Monument record 0632103002 - Taplow Hillfort: Saxon Burial

Remains of a N-S Saxon burial at the hillfort entrance found during excavations carried out by Oxford Archaeology in 1999 (B1).
The partial remains of an adult male were found in a subrectangular grave just to the north of the end of the Iron Age U-profiled ditch of Taplow hillfort. The grave was truncated. The bones were fragmented and poorly preserved but the left arm, vertebrae, hps and right and legs survived, showing that it was laid supine and extended. A radiocarbon date of the inhumation gave 590-680 AD. A slightly corroded iron whittle tang knife in several pieces lay on the left side of the hips. Further human remains, consisting of two fragments from an adult left humerus, were found in the upper fills of the U-profiled ditch, associated with lots of Saxon debris and a pin was found in another part of this debris; pins are often associated with burials. The bones may come from a disturbed burial or be residual and the pin may be domestic (B2).