Polhill Anglo-Saxon cemetery

The cemetery is located on the lower slopes of Polhill, in the parish of Dunton Green near to Sevenoaks, Kent.^[1] Geologically, it sits upon a hard upper chalk layer, at the junction between the Darent Valley and North Downs scarp.^[1] The cemetery occupies a false crest on a steep hillside, commanding a view across the valley that is almost 3 kilometres wide, and also looks up the valley to the north and along the scarp to the south-west.^[2] Director of excavations Brian Philp thought this choice of location was "highly significant", allowing the "ancestors" to be buried in a "very dominant" position in the landscape.^[2]

The focal point of the local area is the village of Otford, located about 2 kilometres east of the cemetery. From the centre of Otford, the cemetery is visible, and Philp suggested that it was the most likely location of the Anglo-Saxon village where the people who used Polhill cemetery lived.^[3]

With the advent of the Anglo-Saxon period in the fifth century AD, the area that became Kent underwent a radical transformation on a political, social, and physical level.^[4] In the preceding era of Roman Britain, the area had been administered as the civitas of Cantiaci, a part of the Roman Empire, but following the collapse of Roman rule in 410 AD, many signs of Romano-British society began to disappear, replaced by those of the ascendant Anglo-Saxon culture.^[4] Later Anglo-Saxon accounts attribute this change to the widescale invasion of Germanic language tribes from northern Europe, namely the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.^[5] Archaeological and toponymic evidence shows that there was a great deal of syncretism, with Anglo-Saxon culture interacting and mixing with the Romano-British culture.^[6]

The Old English term Kent first appears in the Anglo-Saxon period, and was based on the earlier Celtic-language name Cantii.^[7] Initially applied only to the area east of the River Medway, by the end of the sixth century it also referred to areas to the west of it.^[7] The Kingdom of Kent was the first recorded Anglo-Saxon kingdom to appear in the historical record,^[8] and by the end of the sixth century, it had become a significant political power, exercising hegemony over large parts of southern and eastern Britain.^[4] At the time, Kent had strong trade links with Francia, while the Kentish royal family married members of Francia's Merovingian dynasty, who were already Christian.^[9] Kentish King Æthelberht was the overlord of various neighbouring kingdoms when he converted to Christianity in the early seventh century as a result of Augustine of Canterbury and the Gregorian mission, who had been sent by Pope Gregory to replace England's pagan beliefs with Christianity.^[10] It was in this context that the Polhill cemetery was in use.

Kent has a wealth of Early Medieval funerary archaeology.^[11] The earliest excavation of Anglo-Saxon Kentish graves was in the 17th century, when antiquarians took an increasing interest in the material remains of the period.^[12] In the ensuing centuries, antiquarian interest gave way to more methodical archaeological investigation, and prominent archaeologists like Bryan Faussett, James Douglas, Cecil Brent, George Payne, and Charles Roach Smith "dominated" archaeological research in Kent.^[12]

The 1984–86 excavation revealed that the cemetery had followed clearly delineated limits, and that while a large space of hillside had been available, all of the burials were located within the 112- to 118-metre contours.^[13] Only inhumations were found at the site, with no cremation burials.^[13] 73 graves had been excavated from the Western Area, 52 from the Eastern Area, 4 to the left of the main cemetery, and an estimated 53 from the Central Area: a total of 182 graves has been established for the cemetery.^[2] Taking into account potential further isolated graves outside the main area of the cemetery, Philp suggested that there might be between 180 and 220 graves at the site, containing between 200 and 220 individuals.^[2] Based on the idea that the cemetery was used for a century between 650 and 750 CE, Philp suggested that there would have been an average two burials at the cemetery per year.^[14] Taking this and the average life expectancy of 26 into account, he suggested that the cemetery served a local community of around 70 to 90 people, making it the largest known community in West Kent at this period.^[14] The majority of skeletal remains had survived well due to the well-drained chalk geology, although in a number of graves, particularly those of children, they have almost entirely eroded.^[15] Based on the 1984–86 excavation, archaeologists noted that 4 infants were buried alongside the 48 juveniles and adults.^[16] The site therefore does not reflect the high levels of infant mortality that local communities would have faced.^[14]

The main cemetery is approximately 210 metres in length from west to east, with a north–south width of 50 metres, although it appears to taper at both ends.^[2] Its interior totals around 10,500 square metres, about one hectare or 2½ acres.^[2] The graves were not evenly spaced in the cemetery, but often clustered together in what excavator Brian Philp suggested might have been family units.^[13] Most of these burials were on the southern side of the cemetery,^[13] and the site was more densely crowded in the west than the east.^[2] From the 1984–86 excavation, 50 of the graves contained a single skeleton, with the only exception being Grave 19, where two individuals had been buried together.^[13] In keeping with many Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, most of the inhumations were broadly aligned east to west.^[17] Philp considered it significant that 66% of the 51 burials excavated from 1984–86 were orientated between 70 and 109 degrees.^[13]

Of the 51 inhumations excavated in the 1980s, 36 were found to contain grave goods, and 14 were not. One burial had been partially destroyed, meaning what excavators did not know if it had once been accompanied with grave goods.^[13] Around 140 artefacts were uncovered from this excavation, most of which were personal ornaments, weapons, or domestic items.^[13] Philp believed that those inhumations containing spearheads, seaxes, or a shield would have been high status burials at the time.^[13] Only one burial, designated Grave 1 in the 1984 excavation, contained a shield. Also containing a spear, it was located at the far east of the cemetery, leading Philp to suggest that it might have had particular significance.^[13]

8 of the 51 inhumations excavated between 1984–86 were enclosed in small penannular ditches, indicating that they had probably been covered by small tumuli.^[16] Evidence for a further six tumuli were uncovered in the 1967 excavation, meaning that there was at least 14 tumuli across the cemetery.^[17] It is possible that other burials at the site were also covered by barrows, but that these have been eroded by ploughing in later centuries, leaving no archaeological trace.^[16] The known barrow burials were spaced evenly throughout the cemetery, and were between 4 and 5½ metres in diameter.^[16] All but two of those recorded have eastern entrances through the penannular ditch.^[17] Most of these barrows covered single inhumations, although one tumulus covered both Graves 94 and 95, and another contained no inhumation at all.^[17] Of the individuals buried beneath the 14 identified tumuli, 5 have been identified as male, 5 as female, 1 as an unidentified adult and the other 3 as children.^[17]