“What are the dead for?” Bronze Age burials in a multi-period landscape at Bucklow Hill, Cheshire

ABSTRACT Excavations in 2014–15 in the vicinity of Bucklow Hill revealed two clusters of cremated human remains, one focused on a ring-ditch, the other on a similar but destroyed monument. Ephemeral traces of earlier activity were found. A programme of radiocarbon dating revealed the earliest human remains in both clusters to be Early Bronze Age, with burial continuing episodically until the Middle Bronze Age. Environmental remains indicate the exploitation of wild plants and cultivation of hardy hulled wheats and barley in the Bronze Age. A group of probable early medieval inhumation graves were dug into the ring-ditch. As well as these graves, scattered medieval pits were also found; oats, barley and rye were grown during this period. These later remains are of significance as there is a dearth of comparable evidence from rural sites in the region and this contributes to the emerging understanding of the reuse of prehistoric funerary monuments in the English north midlands.