An unenclosed Bronze Age urnfield is a burial ground comprising between two and fifty or more cremations of Bronze Age date deposited directly into the ground without a covering barrow; some of the individual cremations may be interred in ceramic cinerary vessels, others may be interred loose. There is no delimiting boundary to the cemetery as a whole.
Bronze Age urnfields are usually recognised by the distinctive ceramic vessels of Deverel Rimbury ware, or its regional variations, containing cremated bones. Most sites have come to light by chance, during activities such as ploughing, quarrying, development or excavation. Sometimes the cremations focus around a barrow, usually pre-existing the urnfield; in these cases this may provide the only visible surface remains. The main components of an unenclosed Bronze Age urnfield are the cremation pits, the cinerary urns, cremations, pyres, barrow mounds, and ring ditches.
Bronze Age urnfields are not easily confused with other cremation cemeteries since the associated pottery is very distinctive.
Specifically excluded from this description are Deverel Rimbury cremation cemeteries under barrows and those which are located as secondary deposits in a pre-existing barrow, and which have no cremations as flat burials; such sites are included in barrow descriptions. Also excluded are isolated cremations, although it is possible that these may originally have been part of a more extensive cemetery. Enclosed Bronze Age urnfields are treated as a separate monument class.
Unenclosed Bronze Age urnfields constitute a burial rite dating from the end of the Early Bronze Age through to the late Bronze Age, although it was most common from around 1200-1000 BC. From the arrangement of the individual cremations in clusters of around 10-30 burials with little differentiation between them, it is thought that they may represent the foci of burial for family units, and they are probably directly related to middle Bronze Age settlement sites in Southern England. There may be an overlap of function between these sites and the continuing use of barrows and enclosed cremation cemeteries of a similar date.