An early Middle Ages cemetery unearthed under student accommodation at Cambridge University has been described as “one of the most exciting finds in Anglo-Saxon archeology since the 19th century”.
King’s College discovered the “extensive” cemetery, containing more than 60 graves, after demolishing a group of 1930s buildings that recently housed graduates and staff in the west of the city, to make way for more modern corridors.
About 200 items in the graves, including bronze brooches, beaded necklaces, swords, short blades, ceramics and glass jars, were systematically discovered. Most date from the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period (c400-650 AD), although evidence of iron age structures and Roman landfills has also been found.
Dr. Caroline Goodson, who teaches history from the early Middle Ages at King’s, said the remains they found were remarkably “well preserved”. “The alkaline soil, typical here, has not broken bones.”
This is significant, because it will allow archaeologists to apply very modern scientific techniques to reveal the diet and DNA of the dead, allowing analysis of migration and family relationships.
Goodson said the excavators were “surprised” to find so many tombs and an extensive medieval cemetery surrounded by Roman moats and so close to the remains of Roman Cambridge. According to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, which was written in the 8th century, Cambridge was abandoned – like many other Roman cities – when the Romans withdrew their military forces from England during the 5th century. “We already know that Cambridge was not entirely abandoned. But what we are seeing now is a bigger and clearer picture of life in post-Roman settlements. “
Goodson speculates that the people who lived in Cambridgeshire were a mix of descendants of previous Roman populations and recent migrants from the continent to Britain, living in a post-imperial world.
Excavation site
“They are no longer living like the Romans, they are eating differently, dressing differently and discovering different ways to explore the land. They are changing the way they live during a period of considerable fluidity. “
Some of the findings raise questions about the emotional connections that people who lived at the time of burials may have felt in relation to the Romans who lived in Cambridge before them. In a grave, archaeologists found a body buried in what appears to be a piece of glass from the late Roman period in the shape of a small barrel for storing wine.
“It looks like a classic Roman object being reused in a post-Roman context, like headstones.” Another grave looks like a typical late 5th century Roman burial, suggesting that there may have been continued use of the cemetery from the Roman period. “That would be very interesting,” said Goodson.
Until now, archaeologists have found no “strong evidence” that people living in the 6th century still chose to bury their dead near late Roman graves, but few cemeteries of this size have been excavated scientifically using modern methods and technologies, such as advanced radiocarbon techniques dating and isotopic analysis.
“It would be great to say very clearly – and we are going to need a large set of carbon-14 dates to do that – that we have people using this place from the 5th to the 7th century,” says Goodson. “We can see that the burial of the dead and the treatment of their bodies are particularly significant for the living in a way that is different from other parts of the post-Roman world.” This points to a different worldview and a different “cosmology”: “It is a new form of celebration”.
She hopes to find out if anyone in the cemetery died of Justinian plague, a pandemic that hit Europe in the 540s.
“I’m very interested in finding out if it was in Cambridge too and how much it relates to what else was going on.”