This paper reassesses analytical categories commonly used to reconstruct the ‘funerary sequence’ of cremation and associated deposition in early Roman Britain, looking in particular at pre-pyre and pyre activity, burial, and other forms of primary deposition. In order to develop a clearer picture of the actual contexts of ceremonial performance and installation, and even to begin to disentangle the manifold meanings these events would have held for original participants, it is first necessary to refine a ‘forensic’ approach to the data, remaining constantly aware of how our own assumptions about funerary behaviour can heavily influence what we think we see in the archaeological record.

There is growing awareness of the significance of coastal trade around Roman Britain, though very few of the smaller ports and towns that were engaged in such activity have seen archaeological investigation. This paper reports on work at Crandon Bridge, in Somerset – including excavations in advance of the construction of the M5 motorway – that appears to have acted as a trans-shipment port where goods brought by road and river through Somerset were loaded onto larger vessels that could cross the Bristol Channel. Analysis of the buildings and artefacts suggests that this extensive site may also have been a small town.