BURIAL EVIDENCE FROM ROMAN BRITAIN: THE UN-NUMBERED DEAD

Abstract

This paper argues that although the study of Roman period burial practice has become more methodologically advanced, it has not yet sufficiently assessed the character of the sample available for analysis. In particular, the degree to which that sample is representative of ancient populations must be further problematised. Using a case study of Roman Britain, it maps the distribution of available evidence by region, date and site type, and considers the implications of the biases which can be noted. Although at first sight relatively abundant, burial data from Britain are shown to derive disproportionately from late Roman urban cemeteries in the south of the province. The majority of the population (90% +) are considered to have lived in the countryside, but excavated rural burials are much rarer. Any inference of social and cultural change using burial evidence is therefore intrinsically limited, but this is not only an artefact of excavation bias. In parts of central and southern England where rural settlements have been very extensively excavated in advance of development and where conditions for preservation of human bone are good, formal burial is not documented until the late Roman period. Even then numbers of burials recorded are often small. A case can therefore be made for substantial continuity of the 'invisible' burial traditions of the Iron Age into the Roman period.