An exciting find of an intact Bronze Age burial urn has been made by a team of archaeological experts working on the site of a new link road under construction at King's Lynn (Norfolk, England). The team had already unearthed Iron Age timber posts beside the route of the road which will take traffic from the A149 road on the Hardwick Industrial Estate, where a new superstore is being built.
     Ken Hamilton, Norfolk County Council's senior historic environment officer, said now a collared urn, believed to contain cremated human remains from about 2,500 years ago, had been found. The pot, which has a thick rim around it, has been removed from the site for further investigation.
     Mr Hamilton said: "It is rare to find these urns complete and this one is quite unusual, so it is an exciting find. The inside of it is being excavated in a laboratory, as it was full of soil. This soil is being taken out slowly to work out if it was all from one deposition or whether it contained more than one individual's remains". He said that after cremation, human remains would have been put in such pots and buried in small pits.
     The discovery means there was almost certainly people living in that area during the Bronze Age and further archaeological exploration of the site is being carried out. Mr Hamilton said: "This urn will find its way into Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service and a decision will be made on whether to display it in one of the museums."

Edited from Lynn News (28 June 2012)