Publications

A selection of books, chapters and articles written by our osteologist Dr. Willis.

Willis, C. (2021). Stonehenge and the Middle to Late Neolithic cremation rites in mainland Britain c.3500-2500BC. BAR publication: Oxford.

Parker Pearson, M., Marshall, P., Mulville, J., and Smith, H, with contributions by Booth, T., Chamberlain, A., Craig, O., Evans, J., Hiller, J., Montgomery, J., and Willis, C. (2021). The construction of the row of roundhouses and digging of the features beneath them (phase 8). In, Parker Pearson, M., Mulville, J., Smith, H., and Marshall, P. (eds). Cladh Hallan: roundhouses and the dead in the Hebridean Bronze Age and Iron Age. Part 1: Stratigraphy, spatial organisation and chronology. Chapter 4. Sheffield Environmental and Archaeological Research Campaign in the Hebrides, Volume 8.  

 Willis, C. (2020). The People of Stonehenge. In, Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, J., Thomas, J., Tilley, C., and Welham, K. (eds). Stonehenge for the Ancestors: Part 1. Chapter 10. Sidestone Press: Leiden.

Snoeck, C., Claeys, P., Goderis, S., Mattielli, N., Parker Pearson, M., Pouncett, J., Willis, C., Zazzo, A., Lee-Thorp, and Schulting, R. (2018). Stonehenge rising from the ashes: Strontium isotope analysis of cremated human bone supports close links with west Wales. Nature Scientific Reports 8: 10790-10798.

Willis, C., Marshall, P., McKinley, J., Pitts, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Richards, J., Thomas, J., Waldron, T., Welham, K., and Parker Pearson, M. (2016). The dead of Stonehenge. Antiquity 90 (350): 337-356.

Parker Pearson, M., Cox Willis, C., Marshal, P., Mulville, J., Smith, H., Cowie, T., Craig, O., Deluis, I., Juddery, M., Manley, H., Schwenninger, J-L., and Taylor, G. (2013). After the ‘Frankenstein mummies’: Cladh Hallan in the Bronze and Iron Ages. PAST 73: 11-13.

 Parker Pearson, M and Cox Willis, C (2010). Burials and builders of Stonehenge: social identities in Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Britain. In, Furholt, M., Lüth, F., and Müller, J. (eds). Megaliths and identities: Early monuments and Neolithic societies from the Atlantic to the Baltic. The 3rd Megalithic Studies Group Meeting, May 2010. Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn, pp. 285-293.

 Cox, C. (2007). Cremated Bone from the Cairnderry Chambered Tomb, Cairnderry 2004 Pits 3 and 5. In, Cummings, V. and Fowler, C. (eds). From Cairn to Cemetery: an archaeological investigation of the chambered cairns and early Bronze Age mortuary deposits at Cairnderry and Bargrennan White Carin, south-west Scotland, BAR 434, Chapter 6. 

Parker Pearson, M., Chamberlain, A., Collins, M., Cox, C., Craig, O., Hiller, J., Marshall, P., Mulville, J., and Smith H. (2007). Further Evidence for Mummification in Bronze Age Britain. Antiquity 81 (312), pp. 1-5.

Past sites and reports

A selection of sites analysed by our osteologist Dr. Willis, most with specialist reports.

  • Brief analysis of the cremated human remains from Llandegai, Wales. This also included radiocarbon dating and isotopic analysis of cremated bones from selected context

  • Analysis of the Early Bronze Age cremated human remains from the Palisades Ditch, Stonehenge.

  • Analysis of the Late Bronze Age burial from the Palisades Ditch, Stonehenge.

  • Analysis of the cremated human remains from Tall Stones, Wiltshire.

  • Early Bronze Age Burials (south of Woodhenge).

  • Analysis of the cremated human remains from West Stow, Suffolk.

  • Analysis of the all the cremated human remains from the Neolithic held at The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. July 2018: Twlc-y-Filiast, Carreg Samson, Din Dryfol, Parc le Breos Cwm, Bryn-y-Hen-Bobl, Coetan Arthur, Bryn Celli Ddu, Lower Luggy and Llandegai

  • Analysis of the human remains from the Greater Cursus, near Stonehenge.

  • Analysis of the human remains from West Amesbury Riverside.

  • Analysis of the cremated human remains from Pensarn, Wales.

  • Analysis of the skeletal remains from Woodhenge.

  • Analysis of the human remains from St. Mary Magdalene, Clitheroe, Lancaster.

  • Analyse the cremated human remains from Stonehenge.

  • Analysis the Cladh Hallan mummies and associated cremated remains from South Uist, Scotland.

  • Analysis of the Romano-British cremated human remains from Owslebury, Winchester.

  • Analysis of cremated human bones from Durrington Walls.

  • Analysis of the cremated human bones from Chilcompton, Somerset.

  • Assessment of additional Bronze Age cremated human remains from Bredon Henge, Worcestershire.

  • Assessment of the cremated human remains from Frampton on Severn, Gloucestershire.

  • Assessment of skeletal human remains from Elgin, Scotland.

  • Assessment of Bronze Age cremated human remains from Bredon Henge, Worcestershire.

  • Assessment of Post-Medieval skeletons from Whalley Abbey, Clitheroe, Lancashire.

  • Assessment of Post-Medieval skeletons from St. Bartholomew’s Church, Colne, Lancashire.

  • Assessment of Post-Medieval skeletons from St. Michael’s Church, Beetham, Cumbria.

  • Assessment of Bronze Age skeletons from Frampton on Severn, Gloucestershire.

  • Assessment of two Romano-British/Anglo-Saxon inhumations from Ferry Lane Farm, Nottinghamshire.

  • Assessment of 150 disarticulated human remains from St. Oswald’s Church, Warton, Lancashire.

  • Analysis of Bronze Age disarticulated remains from Ceann na’ Ghairaidh, South Uist, Scotland.

  • Assessment of articulated and disarticulated skeletal remains from a cemetery in Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire.

  • Skeletal assessment of a Neolithic barrow burial, Stan Low, Bradwell, Derbyshire.

  • Assessment of 90 articulated and 237 disarticulated skeletons from Sheffield Cathedral.