Cinerary Urn, Mid Gleniron Farm, Glenluce

A large decorated urn, with straight sides tapering to a flat base with two horizontal ridges around the main body of the vessel. Between the rim and the top ridge there is a criss-cross pattern of incised decoration, and is made from a pale orange coloured fine grained ceramic.   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.