The feature was found when straightening a section for F 3688, a semi-wall in B.102. The soil around the skeleton was quite loose, why almost half of the skeleton and soil fell down which immediatly were sampled. The bones were brought to the human remains lab. When removing the section bulk the skeleton was found directly under U20481, room fill. After exposing Sk.20609, the specialist osteologists further exposed and lifted the remains, and photographed for 2D ortho.
The feature consists of one skeleton of an infant (baby), and an arbitrary layer, which was soil associated with the baby. No cut was discovered during excavation. The room fill was stratigraphically above SK 20609, and soil surrounding the remains were similar to that, but looser and more homogeneous. It was assigned as arbitrary, because no obvious fill was observed. However the possibility of it should not be neglected, especially concerning the skeleton being placed (flexed etc.), primary and undisturbed. Beneath the feature is an ashy layer containing bovine horn core and human cranial fragments. The feature's location is in an entrance or opening between S17 and S18.
For this feature intepretation in field has been made from the most certain and visible, namely the skeleton, which were found in a perhaps flexed position facing west, with extended cranial position, by the specialist team in the field intepreted as undisturbed. The main disturbance was made while straightening a section for presumable continuation (in 2012) of F3688, which turned out to be room fill (U20481). Hence the extremities of lower body (and upper?) are missing.
The position and orientation of the baby skeleton were similar to a formal burial. Soil associated with it were assigned a fill, however this is an arbitrary, i.e. reconstructed afterwards, layer. It is still possible that the placement of the body was directly on the floor level/ashy deposit, forming a deposition on the ground, probably threshold-associated, not cut into something. In this sense a deliberate "burial" without a cut is possible, and could be connected with the closing of the house, given its connection to the later room fill (20481). |
