The peat had grown around them and through them.

Removing the burials required not just archaeological care but a specific set of methods developed for wet-site excavation.

Three field seasons of excavation — in 1984, 1985, and 1986 — recovered the remains of a minimum of 168 individuals.

The number reflects the careful counting and documentation of archaeologists who were working with fragmented, sometimes disarticulated, sometimes overlapping material: it represents a minimum, not an exact count, because when bones are moved by the natural processes of decomposition and waterlogging, determining exactly how many individuals they represent becomes an exercise in bone-by-bone analysis.

The demographic range of the cemetery was immediately striking.