Coddenham bed burial

Further to my investigation into Anglo-Saxon bed burials and my theory that they are not in fact Saxon at all but Christian Druid burials of the early Celtic Church I have looked into two more and again found tantalising tangible links to The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone. Very enticing is the burial at Coddenham in Suffolk.  Here the cemetery was unknown until its discovery during investigation of an Iron Age site - so another link between the burials and the re-use of Iron Age/Druid sites.  50 burials were discovered dated to the latter part of the 7th century/early 8th century through the discovery of coins of that date on the site making the dating pretty certain.  They lay around a probable prehistoric barrow and barrows were raised over 3 of the burials. This raises a question mark over whether they were Saxon.  I would respectfully suggest not.  Saxons went in for cremation not burials and it is unlikely they would choose to site a cemetery on an old Iron Age site. The bed burial indicates that the body was laid on a bed inside a wooden chamber over which there was a 'curved wooden cover' reminiscent of the cabin of a ship of the period.   A high-status woman certainly and probably a religieuse as she is being sent to eternal rest in a replica of the cabin of the Ship of Faith although there seem to be no other Christian objects among the grave goods apart from beads which might be the remnants of a rosary.  Nevertheless there is something which points up the dangers of identifying these cemeteries too closely as Anglo-Saxon per se.  A pendant is among the grave goods reusing a Frankish gold coin of Dagobert 1 suggesting that at least some of those buried in the cemetery are not Saxons but Franks.  The Celtic Church, despite the name we give to it, was a broad church embracing all ethnicities and by the late 7th century there were a large number of Columban monasteries on Frankish territories (see my book Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint for the spread of the Celtic Church in Europe).  The Coddenham site again reveals some evidence linking it to the Sword story and to a British rather than a Saxon provenance.  At Collingbourne Ducis in Wiltshire there were few grave goods but the archaeologists do note that the fact that the cemetery contains burials rather than cremations suggests a strong British influence pointing to a nearby settlement which was occupied at the same time.  Further investigations are called for but I do think there is enough to suggest a re-assessment of these sites is called for.  My detective work continues...