Large ratio of infant burials reflected high infant death rate during the medieval period, say archaeologists in Hampshire

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

© Hampshire Archaeology

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More than 30 years ago, during the winter of 1984, an Iron Age enclosure at Brighton Hill South, in Basingstoke, surprised archaeologists by giving way to a medieval church and churchyard.Nine graves were discovered within the church building, producing six burials from five excavated graves. In the wider enclosure, 37 excavations revealed “at least” 46 burials from around 258 graves.“There were a number of double burials, several graves had been re-used and inter-cutting was common,” says Dave Allen, the Keeper of Archaeology at Hampshire County Council.“More than half the burials were of children. This is a high ratio, but the infant mortality rate would have been high in the medieval period - 100 per 1,000 live births - compared with current UK figures, where the rate is just four.“Not all the graves were deeply cut and some skeletons had suffered plough damage.“One of the graves was of a mature adult male accompanied by a pewter chalice and paten and an iron buckle – this was presumably the grave of a priest.“Another earlier grave, of an immature male, was accompanied by two silver farthings of Edward I, minted between 1280 and 1300.“Two of the burials from inside the church were of infants, one of whom had been buried in a coffin.”The evidence demonstrated that this had been Hatch, a deserted medieval village with an ancient manor and church.“It was probably quite a high status settlement in the 12th and 13th centuries, when high-class imports such as pottery from Saintonge were being used,” says Allen.“By the time of Edward III, between 1327 and 1377, 300 acres in the parish were recorded as ‘untilled and unsown’, and by 1380 it was exonerated from paying tithes and merged with Cliddesden.”The name had survived in Hatch Warren Farm, but it took the expansion of Basingstoke and the work of archaeologists to rediscover the settlement, with pottery studies suggesting three phases of occupation between the mid-11th and late-15th centuries.“The church, of simple nave and chancel form, was built of flint and mortar and stood at the centre of a large graveyard,” says Allen.“It was a two-phase structure, the second phase involving the enlargement of the chancel.“The date of construction is not certain, partly because the preservation scheme agreed with the developers meant that no in situ walls or floors were removed.“It may be pre-Norman Conquest in origin, but is perhaps more likely to be an early Norman structure.”The village buildings were made of timber, while the later examples used more sophisticated framing techniques.