134 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ' 
Table 14. Dental inventory 
Key: The numbers represent the teeth present 
elements had survived. Most teeth were present but 
all were loose. It was not possible to ascertain if 
missing teeth had been lost ante or post mortem. 
Age and Sex 
This individual was possibly female aged between 
25 and 35 years. Five sites on the cranium assessed 
for the determination of sex provided an even mix 
of male and female scores and one indeterminate. 
Morphology of the long bones, however, suggested 
a female, since they are quite small and slender, 
with weak muscle attachment sites. 
Pathology 
No skeletal or dental pathological lesions were 
observed. 
The disarticulated human remains 
Preservation of these bones was very good, due to 
the waterlogged nature of the fill in which they lay. 
Neither bone was complete and the breaks had 
occurred before deposition. After processing the 
femur shaft developed longitudinal fractures likely 
to have been caused by shrinkage as the bone dried 
out. Analysis of the bones is summarised in Table 15. 
The burnt bones 
Three small fragments of unidentifiable burnt 
bone, between 8 and 2 mm with a combined weight 
of 1 g, came from two fills (373 and 381) of the 
western terminal of ditch 783. 
Discussion 
Between the middle and late Bronze Age, a shift in 
funerary practices took place. Cremation burials 
became less common and from the late Bronze Age 
into the Iron Age, the dead are, to a large extent, 
archeologically invisible. Within specific contexts 
associated with settlements, however, human 
remains are frequently uncovered, commonly 
disarticulated cranial fragments and long bones. 
Articulated limbs and complete skeletons have also 
been found though these are not as common (Briick 
1995). The majority of sites yielding such bones are 
concentrated in central southern Britain. Sites in 
the Middle and Upper Thames Valley with similar 
features and deposits include Green Park (Brossler 
et al. 2003), Watkins Farm (Allen 1990) and 
Shorncote Quarry (Brossler et al. 2002). 
The deposition of disarticulated bones in pits is 
likely to be associated with exposure of the dead 
and secondary manipulation, which is thought to 
be the main burial ritual in southern Britain 
during the early and middle Iron Age (Carr and 
Knitsel 1997) and possibly the middle and later 
Bronze Age. This practice involved excarnation 
through exposure away from the settlement, with 
the subsequent retrieval of selected bones 
(commonly long bones and crania) or articulating 
limbs after an intermediate period of time when 
the body decayed. Bones would then have been 
ritually incorporated into deposits such as pits. 
This process accounts for the absence of small 
bones and flesh-bearing bones lost during exposure 
and animal scavenging during the excarnation 
process. 
The deposition of human bones, articulated 
skeletons or isolated bones during the late Bronze 
Age seems to have occurred when waterholes or pits 
no longer served their original function and may 
have been used as rubbish pits. The majority of 
waterholes and pits are situated at the edge of 
Table 15. The disarticulated remains 
Context 
number 
1752 Cranial vault - 25-35 
ft eo 
Female 
No pathology present. Size and shape of the bone 
suggests a female individual. 
Multiple lambdoid ossicles. No pathology 
present. 
