Rediscovering the Dead: Reanalysis of a lost Iron Age cemetery at Highstead, 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 asa 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.