Investigating the construction of a Bronze Age burial mound

This post is many years in the making! Back in 2018 I was on an excavation at a site called Cronk Guckley on the Isle of Man with my colleague Prof. Chris Fowler, a brilliant theorist and Neolithic specialist, who is co-director of the Round Mounds project. This is a great project with some really exceptional finds, including this beautiful jet bead necklace. The excavation finished in 2022 and we are now completing all the post-excavation analysis. The project is investigating the nature and timing of Bronze Age ‘round mound’ construction and how funerary practices evolved, on the Isle of Man and surrounding islands. These structure are large earthern monuments that were constructed over the top of a burial. The jet necklace is an exciting piece of evidence, not just because of it's beauty, but because it gives us insights into the people - the jet has been sourced to Whitby, so is great evidence for connections between the Isle of Man and mainland Britain in the Bronze Age, and the craftsmanship is exceptional. The beads are now on display in the prehistory gallery at the Manx Museum in Douglas.

Photo of the Cronk Guckley necklace, Manx National Heritage

Chris brought me on board to help better understand the environmental context of the mound, and investigate the mound formation processes. For example, was it constructed in phases, or in one single event, and where did the mound material come from? It took a few years to get the samples turned into slides, and after that I have been so swamped with other responsibilities, I've barely had a chance to look at them, but I am slowly making my way through the samples. Since moving to Durham in April, I am trying to schedule dedicated time to catch up with my backlog of microscope work, and share some little snippets here! Some interesting features I have observed so far - the mound construction material has quite a heterogeneous mix of inclusions, with many angular to sub angular minerals and areas of high birefringence, non-laminated clay cutans (left image) from illuvial processes (the processes whereby fine material is washed downwards through a soil profile by rainwater). The fine material is largely derived from weathered shales. There is a lot of microcharcoal in here too (right image).