Presentation by Jane Sidell and Nathalie Cohen for the Thames Discovery Programme Human Remains Workshop in November 2010

1. The River and the Dead: Case Studies
Jane Sidell and Nathalie Cohen

2. • Battles at fords
• Erosion from
settlements/burials
• Ceremonial
• Waste disposal
Skulls?Why ?

3. 4230-3970 cal BC
Yabsley Street – see PPS
© TVAS

4. Yabsley St
• ©TVAS
• Gibson 1990
Grave goods –
pottery, flints, also
hawthorn and
emmer wheat

5. Bermondsey

6. Bermondsey
From Cotton and Green, TLAMAS 2004
•Neolithic artefacts

7. Bermondsey: AD 1430-1495

8. Thames Skulls
Skulls from the foreshore
Edwards et al, TLAMAS, forthcoming

9. Thames Skulls
Bronze Age examples

10. Chelsea
Trepanned skull: 1880-1520 cal BC
Femur:1620–1440 cal BC

11. Putney
•390-200 cal BC

12. Corney Reach
• Tall middle-aged male burial, in an east-west grave
on the contemporary foreshore
• AD 410-820

13. Queenhithe
•Two female burials
•cal AD 680-860
•Images ©Museum of
London

14. Isle of Dogs
Photo: Nick Stevens

15. •AD 1735 – 1805
•Drowning? Murder?
Punishment?

18. Vauxhall
•Truncated skeleton
excavated in 1989
Images © Museum of London

19. Greenwich
•Male skeleton excavated
(Miles, 1997)
•Clothed
Images © Museum of London

20. Post medieval foreshore burials?
1.Isle of Dogs:
• Burrell’s Wharf child: 18th
century
• Cyclops Wharf ?adult: 18th
century
• Millbank mandible: date?
2.Vauxhall:
• Bridgefoot ?adult: ? 17th
century
• Nine Elms mandible: date?
3.Greenwich:
• Peninsula adult male: 17th
-18th
century
•?Deptford
4. Southwark:
• Bermondsey female child: 15th
century
•Rotherhithe: disarticulated material