Street
House Long Cairn
intro | gallery | reports |
further information
The Street House Long Barrow at Loftus lies
on the Cleveland coastline between Saltburn and
Staithes. This area was the final resting place
for many Bronze Age individuals. They erected
numerous burial mounds, many of which still survive.
The excavation of a Bronze Age mound at Street
House was prompted by the threat of plough damage
and the need to record the monument before it
was destroyed. At this point of the project the
excavators did not realise that they would be
dealing with a complex sequence of deposits that
would include a unique Neolithic mortuary structure.
The burial mound, as it stood, had a modern
field boundary running through it. Unfortunately
the ploughing on the south side of the hedge
had completely destroyed the mound. However the
north side had been protected by a build up of
soil that had accumulated against the boundary.
Where the Bronze Age mound survived it consisted
of a core of clay surrounded by water worn pebbles
and delimited by a kerb of large stones that
had been set upright. Several of the kerb stones
had characteristic cup marks carved into their
surfaces. These mysterious symbols are a common
feature at Bronze Age ritual sites.
The surviving part of the mound contained three
collared urns which held cremated human remains.
Only one of the urns was complete enough to allow
examination of the cremations. This held the
remains of at least three individuals including
a child and an adolescent.
As well as the three urns, two accessory cups
were also found along with 20 jet buttons. These
buttons may have been used to fasten clothing
or were perhaps used as beads on an elaborate
necklace.
As it turned out the most interesting part of
the excavation was completely unexpected. The
Bronze Age mound had been erected on top of a
much earlier burial monument dating to the Neolithic
period. This monument consisted of a long mound
of stone that was wider at one end than the other.
The mound was aligned east to west and was 36
metres long. Its widest end was 18 metres long
and its shortest end only 8 metres long.
The archaeologists carefully removed the stone
mound to examine how it was constructed and used.
Beneath the mound were the remains of three distinct
sections of the monument.
The wide end housed the entrance, which consisted
of a ditch with post holes cut into its base.
These post holes carried large timbers that formed
a façade at the entrance of the monument.
The post hole in the centre of the trench was
the largest and held a one metre wide timber.
The façade had two flanking arms, which
projected four metres out from the monument forming
a deep forecourt. A small arrangement of timber
posts within the forecourt may have been the
remains of an avenue leading to the structure.
Behind the façade were the remains of
a wooden rectangular burial chamber. The remains
within the chamber consisted of the body parts
of at least eight individuals. Before the bodies
had been placed in the chamber they had been
left to decay elsewhere in a process known as
excarnation.
Excarnation was common practice in the early
prehistoric periods although it seems a bizarre
and grisly practice today. Excarnation is the
process of leaving a body to the elements in
order that the soft tissue is stripped away leaving
the bare bones. The bones are then collected
and placed in a communal tomb. Often the bones
will be sorted and stacked into piles.
The third part of the monument consisted of
a kerbed enclosure at the narrower tail end.
There was some paving within the enclosure which
may have been an excarnation platform for placing
fresh corpses.
Once the monument had reached the end of its
life it was purposefully burnt to the ground.
The remains were then covered with the stone
mound to form a permanent landscape feature.
Radio-carbon dates were taken from the mound
which give an average date of around 2770bc
intro | gallery | reports | further
information |
