Cinerary Urn, Burnfoot Plantation, Dowglen Hill

Found partially exposed on the surface, this urn is relatively small, with rope work decoration on the collar, in roughly concentric circles, parallel to the rim. This urn contained the remains of a young adult, a bone pin and a flint knife.    Unlike neolithic people who usually buried their dead communally in chambered tombs, Bronze Age people preferred to bury their dead singly. During the early part of the period people were usually buried in a crouched position in stone cists, but later cremation was preferred with the remains interred in urns like these. They created cemeteries by burying several urns at one site, sometimes marking it with a cairn or mound of earth and stones. The urns were often buried upside down. They were decorated with twisted cord or string impressions and incised and impressed oval, circular and diamond shapes.