Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T13:34:59.214Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF EARLY ANGLO-SAXON GRAVES AND GRAVE GOODS: NEW RADIOCARBON DATA FROM RAF LAKENHEATH, ERISWELL, SUFFOLK, AND A NEW CALIBRATION CURVE (IntCal20)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

John Hines
John Hines*
Affiliation:
Professor John Hines, Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, CardiffCF10 3EU, UK. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Between 1998 and 2008, 450 inhumation burials of the fifth to eighth centuries ad were excavated in four separate but adjacent burial grounds within RAF Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk. Study of the evidence has been based on the typology of the national chronological framework of sixth- and seventh-century graves and grave goods published in 2013, and correlated also with a related East Anglian regional scheme. Fifty high-precision radiocarbon dates allow for thorough evaluation of the scope for applying the phase-structure and estimated date-boundaries of the national framework to this one large site. The results can be held to reproduce the core sequence of the national framework, albeit with necessary modifications that provide greater insights into the processes used to generate models of the data, besides significant modifications to the perceived date-ranges of certain artefact-types. The results have also been markedly influenced (and apparently improved) by a new standard calibration curve, IntCal20, launched in August 2020. This study thus suggests key agenda for further productive research into this contextually vital body of information.

Keywords

Anglo-Saxon archaeologychronologyscientific datingmodellingradiocarbon dating
Type
Research paper
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 101 , September 2021 , pp. 106 - 142
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Antiquaries of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrews, P, Last, J, Osgood, R and Stoodley, N 2019. A Prehistoric Burial Mound and Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Barrow Clump, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, Wessex Archaeology, SalisburyGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A, Hines, J, Høilund Nielsen, K, McCormac, G and Scull, C 2013. Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries AD: a chronological framework, Society for Medieval Archaeology, LeedsGoogle Scholar
Bede 1969. Ecclesiastical History of the English People, eds and trans Bertram Colgrave and R A B Mynors, Clarendon Press, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Blackmore, L, Blair, I, Hirst, S and Scull, C 2019. The Prittlewell Princely Burial, Museum of London Archaeology, LondonGoogle Scholar
Blair, J, Hines, J and Madgwick, R in prep. ‘A re-appraisal of the post-Roman human burials at the Shakenoak villa site, Oxfordshire’Google Scholar
Böhme, H W 1974. Germanische Grabfunde des 4. bis 5. Jahrhunderts zwischen unteren Elbe und Loire, 2 vols, C H Beck, MunichGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C 2020. ‘OxCal version 4.4.2’, https://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/oxcal/ (accessed 6 Jan 2021)Google Scholar
Brugmann, B 2004. Glass Beads from Early Anglo-Saxon Graves, Oxbow, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Buck, C E and Sahu, S K 2000. ‘Bayesian models for relative archaeological chronology building’, J Roy Stat Soc Series C, Appl Stats, 49, 423–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caruth, J and Anderson, S 1999. ‘RAF Lakenheath Anglo-Saxon cemetery’, Current Archaeol, 163, 244–50Google Scholar
Caruth, J and Hines, J forthcoming. The Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries at RAF Lakenheath, Eriswell Parish, Suffolk: excavations 1997–2008, East Anglian ArchaeolGoogle Scholar
Fern, C J 2015. ‘Before Sutton Hoo: the prehistoric remains and Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Tranmer House, Bromeswell, Suffolk’, East Anglian Archaeol, 155Google Scholar
Fern, C J, Webster, L and Dickinson, T M (eds) 2019. The Staffordshire Hoard: an Anglo-Saxon treasure, Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report 80, LondonCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, B and Rogerson, A 1978. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Bergh Apton, Norfolk, East Anglian Archaeol 7, Norfolk Archaeological UnitGoogle Scholar
Green, B, Rogerson, A and White, S 1987. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Morning Thorpe, Norfolk, East Anglian Archaeol 36, 2 vols, Norfolk Archaeological UnitGoogle Scholar
Hancock, A J and Zeepvat, R J 2018. Wulfhere’s People: a Conversion-period Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wolverton, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, AylesburyGoogle Scholar
Haughton, C and Powlesland, D 1999. West Heslerton: the Anglian cemetery, 2 vols, Landscape Research Centre, YedinghamGoogle Scholar
Hills, C M, Penn, K and Rickett, R J 1994. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Norfolk: part V, East Anglian Archaeol 34, Norfolk Archaeological UnitGoogle Scholar
Hines, J 1997. A New Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Great Square-Headed Brooches, Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report 51, LondonGoogle Scholar
Høilund Nielsen, K 1997. ‘The schism of Anglo-Saxon chronology’, in Kjeld Jensen, C and Høilund Nielsen, K (eds), Burial & Society: the chronological and social analysis of archaeological burial data, 71–99, Aarhus University Press, AarhusGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, P 1966. ‘The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Little Eriswell, Suffolk’, Proc Cambridge Antiq Soc, 59, 1–32Google Scholar
Penn, K and Brugmann, B 2007. Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Inhumation Burial: Morning Thorpe, Spong Hill, Bergh Apton and Westgarth Gardens, East Anglian Archaeol 119, Norfolk Archaeological UnitGoogle Scholar
Reimer, P J, et al (twenty-five other authors) 2013. ‘IntCal13 and Marine1radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP’, Radiocarbon, 55 (4), 1869–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, P, et al (forty-one other authors) 2020. ‘The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0–55 cal kBP)’, Radiocarbon, 62, 725–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, S E 1988. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Westgarth Gardens, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, East Anglian Archaeol 38, Norfolk Archaeological UnitGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hines supplementary material

Hines supplementary material

Download Hines supplementary material(File)
File 6.8 MB