Monument record MDR13316 - Bronze Age cremation cemetery, Sawley Road, Draycott

During a watching brief undertaken during the replacement of a rising mains at Draycott, cremated human bone was recovered from nine features which all lay within a discrete c. 4m x 2.5m area. In the absence of any artefacts, two bone samples were submitted for radiocarbon dating and returned a Middle Bronze Age date. The surviving depths of the features containing cremated bone ranged from 0.05m to 0.25m, with over half being less than 0.10m, and they were encountered at between c. 0.20 and 0.60m below ground level, indicating that they had been truncated to some degree. Exceptionally small quantities of bone were recovered from the majority of the deposits, and were often mixed with what probably represents redeposited pyre debris. Only two of the nine deposits could confidently be interpreted as burial remains. On the basis of the limited context and osteological data, a minimum number of two, possibly four, individuals was deduced for the assemblage. The deposits are likely to represent a flat cemetery, a site type which was becoming more common during the Middle Bronze Age, although still a rare funerary site type, with only a small number of other examples in Derbyshire. However, the cremation burials at Draycott differ from other excavated Derbyshire examples in that they were all contained within pits and none were associated with pottery. They were also located in the floodplain of the River Derwent rather than on the gravel terraces. (1)