SummaryThe three long barrows described in this report were totally excavated between 1959 and 1967. They have been presented in a single report because they had several features in common: they were in close proximity; they were built as single phase monuments; two conformed to a common specification which required elaborate internal structures; and they produced no evidence of funerary function or intent. There are four sections: I. The Horslip (or Windmill Hill) Long Barrow (P. A.). II. The Beckhampton Road Long Barrow (I.F.S.). III. The South Street Long Barrow (J.G.E.). The fourth section (IV) deals with the environmental history of the area as revealed in the long barrow soils and sediments (J.G.E.).
This discovery was made as a result of rescue excavation in advance of road improvements by the Dorset County Council in the autumn of 1962. The site (NGR SY/99789918) now lies in the north verge of the A31 trunk road, 500 feet towards Wimborne Minster from the new Lake junction to Corfe Mullen, but in 1962 it was still included in field No. 7924, belonging to Lake Farm. Here the land, which forms part of the flood-plain of the Stour, is crossed by a spur of slightly more elevated ground extending north from Willetts Lane. There is a gentle slope westwards from the site towards the Chillwater Stream, which flows north to the Stour after descending from higher ground. The lowlying terrain to the west of this low spur used to be marshland until its reclamation, accounting for the name ‘lake’ given to the locality. The subsoil of the valley-bottom is composed variously of gravel, shingly stones and brown alluvial loam. The original vegetational cover would have been woodland of deciduous type, extending from the floor of the valley up the slope to the south and thinning out to scrub and heath on the gravel plateau 150 feet above the Stour. Today, pasture dominates the scene, with oak prominent only in hedgerow or isolated clumps.The pit to be described below lay just over half a mile to the north-east of the site of one similar in shape and contents that was discovered in a quarry in Corfe Mullen parish some twenty-five years ago.
A sequence of deposits ranging in date from Late-glacial to the present produced detailed evidence of environmental changes, reflecting both climatic fluctuations and the effects of human activities. A Later Mesolithic occupation horizon, with lithic industry and associated faunal remains, is dated at about 5280 be. It was sealed by a deposit of tufa. An irregular linear excavation, dated at about 2765 be, is interpreted as a quarry; the backfill contained Earlier Neolithic pottery and other settlement debris. The first phase of later activities is marked by the deposition of a large quantity of Peterborough ware. Later on, part of the site was ploughed over and at the same time a series of small ditches, interpreted as elements of a system of land boundaries, was dug in the adjacent area. Late Beaker and Food Vessel sherds indicate the approximate date of these events.
Summary. An extensive urn cemetery associated with a complex flint platform, excavated by Max Dacre between 1966 and 1970, included burials of late Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age (‘Deverel-Rimbury’) and Late Bronze Age date. The cemetery developed organically from a late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age focus which had evolved around one or more large sarsen stones.The pottery sequence is of particular interest. The chronological precedence of all the barrel urn types of Central Wessex has been demonstrated for the first time and the Deverel-Rimbury phases contain pottery which relates both to the local Wessex sequence and to the Lower Thames Valley assemblages. The later Deverel-Rimbury phases also include vessels of the post-Deverel-Rimbury tradition and the final burials were interred in Late Bronze Age jars.Analysis of the associated cremations gives some indication of the age and sex structure of each phase of burials, although identification proved difficult owing to the post-incineration process of pulverization to which the remains had been subjected in all phases. The existence of a range of age groups and both sexes in each phase serves to confirm the hypothesis that modular units within such later Bronze Age cemeteries represented the burial places of individual small social groups.The urn cemetery developed gradually over a period of 1500 years (from c. 2100 to 600 BC).
A T a meeting in Burlington House on 23rd February 1974 the President welcomed some forty invitees to discuss the inauguration and development of the Evolution of the Landscape project in its pilot form in Wessex (Dorset, Hants, and Wilts.). It was recognized that work could best be thought of as falling into two categories: the intensive investigation of select, relatively small, areas over an extended period, and the investigation, in turn, of particular subjects over the whole area or over large parts of it. The ultimate intention of the latter operation was to achieve a total search of the ground in the course of a series of analytical surveys. It was decided that the first of these should be focused on sarsen stones which, as surface boulders, presented both an obstacle to land development and a challenge to make use of them. The subject was also appropriately interdisciplinary. In particular, (i) establishment of their former incidence would indicate the size and nature of the challenge to early settlers, and have a bearing on technology and population pressures; it would also assist geomorphologists whose conclusions might be of significance to archaeologists; (ii) consideration of their use would integrate with (i) and be a useful analysis of a mineral resource; (iii) consideration of their effect on bedrock chalk should be of value to excavators; (iv) method of work in the survey could be assessed without too many complicating factors since the subject matter, the stones, was relatively easy to describe (even if difficult to define petrologically). The results of the collaborative research that followed the meeting of February 1974 were reviewed, 15 months later, in May 1975. The Dorset survey was substantially complete. Recording was still progressing in Hampshire and Wiltshire; it has now, in mid 1977, been brought to a high degree of completeness though there are one or two known gaps, particularly the restricted areas of Salisbury Plain and parts of NE. Hants. Any new information would be gladly received. Summary lists, already widely circulated, are available on request from
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