Excavations at Trumpington Meadows, on the southern end of Cambridge, have documented a multifaceted chronology of human life from the early Neolithic to the Anglo-Saxon period.
The findings, reported by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, offer one of the most extensive documents with respect to long-term settlement and ceremony on the River Cam
Among the earliest remains uncovered are two Neolithic burial structures known as barrows, dated to the 4th millennium BC. The barrows, positioned close to the River Cam, contained human remains and ritual deposits, indicating that riverside locations held deep symbolic importance for early farming communities.
Such finds support the understanding of the Cam Valley as a corridor of movement and interaction rather than a peripheral district. The largest stage of the activity dates to the Early and Middle Iron Age, when the region was heavily settled.
Excavations revealed large, densely concentrated pits, wells, enclosures, and burials within a settlement. Human remains were found in both official graves and non-funerary sites, including disarticulated bones and structured excavations in pits.
These practices point to ritualised treatments of the dead and challenge conventional divisions between domestic, economic and ceremonial space.
“The depositional dynamics of its pit clusters are here interrogated in depth. This period saw a high number of burials and loose human bone (some worked as implements), and emphasis is duly given to the settlement’s ‘ritual logic’, which seems predominantly motivated by bird associations,” said the study authors.
Occupation persisted into the Anglo-Saxon period, with the discovery of several sunken-featured buildings (SFBs), and a large bed burial from the 7th century, along with grave goods such as gold and garnet jewellery, metal fittings and preserved textiles.
Sources : Riversides: Neolithic Barrows, a Beaker Grave, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Burials and Settlement at Trumpington, Cambridge – https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.123147
