Priority 1: The radiocarbon and isotope analysis of the Women’s Knowe inhumation revealed the potential for better understanding Roman Iron Age funerary practice and burial rites through the reassessment of historically excavated skeletal material held in museum collections. Submission of more samples for dating from both recent and historic archaeological investigations is a key priority.
Priority 2: Iron Age funerary rites remain poorly understood and this also impacts our interpretation of funerary practice in adjacent periods where similar burial forms, such as barrows and cists, occur. There is a need to adequately explain solitary graves, the longevity and location of burial sites, the relationship between monumental and flat graves within the same cemetery and why some cemeteries grow when others do not (Winlow 2010, 55). The reanalysis of existing museum collections is a key strategy here (Hall 2012).
Priority 3: The emergence of formal cemeteries in the early medieval period is a major development in eastern and northern Scotland, with square and circular burial monuments constructed to commemorate an elite (Mitchell et al 2020). The mechanisms for the emergence of formal cemeteries in the early medieval period are still relatively poorly understood however and merit further investigation.
Priority 4: The lack of formal burials for much of the Iron Age raises questions about non-burial funerary practice, such as the use of funeral pyres or river deposition, while the lack of skeletal material for study inhibits new approaches such as isotopic analysis, to reconstruct diet and to model mobility. The study of human remains from non-burial contexts, such as those recovered from the fire-destroyed monumental roundhouse within Moredun fort (Strachan et al forthcoming), should also be a priority for research. Given the lack of skeletal material from burials, they offer a resource both for isotopic analysis and an opportunity to explore domestic burial as part of domestic ‘ritualisation’ in the period (Tucker 2012). Museum collections and archives can be an important source for recognising burial practices in water, as with the sword from Cambus, River Forth, in the collections of Perth Museum (Cowie and Hall 2001).