Iron Age

Early Iron Age

2,600 to 2,500 years ago

Like the Late Bronze Age, little is known about the disposal of the dead in this period. There seems to be few consistant burials practices across the country and few burials have been recovered. As before this is likely to be due to the disposal method not leaving many burial sites for modern archaeologists to find. Burials have been found in settlement sites such as Gussage All Saints, Dorset, and hillforts such as Danebury and Winklebury in Hampshire. These include skeletons with parts missing, and burials of individual bones, especially skulls, at the bottom of pits in hillforts.

It would seem that there was a 'selection' of particular bones, after a period of excarnation, for burial rather than burial of the whole skeleton. This selection process suggests that certain bones were thought to have special or ritual properties but no mater what the reason only a few of the dead were selected for this process.

This again seems to point to a continuing move away from a collective, community of the dead to a more individualised view of the after life. Again there seems to be a rise in ritual around the body.

Middle Iron Age

2,500 to 2,300 years ago

During this period there is evidence that certain cultures in England were beginning to 'emulate' some of the exotic behaviour of the continent. These continental rites would have been brought to this country through the extensive trade routes that had developed by this time. The Arras culture of Yorkshire consists of large cemeteries with graves under mounds surrounded by rectangular ditched enclosures but unlike the 'La Tene burials on the continent the English burials were in a crouched position.

A good, and rather spectacular, example of this 'imported' behaviour is The West Yorkshire Chariot Burial.

Above: The West Yorkshire Chariot Burial. © Oxford Archaeology

The burial consisted of a large oval pit that had been dug in the centre of a square ditched enclosure.

The pit would originally have been covered over by a low mound of earth excavated from the pit and surrounding ditch.

This spoil would have been brilliant white, the area being mainly limestone, and this would have lead to the mound being highly visible from quite a distance

This burial is typical of the period in that it was lavish but not typical of the disposal of the remains of 'ordinary' people. It would seem that only certain individuals were buried intact and with grave goods such as this. We can assume that the subject of the chariot burials, and other inhumations of the period, were leaders either socially or spiritually and as such they 'deserved' special treatment when they died. This tends to how that during this time social status was being continued into the burial rituals and that perhaps into the other world.

During this period and the later Late Iron Age we still see the association of the dead and water with the ritual deposition of bog bodies such as Lindow Man.

Late iron Age

2,300 to 1,900 years ago

During this period we start to see inhumations with the dead being provided with grave goods. Men usually have swords, shields and sometimes spears, women have mirrors, and sometimes bronze bowls or beads indicating, perhaps for the first time, that social, gender, roles were believed to carry forward into the other world. However this practice, inhumation with grave goods, does seem to be limited to certain sections of the society and most are individual inhumation marking a distinct break from the earlier practice of a community of the dead.

The disposal of the remains of the 'ordinary' people of the time seems to be much less spectacular with, it is thought, the bodies being subject to excarnation and the bones placed in pits or ditches for disposal. A good example of this was discovered at Greenhouse Farm, Newmarket Road, Fen Ditton in Cambridgeshire.

In one of the pits excavated on this site scattered bone fragments, of one or more young children were recovered. These remains were recovered from pits that also contained domestic rubbish and may therefore indicate that the remains of 'ordinary' people were not taken any significant distance from their former homes and also reinforces the difference in burial ritual between the powerful and not so powerful.

During the latter part of the Late Iron age cremation cemeteries did begin to reappear and one of the most important excavated so far is at Westhampnett, in West Sussex. The burial ground consisted of 161 cremation graves and a number of pyre sites surrounding a circular cleared space

Whether this represented a shift back to communal death rituals because of a change in religious belief or the reintroduction of an older belief is unknown however the practice of 'special' people receiving dramatic and spectactulr burials continues during this time so one possibility is that this represents a continuation and development of the individualistic faith structure rather than the return to a more communal community of the dead.

A very powerful example of this is the selection of certain individuals for a very special death and burial. Theses are the so called 'Bog Bodies', perhaps the most well known example being Lindow man

Lindow Man was found in a corner of the ancient Lindow peat bog that is Lindow Moss.
In 1983 Lindow Moss peat diggers unearthed a female human head; the next year they dug up a human leg. After an investigation a complete head & body were found and turned out to be an Iron Age man; Lindow man was about 25 years old when he met his end in 2BCE and seems to have suffered the 'Celtic' triple death.

1)He seems to have been viciously strangled and garroted-his throat split from one end to the other;
2)His head bears evidence that he was bludgeoned by something like the blunt side of an ax blade;
3) His neck and torso reveal other marks, such as stab wounds, that can be explained by violent events.

On top of this, his stomach contents include grains of mistletoe pollen mixed with the remnants of a simple grain cake. This has been taken as a possible Druid link.

We must however be careful not too read too much into this find. All we can be sure of was that his death was non accidental and that his body was deposited in the water of the bog.

Again the continuing individual view of the after life is represented here but there now seems to be a change represented by the difference in grave goods between men and women and the distinction between the burials of the powerful and ritually important people and the ordinary people.
This may reflect the changing roles in society but certainly reflects a change in the roles that men and women were seen as performing in the other world.

This imposition of a structure of society in the other world based on the prevailing one in the living world, ie only important people buried but with great treasures and the rest cremated or disposed of in some other non surviving way, shows I suggest that these people saw the other world and after life as very much an extension of the familiar one here among the living. No haven and hell here!