Original DocumentsRalph Lord Cromwell

The excavation of four ploughed-out round barrows in Milton Keynes has produced evidence of relevance to barrow design, ceramic chronology, economy, settlement patterns and population in the second millennium B.C.

The chronological usefulness of Longworth's Collared Urn Classification is considered and a long survival of All-Over-Cord Beaker tradition in southern Britain is suggested. Three of the sites produced a mixed flint assemblage ranging in date from Mesolithic to Bronze Age. A local pastoral economy, possibly associated with transhumance, is indicated at two sites. It is suggested that barrow distribution coincided with settlement distribution. An estimate is made of the proportion of the population who received barrow burial and a formula is derived for computing the size of local Bronze Age populations.     

Saucer Barrows: Places for Ritual within Wessex Early Bronze Age Chalkland Barrow Cemeteries

The Bronze Age barrow groups of Wessex have primarily been classified as places of burial where lineages were marked and mourners deployed to create mythologized links with the recently dead and the ancestors. These chalkland barrow cemeteries are associated with a range of barrow forms – bowl barrows and ‘fancy’ barrows, the latter comprising disc, bell, pond and saucer types. Whilst funerary activity was undoubtedly an important activity within these barrow groups, this paper examines the evidence for other forms of ritual practice within one particular barrow type, the saucer barrow, and considers whether there was more to ritual activity in Wessex barrow cemeteries than the disposal of the dead and the commemoration of ancestors.     

Integrated Analytical Techniques for the Study of Colouring Materials from Two Megalithic Barrows

We have determined the composition of rock art pigments from two megalithic barrows located in the north of Portugal. The use of XRD, SEM–EDS and FT–IR spectroscopy confirmed the presence of hematite and kaolinite in the red pigments from the Eireira barrow, and kaolinite in the white pigment from the Leira das Mamas barrow. The organic composition of the pigments was studied by GC–MS, suggesting that the red sinuous lines and dots from the Eireira barrow were prepared with cooked or heated algae and/or aquatic plants, with egg as binder, while the white pigment from the Leira das Mamas barrow revealed a mixture of vegetable oils for kaolinite moulding, which could be stabilized by temporary exposure to high temperatures. The multi‐analytical approach used on this study of megalithic pigments allowed the recovery of important data about north‐western prehistoric communities, namely the way in which they exploited existing resources and their ability to transform them.     

Lead concentrations in bones from a Neolithic long barrow

Lead concentrations were determined in ribs obtained from the Neolithic long barrow at Hazelton and compared with those in a series of modern bones. The mean lead concentration in the neolithic material was about two-and-a-half times less than the contemporary mean indicating that human activity has considerably increased the human body burden of lead.     

ANATOMY OF A TOMB-WEST KENNET REVISITED

Summary. The primary and secondary uses of the West Kennet long barrow are reconsidered. In the first phase, dating perhaps to a late period of the Earlier Neolithic, the monument was used for a variety of burial rites, including bone circulation. The patterned deposits may have belonged to a small social group, and detailed knowledge of the tomb contents may have been restricted to such a group. The secondary phase is seen as covering a long span of time from the end of the Earlier Neolithic to the developed stage of the Later Neolithic represented by Avebury and Silbury Hill. The secondary filling of the monument was both gradual and patterned, and the ritual involved may have been part of continued social competition in the area.     

New AMS Dates from the Lambourn Long Barrow and the Question of the Earliest Neolithic in Sourthern England: Repacking the Neolithic Package?

This paper reassesses the chronological status of the Lambourn long barrow, which has provided one of the earliest dates from a mortuary monument in Britain. Three new AMS dates on short-lived material indicate that the construction and primary use phase of the monument lies within the period 3760–3645 cal BC, and that the earlier estimate obtained on charcoal (4555–3780 cal BC) is likely subject to the old wood effect, or is residual. This is followed by a consideration of the implications of the new dates in the context of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, the timing of which remains poorly understood. It is argued that the evidence is increasingly pointing to a more rapid neolithization process, and that this had implications for the mechanisms involved.     

Excavation and pollen analysis on a bell barrow at ascot,berkshire

The paper describes the partial excavation of a bell barrow, associated with a single radiocarbon date in the 15th century bc. Pollen analysis is employed to elucidate details of the barrow's manner and sequence of construction. Investigation of the buried soil revealed a long period of human interference culminating in a phase of cereal cultivation. This may correspond with a series of possible furrows in the old land surface.     

Roman Villa,Discovered at Bisley,Gloucestershire

In 1973 the Watch Hill barrow in St Stephen-in-Brannel, Cornwall was excavated and demonstrated to be a complex structure. However, at the time it was only possible to arrange two radiocarbon determinations, from the same pit in the base of the ditch. As part of postgraduate research carried out at the University of Exeter, the archive was revisited and funding obtained for a further four radiocarbon determinations from the ditch and central burial within the barrow. The six radiocarbon determinations together ranged between 2140 and 1680 cal. BC. The results are significant as they indicate that the site was in use over several centuries with the burial occurring towards the end of activity.     

A Bronze Age Round Barrow Cemetery,Pit Alignments,Iron Age Burials,Iron Age Copper Working,and Later Activity at Four Crosses,Llandysilio, Powys

Excavation undertaken at the Upper Severn valley round barrow cemetery at Four Crosses, Llandysilio, Powys, between 2004 and 2006 has increased the known barrows and ring ditches to some twenty-seven monuments within this complex, and revealed additional burials. Based on limited dating evidence, and the data from earlier excavations, the majority of the barrows are thought to be constructed in the Bronze Age. The barrows are considered part of a larger linear cemetery. The landscape setting and wider significance of this linear barrow cemetery are explored within this report. Dating suggests two barrows were later, Iron Age additions. The excavation also investigated Iron Age and undated pit alignments, Middle Iron Age copper working and a small Romano-British inhumation cemetery and field systems. Much of this evidence reflects the continuing importance of the site for ritual and funerary activity.     

The significance of orientation elements in iron age burial customs at Voss: A tentative interpretation

After defining the concept ‘orientation elements’ in Iron Age burial customs and summarising the main theories about the Norwegian material in general, the author considers the material from the district of Voss in Western Norway where the data from the finds is more interesting than usual. She attempts to show that the local topographical conditions have played a much larger role in orientation than has usually been maintained, and further suggests that orientation may reflect a ceremonial pattern determined by religious ideas arising out of the belief in ‘haugbu’ (barrow‐dwellers).     

The Monumental Cemeteries of Northern Pictland

THE EMERGENCE OF FORMAL CEMETERIES is one of the most significant transformations in the landscapes of 1st millennium ad Scotland. In eastern and northern Scotland, in the lands of the Picts, square and circular burial monuments were constructed to commemorate a small proportion of the population — perhaps a newly emerging elite in the post-Roman centuries. This paper presents the results of a project that has consolidated and reviewed the evidence for monumental cemeteries of the northern Picts from Aberdeenshire to Inverness-shire, transcribing the aerial evidence of many sites for the first time. In addition, the landscape location of the cemeteries is assessed, along with their relation to Pictish symbol stones, fortified sites and settlement landscapes of the 1st millennium ad. Two particular elements of the burial architecture of northern Pictland are highlighted — barrow enlargement, and the linking of barrows through the sharing of barrow/cairn ditches. Both of these practices are suggested here to be implicated in the creation of genealogies of the living and the dead during an important transitional period in northern Europe when hereditary aristocracies became more prominent.     

Remains of Shobdon Old Church,Herefordshire

Nineteenth-century barrow-diggers have been stereotyped as village parsons and schoolmasters who decimated the prehistoric monuments of England. This study of Derbyshire and Gloucestershire identifies who they were, and provides a social context for their work. Although unsurprisingly drawn mainly from the middle classes, they range from the intellectuals of the age to local curates, doctors and farmers. The booming English rural economy of the mid-Victorian period allowed many to participate in the activity, often for a social or even political purpose; it is also clear that agricultural improvement was the catalyst for many of these barrow excavations.     

Catalogue of the Emblems of Saints

This report describes the excavations of a 4ha multi-period site situated in the parish of Heslerton, North Yorkshire, on the southern edge of the Vale of Pickering. The site came to light in 1977 and a rescue excavation project, sponsored by the Department of the Environment through North Yorkshire County Council, continued on a seasonal basis from 1978 until December 1982.

Occupation at the site began during the late Mesolithic with a flint knapping area, which was also used during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age. During the Late Neolithic a series of shallow gullies may represent the first attempts to establish a field system, and domestic activity may be indicated by two pairs of refuse pits. Other pits of this period demonstrate the presence of an ill-defined avenue of very large post pits running across part of the site. During the early Bronze Age two barrow cemeteries were present. The excavation of Barrow Cemetery 1, besides providing an important series of stratified carbon 14 dates, has produced an important series of Beakers and Food Vessels.

After the barrow cemeteries went out of use, woodland regenerated in the area prior to the late Bronze and early Iron age when the central part of the site became the setting for extensive occupation dispersed along the line of a major boundary which, once established, continued to function, though on a lessening scale through the Roman period when much of the site was turned over to agriculture. During the early Anglo-Saxon period a cemetery was established, focused upon Barrow Cemetery 2, which must have contained well over two hundred individuals, and is associated with a nearby settlement. During the later medieval and post-medieval periods the site continued in use as part of the agricultural landscape. A gradual accumulation of blown sands, associated with periods of denudation, prevented plough damage from disturbing the deposits over much of the area examined.     

Measuring the relative topographic position of archaeological sites in the landscape,a case study on the Bronze Age barrows in northwest Belgium

Local topography is an important parameter determining the erection of a certain type of site on a certain location in the landscape. Despite the importance of topography in archaeological landscape research, the role of local topography has remained rather unexplored compared to other specific topographic parameters such as slope, aspect, curvature or visibility. Therefore, three methods to assess the relative topographic position of sites are applied and discussed here. The Bronze Age barrow dataset of northwest Belgium acts as the subject for this methodological case study. First, elevation percentile calculates the area that is lower than the central point within a predetermined neighborhood. Secondly, difference from mean elevation measures the relative topographic position of the central point as the difference between the elevation of this central point and the mean elevation within a predetermined neighborhood. And finally, deviation from mean elevation calculates the relative topographic position of the central point as the difference from mean elevation divided by the standard deviation of elevation, within a predetermined neighborhood. These three methods, each with their advantages and disadvantages, prove to be an added value for archaeological landscape research.     

An investigation of the origins of cattle and aurochs deposited in the Early Bronze Age barrows at Gayhurst and Irthlingborough

The Early Bronze Age round barrows at Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire and Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire contained remarkably large quantities of cattle (Bos taurus) remains. At Irthlingborough, at least 185 skulls with smaller numbers of mandibles, shoulder blades and pelves were found together with a small number of skeletal elements from aurochs (Bos primigenius). In contrast, the remains from Gayhurst are dominated by the limb bones from more than 300 animals. This study employed strontium isotope ratio analysis of cattle tooth enamel from 15 cattle and one aurochs to investigate the diversity of the animals' origins at both sites and provide insights into Early Bronze Age funerary practices. Although strontium results show that most of the cattle and the aurochs included in this study were consistent with local origins, one animal from each barrow was born remotely, most likely in western Britain. In addition, a second Gayhurst animal was consistent with origins in a region of chalk rather than the local Jurassic sediments.     

江西靖安县李洲坳东周墓葬

李洲坳东周墓葬位于江西靖安县水口乡水口村李家自然村,是在2006年12月30日偶然发现的。在报经国家文物局批准后,江西省文物考古研究所对这座墓葬进行了抢救性发掘,田野工作于2007年1月6日正式开始,至10月25日基本结束。目前,墓葬出土文物的清理工作还在继续。现将该墓发掘的基本情况和一些初步认识简要介     

The Afterlife of Monuments in the English Peak District: The Evidence of Early Bronze Age Burials

This research is an investigation of the locations of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age round barrows in the Peak District. The work involved close examination of the barrows present around two earlier monuments: the Long Low bank barrow and the henge at Arbor Low. Using a Geographic Information System, it considered the densities of the barrows around these focal monuments, inter‐visibility between the sites, and the distribution of distinctive artefacts in the surrounding area. The results raise important questions about the role of memory in the past.     

Books of Life: Biography and Memory in a Bronze Age Barrow

An important round barrow with a primary Beaker interment and numerous secondary burials was excavated at Barnack, Cambridgeshire, in 1974–6. Reading the published report gives the impression that many of the secondary interments, by their location and attitude, reveal a memory of the primary rite. It is argued that the sequence of burials at Barnack reflects the genealogical history of the group which used the site. A series of events emerges, structured primarily by the concept of 'difference', which both retain the unique identities of the buried individuals and form a constructed narrative of society. Similar sequences are evident at other Bronze Age barrows in the east Midlands and elsewhere. Such sites seem to represent our closest approach to the 'embodied experiences' of prehistoric actors.     

A Rich Bell Beaker Burial from Wellington Quarry, Marden, Herefordshire

An intact Bell Beaker grave was discovered in February 1996 at Wellington Quarry, Marden, Herefordshire. The unmarked flat grave had no signs of a ditch or barrow, but may have been timber lined. It contained a tanged copper knife, a shale wristguard fragment, four barbed and tanged arrowheads, three arrowhead blanks, three flint knives, two triangular points or small daggers and four flint flakes. The adult male inhumation was accompanied by a complete, Maritime (AOO) Bell Beaker and may be dated to 2750–2500 BC (Late Neolithic). It belongs to Case's Group D. A notable feature of the grave goods is their different states of wear and completeness, varying from pristine to old, and including a fragment of a wristguard.