File:Bronze Age, Burial Urn (FindID 970663-1119287).jpg

English: Seven sherds representing 84% of the base from a cremation urn / burial vessel - most probably of Early - Middle Bronze Age date (2200-1800 BC). The seven sherds vary in size, thickness and weight but all have been broken due to disturbance in the ground through ploughing having crisp fresh unweathered or abraded edges. The fragments were gathered together by the farmer who noticed a white powdery spread in a recently improved / ploughed field suggesting that they were recovered shortly after disturbing the below ground archaeological context. It is probable that the ceramics represent an inverted beaker burial. It is highly likely the recovery of the pottery extends the known bowl barrow linear cemetery in the area - and may in addition suggest an associated flat cemetery / urn field exists similar to that known at Bromfield, Shropshire - excavated by Stanford in the late 1980's.

The fragments measure:

1: Height 33.0mm Width 82.2mm, thickness at base is 23.9mm, the side wall is 14.3mm thick; Projected diameter 12cm: representing 24% of the base. Weight 93 grams

2: Height 27.2mm Width 62.0mm, thickness at base is 25.5mm; sherd from centre of base: Weight 66 grams

3: Height 40.4mm Width 46.6mm, thickness at base is 26.31mm, the side wall is 14.1mm thick; Projected diameter 10cm: representing 13% of the base. Weight 43 grams

4: Height 27.9mm Width 53.7mm, thickness at base is 18.2mm; Projected diameter 10cm: representing 18% of the base. Weight 38 grams

5: Height 36.8mm Width 53.3mm, thickness at base is 26.4mm; sherd from centre of base. Weight 36 grams

6: Height 28.3mm Width 50.9mm, thickness at base is 15.7mm; Projected diameter 11cm: representing 15% of the base. Weight 28 grams

7: Height 25.3mm Width 41.0mm, thickness at base is 17.8mm; Projected diameter 10cm: representing 14% of the base. Weight 20 grams

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Sherd specific details:

Vessel Form: Handmade - probably coiled from a slab built base

Fabric Type: A poorly but hard fired ceramic vessel with irregular tempering. There are considerable irregular open voids within the fabric and in places the core is laminating and fracturing along slab like internal bedding planes.

Fabric Condition: A relatively hard coarse friable fabric

Firing Condition: Black grey central core with red oxidised exterior

Surface Texture: Exterior and interior rough textured but exterior smoothed to create an even surface

Inclusions: Common small rounded quartz grains c. 0.5-1mm diameter. Common large rounded mid-grey buff coloured sandstone shaped as rectangular slabs, occasional micacious siltstone oval rounded pellets, occasional ceramic / grog like temper (similar to sandstone but dark grey / black with micacious flecking. Sparse mica.

Condition of sherds: Good and unabraded..External red-brown staining from soil