Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T15:59:37.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Topography of some Barrow Cemeteries in Bronze Age Wessex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

A.B. Woodward  and
P.J. Woodward
A.B. Woodward
Affiliation:
Birmingham University Field Archaeological Unit, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT
P.J. Woodward
Affiliation:
Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the study of Early Bronze Age round barrows and cemeteries has flourished in recent years, detailed studies of the siting of barrows and cemeteries in relation to local topography and contemporary monuments are rare. This paper analyses the distribution of barrow cemeteries in relation to three major monumental complexes in Wessex: the South Dorset Ridgeway, Avebury, and Stonehenge. The analyses indicate that the location of barrows and cemeteries was strictly regulated. Although the specific pattern in each region is different, and closely related to the local topography of rivers and ridges, an underlying structural principle has been identified. This principle is that of circularity, and it is suggested that the various patterns of cemetery layout, involving curved settings and arcs, reflect the shape of the round barrows contained within them, the stake- and post-circles which lie buried beneath some of them, and the shape of the timber and stone monuments upon which they focus. This tradition of cemetery regulation appears to have continued to effect mortuary behaviour well into the Middle Bronze Age, alongside new systems of settlement and burial patterning which were developing in areas away from the ancient monumental foci. Finally, pointers towards future related research are outlined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 62 , 1996 , pp. 275 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, M.J. 1995a. Landscape and landuse. In Gardiner J. The assimilation of the monument and post-Bronze Age use and abuse. In Cleal, R.M.J. Walker, K.E. & Montague, R., Stonehenge in its Landscape: twentieth-century excavations, 332–3. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 10.Google Scholar
Allen, M.J. 1995b. Archaeology and environment. In Cleal, R.M.J. The stone monument: Phase 3. In Cleal, R.M.J., Walker, K.E. & Montague, R., Stonehenge in its Landscape: twentieth-century excavations, 168–9. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 10.Google Scholar
Bailey, C.J. 1980. Settlement patterns in the Bride valley. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society 102, 104–6.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C. 1988. The living, the dead, and the ancestors: Neolithic and early Bronze Age mortuary practices. In Barrett, J.C. & Kinnes, I.A. (eds), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends, 30–41. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C. 1994. Fragments from Antiquity. An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain, 2900–1200 BC. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., Bradley, R. & Green, M. 1991. Landscape, Monuments and Society. The Prehistory of Cranborne Chase. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J.C. & Bradley, R. 1980. Settlement and Society in the British Later Bronze Age. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellamy, P. 1992. The excavation of Fordington Farm round barrow. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society 113, 107–32.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 1993. Altering the Earth. The Origins of Monuments in Britain and Continental Europe. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.Google Scholar
Bradley, R., Entwistle, R. & Raymond, F. 1994. Prehistoric Land Divisions on Salisbury Plain. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 3.Google Scholar
Brailsford, J.W. 1951. The pottery from the Sheep Down pond barrow. Archaeological Journal 108, 16–24.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, M. 1984. Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2200–1400 BC: a new dimension to the archaeological evidence. In Miller, D. & Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, Power and Prehistory, 93–100. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burl, A. 1976. The Stone Circles of the British Isles. Yale: University Press.Google Scholar
Burl, A. 1988. Coves: structural enigmas of the Neolithic. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 82, 1–18.Google Scholar
Clarke, D.L. 1970. Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Cleal, R.M.J., Walker, K.E. & Montague, R. 1995. Stonehenge in its Landscape: twentieth-century excavations. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 10.Google Scholar
Cunnington, M.E. 1931. The Sanctuary on Overton Hill, near Avebury. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 45, 300–35.Google Scholar
Darvill, T. 1995. Landscape archaeology and evidence for the social use of space. In Kultúrtáj-történeti táj-mǔemlékvédelem. Budapest-Keszthely, 1993. ICOMOS Magyar Nemzetti Bizottsag, 205–9. Budapest.Google Scholar
Ellison, A.B. 1975. Pottery and Settlements of the Later Bronze Age in Southern England. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fleming, A. 1971. Territorial patterns in Bronze Age Wessex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 37, 138–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garwood, P. 1991. Ritual tradition and the reconstitution of society. In P. Garwood, D. Jennings, R. Skeates & Toms, J. (eds) Sacred and Profane, 10–32. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology.Google Scholar
Gerloff, S. 1975. The Early Bronze Age Daggers in Great Britain, with a Reconsideration of the Wessex Culture. Munich.Google Scholar
Gingell, C.J. 1988. Twelve Wiltshire round barrows. Excavations in 1959 and 1961 by F. de M. and H.L. Vatcher. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 82, 19–76.Google Scholar
Green, C. & Rollo-Smith, S. 1984. The excavation of eighteen round barrows near Shrewton, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 50, 255–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, H.S. 1974. Early Bronze Age burial, territory and population in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and the Great Ouse valley. Archaeological Journal 131, 75–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grinsell, L.V. 1957. Archaeological Gazetteer. Victoria County History, Wiltshire Vol I (i).Google Scholar
Longworth, I.H. 1984. Collared Urns of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, F. 1993. Excavations in the Brenig Valley. Bangor: Cambrian Archaeological Association.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, K. 1993. A historiography of a linear barrow cemetery: a structurationist's point of view. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 11, 40–9.Google Scholar
Petersen, F. 1972. Traditions of multiple burial in later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age England. Archaeological Journal 129, 22–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierpoint, S. 1980. Social Patterns in Yorkshire Prehistory 3500–750 BC. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S. 1938. The Early Bronze Age in Wessex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 4, 52–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, J. 1992. The Sanctuary, Overton Hill, Wiltshire: a re-examination. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 213–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, J. 1984. The development of the Neolithic landscape in the environs of Stonehenge. In Bradley, R. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies, 177–88. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Richards, J. 1990. The Stonehenge Environs Project. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 16.Google Scholar
Soffe, G. 1993. A barrow cemetery and other features recorded by air photography at Beckhampton, Avebury. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 86, 142–7.Google Scholar
Tilley, C. 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape. Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Tomalin, D.J. 1983. The Origins and Development of the Biconical Urn Series in Great Britain. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Southampton.Google Scholar
Tomalin, D.J. 1991. Combe-cluster barrow cemeteries in the Isle of Wight; a locational prediction model. Proceedings of the Isle of Wight Natural History & Archaeological Society 11, 85–96.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. 1993. The Neolithic of the Avebury area: sequence, environment, settlement and monuments. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 12, 29–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, A. 1992. Shrines and Sacrifice. London: Batsford.Google Scholar
Woodward, P.J. 1991. The South Dorset Ridgeway. Survey and excavations 1977–84. Dorchester: Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society Monograph 8.Google Scholar