The Bronze Age Round Barrows of Wessex

Abstract

The area covered by this survey, which epitomizes the writer's work on Wessex barrows since 1929, is limited on the west by a line drawn from Weston-super-Mare to Bridport, on the east by a line drawn from Dorking to Arundel, on the north roughly by the northern limit of the chalk downs south of the Thames, and on the south by the sea. It encloses the great majority of bell, disc, and saucer barrows, all of which appear to be expressions of Piggott's Wessex Bronze Age culture. It should be noted however that elements of this culture are found outside the area dealt with, notably at various places to the north-east. Nearly all of these are so close to the Icknield Way as to make it certain that this was the means of communication linking the one with the other. Another, though less important, extension of the Wessex Bronze Age culture is represented by a few sites, some of them doubtful, within a short distance of the course of the Upper Thames, and it is probable that the river was the means of communication used.Here it is well to point out the respects in which the boundaries of Bronze Age Wessex, as determined by my own distribution-maps of barrows, differ from those adopted in the O.S. Map of Neolithic Wessex, and by Mr Stuart Piggott in his recent paper, ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex.’

Bronze Age ‘Barrows’ and Funerary Rites and Rituals of Cremation

“…For example, Grinsell (1941) noted ten sites in the Wessex region where the excavators had observed what they believed to have been pyre sites below barrows. For example, Grinsell (1941) noted ten sites in the Wessex region where the excavators had observed what they believed to have been pyre sites below barrows.…”

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

“…). The majority of these are found on the Wiltshire chalk (Grinsell ), although even here they are not common in relation to other forms, such as bowl barrows (Exon et al . , 80).…”

“…, 80). To the west, only a small number have been identified in Dorset (Grinsell 1959; 1982; RCHME , 472; , 137; , 103) and just a handful have been recorded to the east of Wiltshire in Hampshire and Berkshire (Grinsell 1935; 1938; 1939; 1941). As such, they form a small proportion of the more than 2000 barrows which have been recorded in Wiltshire alone (Lawson , 202).…”

“…To the east, at Ladle Hill, Popham Beacons and Crawley Downs in Hampshire, saucer barrows appear from field survey to have been partially overlapped by later bell and bowl barrows (Grinsell 1938; 1941). If this is correct, it would suggest that they represent early elements within the barrow cemeteries.…”

Food for the Living: a Reassessment of a Bronze Age Barrow at Buckskin, Basingstoke, Hampshire

“…No Bronze Age occupation sites have yet been identified in the immediate vicinity despite the large numbers of recorded round barrows (Grinsell 1941), early Bronze Age funerary complexes (eg Down Grange), and extensive flint scatters of Neolithic-Bronze Age date (Gardiner 1988). It is possible that such sites are located at the foot of slopes or in dry valleys and buried under colluvium (see Allen 1988; 1991) as may be indicated by the auger survey undertaken at SU 607 508, which produced large sherds of Collared Urn under nearly 1 m of hillwash (see discussion).…”