Cliffs End Conundrum
Over the last six months Wessex Archaeology have excavated a fascinating Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon site for Millwood Designer Homes in advance of their new housing development in Cliffs End, Thanet. The discoveries on the site have shed new light on Bronze Age burial practices and provided the archaeologists with a few puzzles to chew over.
The earliest remains on the site appear to belong to the Early Bronze Age (c.1800 BC). At this time a number of impressive barrows were erected on the site, focused on the brow of a hill or ridge extending as a peninsular into the mouth.
of the former Wantsum Sea Channel. The barrows, some of which were surrounded by two or three ring ditches, appeared to have central burials although no skeletal material survived. Two of the burial pits contained post-holes, suggesting the presence of a burial chamber, a rare discovery, while one grave contained a cache of over one hundred flint tools. These tools appear to have been buried in two bags and have been described by Wessex Archaeology's Phil Harding as falling within the 'Premier League' of rich early Bronze Age burials in Britain.
While the barrows alone are an important and fascinating discovery, it is the Late Bronze Age (c.1000 BC) discoveries which have fired the imagination of the archaeologists. At that time, while the barrows were still an important part of the landscape, the focus of activity appears to have moved to the lower eastern slope of the hill. There, two large 'midden pits', two large horseshoe shaped enclosures, and towards the very bottom of the slope, a substantial brick-earth quarry subsequently re-used as a burial ground, were discovered.
One of the horseshoe-shaped enclosures surrounded a concentration of pits and post-holes (yet to be fully interpreted) and may have acted as a focus for Late Bronze Age ceremonial activities. This 'midden pit', so named for want of a better description, contained a huge assemblage of Late Bronze Age finds, possibly the largest found so far in Kent, which included pottery, quern stone fragments, bronze ingots, animal bone and occasional fragments of human bone. Within its layers, a buried soil horizon suggests, that for a time at least, the slumped fills were covered in vegetation before being sealed by a hillwash deposit. While there are a few rare parallels for such a feature elsewhere in Britain, the Cliffs End findings are believed to be the first in Kent.
The most important findings on the site were the Late Bronze Age quarry pits. Initial assessment of the quality of the brickearth from the quarry suggests that the material is unlikely to have been used for the making of pottery, rather it would have more likely been used in the construction of daub walls for Bronze Age round houses. The evidence of buried soils within the fills of the quarry suggests that it was probably not open for more than a period of over hundred years and possibly only a matter of decades.
Within the hollows of the quarry pits, no less than 14 inhumations have been recorded and lifted. The majority appear to be female burials, some of which may reflect a traumatic death. In one burial the individual appears to have been thrown face down into a relatively shallow sloping scoop with hands tied at the wrists across the chest (below). Another was buried with their lower arms missing. A possible 'family' group of four adults and one juvenile were buried in a discrete pit within the quarry. One of the group, an elderly male, was buried holding a piece of chalk to his mouth in his left hand, whilst his right arm was out-stretched with his index finger pointing in the direction of the barrows on the hill (front page).
Radiocarbon dating of one of the skulls indicates that the burials took place at around 1000BC. This discovery has very important implications for our understanding of Late Bronze Age funerary practices, as the general rite at this time was cremation burial. The discovery has raised many questions: Why was this group selected for inhumation burial? Did they meet traumatic deaths as part of the Late Bronze Age funerary rite? Why was one burial apparently chewing a piece of chalk... could he perhaps be the quarryman? Hopefully some of these questions will be answered in the forthcoming post excavation works.
In the late 6th century AD, as is seen on a number of sites in Kent, an Anglo-Saxon community established an inhumation cemetery on the brow of the hill, close to and respecting the Early Bronze Age barrows, which must have remained a prominent feature in the landscape some 2500 years after their construction. At the centre of the cemetery, which comprised at least 12 graves, was the burial of a woman, suggested by the discovery of a necklace of polychrome glass beads and a small knife. Surrounding her were a number of male 'warrior' burials furnished with shields, spears and swords.
On the eastern slope of the hill a series of Anglo-Saxon pits were excavated. The majority of the pits each contained a slab of burnt sandstone in their lower fill and considerable quantities of shellfish in their upper fills. All the pits had been deliberately backfilled in the same manner and clearly had some connection with a ceremonial or feasting activity. A known practice is to pre-heat a stone in an open fire and slowly cook the shellfish on the heated stones.
Altogether the site has provided a series of remarkable discoveries which will be discussed in the archaeological text books for years to come.
Richard Greatorex, Wessex Archaeology