Category Archives: Thanet archaeology

News items about Thanet archaeology

VM_365 Day 240 Reconstruction of Roman cremation burial at Thorne

Archaeology, Art Inspired by the Past, Landscape, Roman, Thorne, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Reconstruction of 1st century Roman cremation at Thorne
Reconstruction of 1st century Roman cremation at Thorne

The image for Day 240 of the VM_365 project is of an artists reconstruction of the child’s grave, containing cremated remains and accessory vessels, based on one (Grave 5) excavated on a gas pipeline near Thorne, near Minster in Thanet, which was shown on Day 239. The painting is by Len Jay whose work reconstructing images from the Anglo-Saxon archaeology of Thanet, which he helped to discover, have featured in previous VM_365 posts on Day 216 and Day 217.

The image shows the rectangular pit being prepared to receive the pot containing the cremation, with the accessory vessels already in place. The grave has been excavated with a wooden shovel, strengthened by an iron blade added to the tip. On the left of the pit there is a heap of chalk from the geology that has been exposed below a thin covering of soil.   Human bones are present in the chalk, reflecting the many thousands of years that the landscape was used to create funerary monuments and the fact that successive generations often disturbed the remains of those that came before them, accidentally or deliberately.

On the left of the group of figures  surrounding the grave, a child is about to add a plate of food to accompany the vessels. Organic remains like food are something which we can not now detect through archaeology except in the rarest of circumstances, but the vessels imply that such perishable things were placed with the remains. The girl is comforted by a boy to her right and a dog howls into the air.

The burial of the cremated remains takes place on the crest of the ridge which forms the backbone of Thanet’s chalk landscape,  in the top right a sailing vessel is shown in the Wantsum channel  which is overlooked by the ridge. In the top right small figures tend a flock of sheep on the crest of the ridge. The prevailing wind that swept the open downland ridge, blowing the hair of the group to the left is still notable in the present day.

A cremation burial is simply the gathered ashes of a burnt body, that was arranged with vessels and other objects according to prevailing beliefs and sealed below a covering of soil, forming a lasting memorial to the person buried. The burning of a body is taking place in the background of this image on the crest of the ridge, using the wind to accelerate the wood fuelled fire so it could reach the temperatures that were necessary to reduce the body to ashes.

The landscape in this picture is recognisable to anyone who knows Thanet well, although it has changed considerably in recent years. However the details of the scene may reflect accurate archaeological data, it is still evocative of a distant time and of the human stories behind the objects that we recover as archaeological artefacts.

VM_365 Day 232 Crouched burial at Bradstow School, Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Bronze Age, From the Archives, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 232

Following on from yesterday’s image of the Bronze Age barrow at Bradstow School, Broadstairs, today’s picture for Day 232 of the VM_365 project shows the crouched burial of a child which was inserted on the periphery of the Barrow.

The grave, which is cut into the chalk geology, contained the remains of a child lying crouched on its left hand side facing south. Only the child’s skull, shown on the left side of the image and some of the long bones of the legs survived.

A collared urn was placed as an accessory vessel on the southern side of the skull. Sherds from the urn can be seen as grey fragments showing up against the white bones of the skull and the brownish discolouration of the chalk at the base of the grave.

The grave was  inserted on the periphery of the barrow , presumably  some time after the barrow had been constructed for a central primary burial which may lie outside the area of excavation.

VM_365 Day 231 Round barrow at Bradstow School, Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Bronze Age, From the Archives, Thanet archaeology, Thanet's Heritage Pioneers, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Project
Excavated round barrow at Bradstow school, Broadstairs
Round barrow excavated at Bradstow school, Broadstairs in 2009

The image for Day 231 of the VM_365 project is of the portion of the ring ditch of a round barrow which was excavated at Bradstow School, Broadstairs  in 2009. The image shows the regular series of segments taken out of the fill of the ring ditch to reveal sections at intervals around the circuit.

The ring ditch is one of a group of four similar ring ditches which are distributed around the terminal of a dry valley where it meets the east facing aspect of a rounded chalk-downland hill,  now occupied by the extensive grounds of the Bradstow school, formerly a private House called Valletta House.

The Bronze Age landscape of the hilltop has been revealed in a remarkably extended series of investigations that began with an excavation carried out in 1910 by Howard Hurd, who featured in the post for Day 40. Hurd revealed a double ring ditch, probably representing a barrow that had been extended or refurbished at some time during its period of use as a funerary monument. Two further ring ditches were recorded in excavations carried out by the Broadstairs and St.Peters Archaeological Society (BSPAS) with the assistance of the British Museum (BM), to the  west and south west of Hurd’s excavation.

The construction of a new facility for Bradstow School within part of the playing field in 2006, resulted in the discovery and excavation of a very large causewayed ring ditch, which may have been a ceremonial enclosure rather than a funerary monument like those that had been discovered by the earlier work. Nearby an unusually small ring ditch contained four graves, an unusual feature that does not fit into the conventional classifications of prehistoric burials in Thanet.

When a former garden site standing  immediately adjacent to the western most of the ring ditches recorded in the BSPAS and BM excavations was chosen as the location of a new swimming pool for the School, there was a further opportunity to explore the Bronze Age landscape of this Broadstairs hill top. Evaluation trenches revealed the circuit of another ring ditch, which was partly excavated before the pool was built. This excavation was carried out nearly a century after Howard Hurd’s discovery of the barrow under the lawns of Valleta House.

The centre of the barrow where a primary burial might be expected was not exposed in the excavation. Two rectangular graves were associated with the ring ditch,  one within the circuit which was severely truncated and contained no human remains. The other grave was perhaps inserted on the periphery of the barrow at a later date, it  contained the remains of a child, lying crouched on its left hand side facing south, with a collared urn placed as an accessory vessel on the southern side of the skull.

The ring ditch excavated in 2009, which had a diameter of approximately 24m continued the linear series of barrows that line the edge of the arc that is formed by the intersection of the dry valley with the hill top.  Each point around the arc commanded a vista across the lower lying land and the sea, which may have been an important factor in the choice of location for these burial mounds in the Bronze Age and of the large causewayed ring ditch which stood very near to them.

VM_365 Day 228 Teaching Beaker era with tabletop excavation

Archaeology, Beaker, Broadstairs, Education, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project, What's going on?

VM 228The image for Day 228 of the VM_365 project is of a resource the Trust has created for teaching some of the themes of prehistory in primary school workshops, a table top Beaker burial  given its first trial recently at a primary school in Broadstairs.  The tabletop layout includes a skeleton in a crouched position, accompanied by a replica Beaker vessel and a contemporary barbed-and-tanged arrowhead.

One element of the workshop is a discussion of pre-history as an idea, drawing out the sense that it describes periods in the development of human societies where no stories told directly by the people themselves exist. Studying prehistoric periods requires a process of investigation, based on the observation of objects and the circumstances of discovery. To generate narratives from the evidence requires imagination to draw out associations and analogies with contemporary life experiences.

The burial and accompanying objects create a detailed scenario to provoke discussion and demonstrate how archaeologists have used the detailed investigation of the pottery, flintwork and the human remains separately to provide data. Revealing the burial from under its covering of grassy topsoil (top images) adds a sense of the theatre of discovery which is such a part of the archaeological investigation process.

The combination of the artefacts and the burial into a recognisable archaeological scenario gives the children an insight into the practical circumstances of investigation where archaeologists generate their data. They can take part themselves in creating and debating their own versions of the narrative of the burial.

For an archaeologist well versed in the complexities of theoretical approaches to prehistory and the interpretative models and debates that are generated from them, it is fascinating to see these same arguments arise among such young minds based on the first principles of observation and imagination provoked by a Beaker burial presented in their own classroom.

Beyond the educational aspects of the activity, there is the opportunity to create a great deal of fun, with much ooing and aahing as the bones are revealed followed by a flood of questions and a great deal of humour. Previous VM_365 posts on prehistoric pottery and human bone themed education activities were made way back on Day 11 and Day 12

VM_365 Day 216 Art and Anglo-Saxon archaeology

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Art Inspired by the Past, From the Archives, Lord of the Manor, Manston, Ramsgate, Thanet archaeology, Thanet's Heritage Pioneers, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 216

The image for Day 216 of the VM_365 project is drawn from our slide collection, with reproductions of a series of sketches illustrating aspects of the archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries that are such a significant part of Thanet’s archaeological landscape.

Thanet has been lucky to have had several talented illustrators among its archaeological community.  A drawing by the Trust’s first Director Dave Perkins featured on Day 111 of the VM_365 project. Today’s images were drawn by Len Jay, a founding member of the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Unit, the predecessor of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology and the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society. Len Jay was a trained artist and used his abilities to create imaginative illustrations of some of the significant aspects of the archaeology that the Thanet Unit became involved in.

The images in today’s post illustrate a common phenomenon encountered during the investigation of Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries where archaeologists began to discover that they were not always the first to have dug into the graves furnished with valuable  goods such as weapons, items of jewellery, clothing and vessels in pottery and glass. It is now recognised that many early Anglo-Saxon graves that were were robbed not long after they had been created.

The upper part of the image in today’s post shows a section through a recently created grave, with its occupant dressed in typical costume and accompanied with a shield, sword and knife. In the distance the family are leaving the graveside. In the lower image, two grave robbers have excavated a pit into the centre of the mound that marks the site of the grave, piling the spoil in a heap. They too are seen making a hasty exit with the objects they have recovered.

Grave robbing at an early period has been recognised in many of the large early medieval cemeteries of northern Europe and the phenomenon extends to the cemeteries of East Kent. Although initially it may seem that the motives are relatively simple, recent study has started to consider whether the practise has more complex meanings, perhaps associated with the growth of Christianity and the ambiguous relationship of the converted population with the pagan graves of the pre-Christian era.

Len Jay used his talents as an artist to visualise the processes that were being observed in excavations and explored their meaning through his visual representation, which complemented the body of written material that was also being generated.

 

VM_365 Day 215 Roman military buckle from Broadstairs building

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Roman, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 215

The  image for Day 125 is of a copper alloy object, found in the the excavation of a Roman building at Broadstairs.

On two sides of a square flat frame (top and bottom in the image) there are the remains of attachments  for a central panel of decorative openwork which is now missing. The X-Ray image on thetop right of the image shows the attachments in finer detail  A leather belt strap would have been hooked over the outer frame, under the patterned centre and over the frame again, creating a decorative adjustable buckle for the belt.

Although the connecting attachments of the openwork could not be matched exactly to any similar pieces, this style of  buckle has been found in military contexts  in Britain and across Europe.

Two variants of this sort of openwork buckle have been found at the Roman fort at Richborough, other published examples come from Dacia (modern Romania) and  Osterburken in Germany. An illustration of a similar buckle from the Fort of the Roman military unit Cohors I Breucorum from their base at Pfunz in southern Germany is shown for comparison with the Broadstairs find at the bottom right.

The question is what was this buckle doing in Broadstairs?

VM_365 Day 203 A Beaker from Dumpton Down Broadstairs

Archaeology, Beaker, Broadstairs, From the Archives, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 203

Today’s image for VM_365 Day 203 is of aLate Neolithic/Early Bronze Age Beaker, found in an excavation at South Dumpton Down near Broadstairs in 1992, which was led by David Perkins, the first director of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology.
The beaker was found among a complex group of graves that were enclosed by the ring ditch of a roundbarrow. The graves that were excavated at the centre of the ring ditch contained the remains of seven individuals laid in a variety of orientations. Some of the burials were in crouched positions, others were truncated and disarticulated.
The complexity of the grave group led to some confusion about  what the exact association was between the Beaker and any of the individuals in the grave  group. The confusion was aggravated by the presence of Food Vessel type pottery within the grave group, which is not often associated with Beaker graves. Recent reflection on the exact sequence of events represented by the deposits that were excavated and the initial interpretation made of them, points to the probability that the burial sequence was not properly understood. It seems that the graves within the barrow accumulated over a period of time, cutting through earlier burials and truncating them.
The earliest of the graves appears to be that of an adult buried on its left hand side in a rectangular grave, accompanied by the Beaker. This fits recent discoveries of Beaker burials in Thanet, which generally seem have been made in well cut rectangular graves, probably enclosing a coffin or chamber.
The Beaker is quite crudely made in comparison with vessels like the one from North Foreland shown in VM_365 Day 176, with an unusual scheme of impressed decoration with possible connections to the Netherland’s ‘Potbeker‘ tradition. In the classificatory models that have been proposed for Beakers it belongs to Clarke’s Mid Rhine Group, or Lanting and Van der Waals‘ (1972) Step 3 classification.
The South Dumpton Down Beaker is currently on long term loan to Dover Museum and can be seen in the Bronze Age gallery at the Museum. More information on Thanet’s Beakers can be found in the Beaker gallery of the Trust’s Virtual Museum.

VM_365 Day 202 The Beck bronze hoard Minnis Bay

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Thanet archaeology, Thanet's Heritage Pioneers, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 202

Today’s image for Day 202 of the VM_365 project is of the bronze objects, pottery and other artefacts in what has become known as the Beck Hoard.

In 1938 a boy called James Beck noticed some dark patches on the flat wave cut platform on the beach beyond the cliffs at Minnis Bay, Birchington. With the assistance of Antoinette-Powell Cotton who lived nearby at Quex Park, James excavated and recorded several of the pits and the finds within them.

In one of the pits the large bronze hoard shown today’s image was recovered, along with some large sherds of pottery. The hoard contained swords, palstave and socketed axes, spear heads along with smaller bronze objects, ingots and fittings. The details of the Beck hoard were published in Archaeologia Cantiana by G.F. Pinfold, curator of the Powell-Cotton Museum and Major Percy Powell-Cotton.

The pits were once  much deeper, having been cut from a land surface that stood at a higher elevation, which had been truncated by wave action to the level of the eroded platform that lies at the base of the present cliff line.

The Beck hoard is one of several that have been found on the present coastline of the north side of Thanet, the earliest discovery being the Mutrix Farm hoard which was shown in VM_365 Day 81. Rapid erosion of the soft deposits along this coastline is eating its way into the valleys and hill tops that would have been some distance from the sea in the Bronze Age landscape.

VM_365 Day 200 Difficult to date

Archaeology, Iron Age, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
VM 200The image for Day 200 of the VM_365 project is of a complete pottery vessel which was found on a building site somewhere in eastern Cliftonville, Margate. The significance of this pot is that it has proved very difficult to date using the conventional methods of fabric analysis and typology that archaeologists use to date prehistoric pottery.
The ceramic of most periods have ‘signatures’; typical vessel shapes and types of decoration. Sometimes fragments of pottery, or a complete vessel as in this case, can be found that defies ready interpretation.
The fabric of the vessel in the image is flint tempered and it is quite well made, but it does not belong easily in any Later Prehistoric period. The vessel can’t be from an earlier prehistoric period, before around 1500 BC,  because all Early to Middle Neolithic pots were flint tempered, but had round bases.  The other Early Prehistoric potting traditions; Late Neolithic Grooved Ware or the Early Bronze Age Beakers and Urns; were predominantly made from grog-tempered fabric.
Sometimes the context of discovery of a vessel helps to fit it into a particular period, but all we know about this vessel is that it was recovered from a building site, without any further information. Specialists who have examined the vessel have been left scratching their heads, although one has suggested a date in the Middle Iron Age, somewhere between c.400-300 BC or a little later, although it is far from typical of the pots of that period.
This interesting puzzle shows that although archaeologists have been able to characterise the typical pottery from many periods, and fit them into a complex scheme describing the development and progress of styles and potting techniques, there is always the rare possibility of an outlier which has previously been unrecognised emerging  and upsetting the established rules, leaving room for new research and ideas to be developed.
We are grateful to Nigel Macpherson Grant for today’s image and posing this ceramic conundrum.

VM_365 Day 195 Another reconstructed Jar from the Roman Kitchen at Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Roman, Roman pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM_195

The image for Day 195 is of another vessel from the Roman Kitchen found in the remains of a Roman building excavated at Broadstairs, a Knife-trimmed necked-jar in a grey-black Native Coarse Ware with grog and sand filler. The diameter around the exterior of the rim is 240 mm. and the surface is fired grey with patchy black and pink surfaces. This particular style of vessel can be dated to around 170-250 AD.

One hundred and twenty fresh sherds from the vessel were recovered from the thick deposit of pottery, making up nearly three quarters of this pot. Previous VM_365 posts have shown how vessels from the thick layer of pottery in one context have been reconstructed and this is the last of large jars that has been carefully pieced together by one of the Trust’s volunteers.

Like many of the other pots recovered from this deposit, the vessel appears to have been deliberately destroyed. A series of holes has been punched along the widest part of the body, as if the pot was systematically pierced with a thin rod or blade. Reconstructing the vessels has shown this pattern of holes punched with  sharp object to be preserved in the distribution of sherd breaks in several of the larger pots and a moratorium recovered from the deposit.