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Bayesian Modeling of an Early Bronze Age Cemetery at Armadale, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2016

Anthony M Krus  and
Mary Peteranna
Anthony M Krus*
Affiliation:
SUERC, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride, G75 0QF, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Mary Peteranna
Affiliation:
AOC Archaeology Group, Inverness Office, Bank Street, Cromarty, Ross-shire, IV11 8YE, Scotland, United Kingdom.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Excavations from 2009–2010 in Armadale, Isle of Skye, Scotland, encountered a burial site with seven cists, pits containing cremation burials, a kerbed cairn, and a small stone and post circle. Twenty-one radiocarbon measurements were taken from single entities of wood charcoal, carbonized residue on pottery, and cremated human bone. A site chronology has been constructed using a Bayesian approach that considers the stratigraphic contexts and feature formation processes. The site was host to thousands of years of discontinuous human activity beginning with little understood Mesolithic and Neolithic components. Modeling estimates that mortuary activity at the site began in the Early Bronze Age in 2220–1985 cal BC (95% probability) and to have ended in 1880–1660 cal BC (95% probability). The span of activity during this burial component is estimated to be 140–520 yr (95% probability) in the primary Bayesian model and 50–470 yr (95% probability) in an alternative model. These modeling results demonstrate that human burial at Armadale was an infrequent event and further suggest that the memory of the location and social role of Armadale as a burial ground persisted throughout much of the Early Bronze Age.

Keywords

Bayesian modelingScotlandBronze Age
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 693 - 708
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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