3,300-year-old cremations discovered in Scotland suggest people died in a mysterious catastrophe

Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old cremated remains of at least eight people buried in five urns in Scotland. It is unknown how they died, but it was probably during some kind of catastrophe.

Although many Bronze Age burial sites in Scotland have been reused over the years, this discovery is unusual because the newly discovered cremated remains “tell a different story,” researchers write in a new study recently published in the journal Archaeological Reports Online. In this case, the urns were “closely arranged, giving the impression that they had been buried together and left untouched, except for damage caused by modern plowing,” the researchers wrote.

These specimens were discovered in the ruins of a barrow, a burial mound made of earth and rock. Archaeologists noted in their study that the urn was located in the center of the barrow, in a burial pit 3 feet (1 meter) wide, surrounded by a ring of rocks. The researchers were able to date the burial to between 1439 BC and 1287 BC, based on the presence of charcoal and other organic materials.

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Three of the urns each contain the remains of an adult and a juvenile, while the other two contain only one adult each. The burial site was discovered during excavations carried out in 2020 and 2021 during the construction of an access road to the wind farm at Twentyshilling Hill, near the Twentysilling Hill wind farm in south-west Scotland. The excavations were carried out by a team from Gard Archeology, a company that performs archaeological excavations during and before construction.

“The discovery of five urns tightly packed together in a single mass burial is extremely rare, distinguishing the Twenty Shilling barrow from other Scottish barrows,” the researchers said in their report.

The researchers believe that these eight people probably died in horrific events around the same time. It’s unclear what the event was, but it could have been starvation, disease or war, Gard Archeology CEO Ronan Touris told Live Science in an email.

Touris said the urns appear to have been made by the same craftsman, suggesting the individuals may have died around the same time. Also, at that time, it was common in this region for the deceased to be left to rot before their flesh was cremated. However, in this case, the researchers found that there was still some flesh left at the time of the cremation, indicating that the body needed to be cremated quickly, the researchers noted.

These people would have been farmers, Tulis said. He noted that although their residence has not been found, it is likely that they lived near the burial site.

This is because “few such archaeological remains have been discovered in this area of ​​Scotland to date, so future research may reveal more about the background of this barrow,” said Mr Touris.