ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 
length face upwards, while many cinerary urns of pottery containing the 
ashes of the dead were also recovered whole, all lying near the surface 
and sometimes arranged in straight lines. Fragments of other urns could 
not be pieced together, and Mr. Fitch concluded that many cremated 
burials had been disturbed by Saxons or others who opened the ground 
to deposit, whether in an urn or the bare earth, the dead of a later gener- 
ation. He was of opinion that urn-burial was the more ancient rite 
practised in this cemetery, but that at a later date the burial of the 
unburnt body was contemporary with the deposit of human remains in | 
urns. Observations on other sites confirm the priority of urn- burial, and 
there was no doubt a transition period during which cremation fell into 
disuse, but it would be difficult to prove that it persisted in this case till 
the cemetery was closed. According to all accounts there is here no 
question of Christian interments in coffins, neither the contents nor 
direction of the graves suggesting that any are later than the conversion 
of the English during the seventh century. Accepting therefore the 
chronology of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the Saxon conquest of the 
district, the cemetery may be approximately dated between the years 
550 and 650, but there are some objects from the graves that were manu- 
factured, if not interred with their owners, about the middle of the 
fifth century, and it is quite possible that the cemetery was in use for 
two hundred years, or longer if Dr. Arthur Evans is right in referring 
them to the third century. 
Forty years ago there were few to study Anglo-Saxon remains and 
fewer still to report at length on the exploration of a cemetery ; but, 
for the time, the find at Kempston is recorded with remarkable fidelity 
and detail. Still many particulars, not at that time regarded as essential, 
are omitted from the account, and the value of the important series of 
relics now in the national collection is thereby somewhat impaired. Of 
certain broad features there can be no doubt; the burials were not ar- 
ranged according to any definite plan, and cinerary urns were discovered 
among unburnt interments in all parts of the cemetery. But besides 
these were a few that call for special remark. On 16 November 1863 
a pit was discovered in the cemetery, over 7 feet in length, from 3 to 
4 feet wide and the same in depth, where a body stretched at full 
length had been consumed by fire. About 2 feet from the surface was 
a large quantity of ashes, and among them were found portions of a 
human skull, vertebre and other bones, all charred, but the leg bones 
showing less traces of fire than the rest of the skeleton. In the ashes 
and on the left side of the body was a long iron spearhead with a 
portion of the wooden shaft left in the socket, and also an iron knife ; 
while surrounding these remains lay numerous pieces of charred wood, 
and ends of branches not quite burnt through. It seemed as if the pit 
had been partially filled with live embers, on which the deceased was 
laid, and then large branches heaped above it. Bones of some small 
animal, perhaps a rat, were also found, and had no doubt been burnt on 
the same occasion ; while an urn g inches high, half filled with the burnt 
I 177 23 
