SNN102474 - Brackmills Link Road: Radiocarbon Dating

Northamptonshire Archaeology undertook an open area excavation and watching brief on the route of the Brackmills Link Road. The road corridor affected the environs of an early Bronze Age round barrow and during the excavation a satellite cremation was discovered located c 27m away from the barrow. The pit had evidently been truncated and the presence of the larger pieces of cremated bone at the exposed surface suggests that the bulk of the cremated bone may have been lost to ploughing. The charcoal recovered from the cremation was radiocarbon dated to 1270-1020 cal BC, while the date obtained for the charcoal from the barrow ditch was dated to 1685-1525 cal BC, illustrating how respect for early Bronze Age barrows could be retained for hundreds of years in this case well into the middle Bronze Age.