ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS length face upwards, while many cinerary urns of pottery containing the ashes of the dead were also recovered whole, all lying near the surface and sometimes arranged in straight lines. Fragments of other urns could not be pieced together, and Mr. Fitch concluded that many cremated burials had been disturbed by Saxons or others who opened the ground to deposit, whether in an urn or the bare earth, the dead of a later gener- ation. He was of opinion that urn-burial was the more ancient rite practised in this cemetery, but that at a later date the burial of the unburnt body was contemporary with the deposit of human remains in urns. Observations on other sites confirm the priority of urn- burial, and there was no doubt a transition period during which cremation fell into disuse, but it would be difficult to prove that it persisted in this case till the cemetery was closed. According to all accounts there is here no question of Christian interments in coffins, neither the contents nor direction of the graves suggesting that any are later than the conversion of the English during the seventh century. Accepting therefore the chronology of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the Saxon conquest of the district, the cemetery may be approximately dated between the years 550 and 650, but there are some objects from the graves that were manu- factured, if not interred with their owners, about the middle of the fifth century, and it is quite possible that the cemetery was in use for two hundred years, or longer if Dr. Arthur Evans is right in referring them to the third century. Forty years ago there were few to study Anglo-Saxon remains and fewer still to report at length on the exploration of a cemetery ; but, for the time, the find at Kempston is recorded with remarkable fidelity and detail. Still many particulars, not at that time regarded as essential, are omitted from the account, and the value of the important series of relics now in the national collection is thereby somewhat impaired. Of certain broad features there can be no doubt ; the burials were not ar- ranged according to any definite plan, and cinerary urns were discovered among unburnt interments in all parts of the cemetery. But besides these were a few that call for special remark. On 16 November 1863 a pit was discovered in the cemetery, over 7 feet in length, from 3 to 4 feet wide and the same in depth, where a body stretched at full length had been consumed by fire. About 2 feet from the surface was a large quantity of ashes, and among them were found portions of a human skull, vertebra? and other bones, all charred, but the leg bones showing less traces of fire than the rest of the skeleton. In the ashes and on the left side of the body was a long iron spearhead with a portion of the wooden shaft left in the socket, and also an iron knife ; while surrounding these remains lay numerous pieces of charred wood, and ends of branches not quite burnt through. It seemed as if the pit had been partially filled with live embers, on which the deceased was laid, and then large branches heaped above it. Bones of some small animal, perhaps a rat, were also found, and had no doubt been burnt on the same occasion ; while an urn 9 inches high, half filled with the burnt « i77 23
