Monument record TYN 134 - Bronze Age concentric ring ditch and cremation burials, Land at High Road

October 2018: Evaluation recorded a number of small pits and dicthes. Extrapolation of the recorded ditch segments suggests at least five separate ditches ran across the site. These are likely to be differing phases of field boundaries. One ditch is related to a boundary marked on an 1880s map and yielded post-medieval artefacts including a late date. An urned Middle bronze Age cremation burial was recorded in one trench and an additional area was opened that revealed three further cremation burials, one of which was also in an urn.

The evaluation and subsequent excavation revealed a total of seven cremation burials, two of which were contained within urns. A ring ditch, with a diameter of c6.8m, was concentric with one of the un-urned cremation burials suggesting a mound had been constructed. Three possible burials were aso cut through the ditch fill indicating the area was used for burials after the ditch had become filled. The ditch fill also contained low levels of burnt human bone which may be from the deposition of pyre debris on or within the mound or ditch itself. Radiocarbon dating of the four cremation deposits indicates the cemtery was in use in the latter part of the Early Bronze Age through into the early Middle bronze Age.

Three small pits or possible post holes, each with a charcoal rich fll, were noted within the area of the ring ditch, and a further pit or possible post hole was recorded just outside the ring ditch. No dating evidence was recorved from these features but they are thought to be associated with the burials (S1).