Rediscovering the dead: Reanalysis of a lost Iron Age cemetery at Highsted, Kent

Highsted, near Sittingbourne in Kent, was the location of a large cemetery, thought to date to the Late Iron Age. The site was excavated under rescue conditions in 1955, but due to the apparent theft of the archive and finds, was never published. As part of a wider project, the human remains have been subject to new osteological examination, ancient DNA (aDNA) and isotope analysis, and AMS dating. Alongside this, the surviving finds have been reassessed, and the excavation pieced together from contemporary photographs and newspaper records. Analysis revealed a burial population which spanned the Late Iron Age and early Romano-British periods, with continuity into the second century AD and possibly beyond. Burial rites echo those from the nearby site of Mill Hill, Deal, confirming Highsted as a major Deal-rite cemetery. Despite Continental parallels for these types of burials, the Highsted population grew up in the local area, with homogeneous diets including some marine resource exploitation, reflecting the dietary impacts of the Roman conquest on indigenous rural communities. The approach used here also serves as an example of how much value can be gained from fragmented archive material that may otherwise be overlooked.