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4,000-Year-Old Urn Discovered in England

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

England Cornish barrowCORNWALL, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that an intact collared urn, flint tools, and additional pieces of pottery were found under just ten inches of dirt in a Bronze Age burial mound overlooking the English Channel in southwestern England. The urn stands about 12 inches tall, and may contain cremains. “It’s almost a miracle that a plow has never hit it,” said archaeologist Catherine Frieman of Australian National University. Frieman’s team discovered the burial mound during a geophysical survey of farmland in the coastal area, which she suggests was important for the trade of metals such as Cornish tin during the Bronze Age. The surface of the mound is dotted with several features that look like pits, and is surrounded by a circular ditch with a single entrance. It had been previously thought that barrows in Cornwall had been constructed without ditches. To read more about this period in the British Isles, go to "Bronze Age Ireland's Taste in Gold." 

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