Focal and signal burials

The term ‘focal’ burial refers to burials that appear from spatial distribution within a cemetery to have acted as a focus for subsequent burials. They may be distinguished by their larger size or by the fact that they contain more lavish grave-goods. The term was used by Fitzpatrick (1997) to highlight certain larger or better-equipped graves at Westhampnett, though there was no unequivocal spatial relationship between the supposed ‘focal’ burials and others. At King Harry Lane, Verulamium (Fig. 3.18), Stead and Rigby (1989: 83) had identified several larger graves of phase 1 with more notable assemblages as central to ‘family’ clusters defined by their enclosure. The concept of family groups was challenged by Millett (1993), who nevertheless saw these ‘focal’ graves, whether enclosed or unenclosed, as potential ‘founders’ graves’ in socially allied units. There is no doubt that graves 241, 299, and 325 of phase 1, and possibly grave 148 of phase 2 and grave 41 of phase 3, stand out as candidates for founders’ graves within their compounds, whilst graves 272, 309, and possibly grave 93 could have been focal to unenclosed groups, or groups where the enclosure has not survived. It has to be acknowledged, however, that there are other larger or better-provided graves that stand in relative isolation and do not appear to have attracted subsequent satellite burials, though this hardly invalidates the concept in principle, especially in what must have been a period of social and political instability. The notion of a focal burial seems equally applicable to the late pre-Roman Iron Age cemetery at Owslebury (Fig. 5.1; Collis, 1968, 1994), where the burials were principally grouped within two adjacent enclosures. The central burial of the earlier of the two (grave 39) was the largest, and contained an extended inhumation with full warrior panoply of sword, spear, and shield, dating around the first half of the first century BC. The focal burial of the second enclosure (grave 10) was a cremation in an urn with lid and six accessory vessels.