of an adult lying on his side in a crouched
position. At the feet of this body was a fine
polished stone mace head. The mace head was lying
only inches from the access road which had originally
disturbed the graves and could easily have been
lost or destroyed.
These
finds prompted us to widen our search and a large
area was stripped and hand cleaned. This led to
the discovery of two more graves. One of these
graves had been badly disturbed by ploughing but
the other was in excellent condition. The remains
were those of a woman who was laid in her grave
lying on her side with her hands brought up beneath
her chin. The remains of a second individual had
been placed close to the woman. These remains
had been stacked into a small pile, again suggesting
an excarnated burial.
Excavation
of the female revealed that she had been buried
wearing a range of copper jewellery. Working conditions
were extremely difficult with short December days
and hard winter frosts so it was decided to lift
the torso of the skeleton as a single block. It
could then be excavated under laboratory conditions.
To do this the block was frozen solid with dry
ice, carefully lifted, x-rayed and painstakingly
excavated by a trained conservator at the University
of Durham. The excavation of this block led to
the recovery of 41 tubular beads, 25 jet buttons
and 79 very small jet beads. The woman had a plain
copper bangle on one arm and a more substantial
ribbed copper bracelet on the other.
The
skeletons were subsequently radio-carbon dated
with the results suggesting a date of around 1800
BC, the very dawn of the Bronze Age.
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