SNN108360 - Neolithic Cremation Burials at Milton Ham, Northampton

In 2008 Northamptonshire Archaeology carried out a strip, map and record excavation of a Romano-British settlement at Milton Ham on the south-western outskirts of Northampton. This report focuses on a small and unexpected bonus: the recovery of three pits containing cremation burials, one of which has been radiocarbon dated to the late 4th millennium BC, the Middle Neolithic period. The burials were associated with several other small pits, three of which may have been truncated burials, while two larger pits may have held wooden posts, perhaps cemetery marker posts. These burials add to a growing body of evidence for cremation burial in the Middle Neolithic and they also add to the developing picture of Neolithic and Bronze Age activity in the environs of the Briar Hill Neolithic causewayed enclosure.