Bronze Age mass burial discovered in Scotland – History Blog

A Bronze Age barrow has been discovered in southwest Scotland containing the ashes of at least eight people buried in an incident between 1439 and 1287 BC. Five urns were buried closely together in a pit, indicating a mass burial, possibly of a family.

The barrow was discovered during an archaeological survey during the construction of a new access road to Twenty Shillings Wind Farm. In a pit in the center of the circular ditch, there are five broken urns. The pits and urns were filled with a mixture of alder, birch and hazel charcoal. Some hazelnut shells were also recovered from the pits and urns. Different woods, nutshells, and grains suggest that the funeral pyres were constructed from a variety of local woods, and that rituals may have included the serving of food on the pyres.

One urn, consisting of 54 fragments, contained the ashes of an adult and an animal. The second urn consisted of 245 fragments and contained the ashes of an adult and a teenager. The third block, made up of 200 fragments, also contained the remains of an adult and a teenager. The fourth urn contains 350 fragments and contains the ashes of an adult, as well as grains of emmer wheat and barley. The most damaged container consisted of only 30 fragments and was in poor condition, but the fillings still filled the space enough to identify the remains of an adult, a teenager, as well as willow charcoal and a grain of barley. When the filling of the burial pit was sifted, more human remains were discovered.

The ring ditch also contains a mixed combination of alder, birch and hazel charcoal, with traces of hazelnut shells. The medium-sized stones at the top of the fill are thought to be the remains of a cairn erected above the burial pit.

This was an unusual cremation burial for its time and place, providing new information on Bronze Age funerary customs in southwest Scotland.

The body of the deceased, twenty shillings, had not been left for a long time to become partially decomposed, as is common in other ancient tombs. This also suggests that they were buried once, rather than over a long period of time. At Broughton in the Scottish Borders, another ancient tomb excavated by Guard archaeologists in recent years found the bodies of the deceased exposed for a long time before being cremated, suggesting a long period of time between death and burial. Like many other Bronze Age tombs in Scotland, the burials at Broughton were inserted over a long period of time rather than all at once.

This is not apparent at Twenty Shillings, perhaps because the local community here does not have time for burial rituals. The Bronze Age at Dumfries and Galloway may have been a particularly stressful period, as other burials, such as the Brierby Burial at Machars, show evidence of famine and abandonment.