ABSTRACT
Reappearance of burial Throughout the earlier periods of prehistory we were able to deduce a certain amount about the population from the various methods of burial. After 1000 BC in the late Bronze Age, for the next 700 years or more throughout much of the Iron Age, burial as a rite practically disappeared and did not recur until after 300 BC. As a result we are left with a tantalizing blank. A method for the disposal of the dead was introduced which left no obvious trace that we can detect. Inhumations were not buried in the ground and cremations were not placed in urnfields or cemeteries. Until the late Bronze Age cremation had been practised, with the ashes buried in urns. Then something occurred which caused this to cease. It is possible that the act of cremation continued, but the method of disposal changed. The simplest explanation would be the scattering of the ashes in the countryside, either on land or into water. Wind and rain and perhaps ploughing would soon disperse them.
