The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Early historic Britain
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Figure 10.3 Cremation burials at Spong Hill.
Source: David Wicks, Field Archaeology Division, Norfolk Museums Service
equipped with anything distinctive, and were not accompanied by weapons. Also burnt were glass
and bronze vessels, again representing the destruction of significant wealth, since they must all
have been imported. There were also sets of miniature tweezers, razors and shears, often with
full size or miniature combs, usually unburnt and found in graves of all ages and both sexes.
Similar cemeteries have been found elsewhere in eastern England, for example at Sancton in
Yorkshire, Loveden Hill and Elsham in Lincolnshire, and Newark, Nottinghamshire. Comparison
with the Continent shows a considerable overlap with finds from north Germany, in particular
from Schleswig Holstein and Lower Saxony. The grave goods are very similar, and much of the
pottery has the same decoration. The main point of difference is that stamped pottery is very
popular in England, but not common in north Germany. Some of the stamps used on the Spong
Hill pots include motifs such as animals, swastikas and runes, often carefully drawn, suggesting
that, initially at least, stamped decoration had some meaning, although later it may have become
purely ornamental. The similarities between Spong Hill and sites such as Issendorf, near Hamburg,
relate not just to an initial settlement phase, but to much of the time that Spong Hill was in use.
People did not get into their boats and sail to England, never to return. The communities on both
sides of the North Sea remained in contact. The connections between them could have owed as
much to the exchange of ideas and goods through trade, religion and political relationships as to
migration.
In southern England, inhumation was always more popular, and it had superseded cremation
everywhere by about AD 600. Late Roman burials had been mostly unfurnished inhumations,