Classification and Analysis of Archaeological Contexts for the Reconstruction of Early Romano-British Cremation Funerals

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper reassesses analytical categories commonly used to reconstruct the ‘funerary sequence’ of cremation and associated deposition in early Roman Britain, looking in particular at pre-pyre and pyre activity, burial, and other forms of primary deposition. In order to develop a clearer picture of the actual contexts of ceremonial performance and installation, and even to begin to disentangle the manifold meanings these events would have held for original participants, it is first necessary to refine a ‘forensic’ approach to the data, remaining constantly aware of how our own assumptions about funerary behaviour can heavily influence what we think we see in the archaeological record.