J Archaeol Sci 21 (3)

Reports micromorphological investigations which identified fifty-two individual layers of archaeological sediments in forty-eight thin section samples. Micromorpholgy enables nine different types of archaeological layers to be distinguished on the basis of contents, sedimentary characteristics, and texture. The specific characteristics of each type can be used to give more detailed interpretations than are possible by conventional means.

Assesses various factors affecting fragment size, which include the cremation process, collection, burial, excavation, and post-excavation -- all involving non-deliberate fragmentation of the bone. The aim is to illustrate the necessity of regarding bone fragment sizes presented in reports as post-excavation fragment size, not necessarily the size of fragments at deposition. The role of the burial medium, and fragmentation occurring as a result of excavation and post-excavation procedure, are emphasised.

Two buried soils beneath early Bronze Age burial cairns were analysed and the adoption of high-resolution palynological subsampling techniques allowed the two types of analysis to be more closely comparable. Pollen preservation and other methods of assessing `reliability'of pollen spectra were developed, to test whether analyses were capable of palaeoecological interpretation. The results suggest that pollen assemblages significantly pre-dating burial were removed from the soil by processes of pollen deterioration. What remained in the topmost few centimetres could be related to pollen deposition closely contemporaneous with anthropogenic activity and, as they were not differentially preserved, these could be interpreted.