Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Dorchester-on-Thames, Site IV
Site number 1042
Burial codes 5002 5005 5021 5023 5025 5028 5030 5032 5036 5041 5048 5051 5053 5065 5075 5084 5092 5104 5111 5122 5128 5143 5153 5181
3500bc - 2500bc A causewayed cremation cemetery, consisting of a discontinuous ditch of eight segments, each in the form of an oval funnel shaped pit, enclosing an area c6m in diameter. A bank stood outside the ditch. In pits 2 and 3 large worked oak planks lay immediately below the black soil filling, at a steep angle. There was a broad entrance gap on the SE. There was an outer bank, and each ditch segment had a single hole cut in its floor.

There were 25 deposits of cremated bones. A petit tranchet arrow head accompanied one of the cremations. 12 lay within the area enclosed by the ditch, close to its inner edge, except the central No 25. Three were just outside the ditch, and the remaining 10 were in the topmost ditch filling. The deposits were tighly packed fragments of bone, free from charcoal. Associated with cremations 1, 9, 18, 19 and 24 were a few white flint chips, the fire damaged remains of flint implements. One was the arrow head referred to above with No 18. Two antler picks were found, in the silt of pit 2, and over the filling of pit 7 both in the causewayed ditch. The pit holes on the ditch were not for posts and had no traces of such.

[Order suggested by Whittle et al 1992: Dorchester Site VIII, 1, III, XI, II, I, IV, V, VI, 2, 3, XIV, XII, XIII, 4, VII, IX].
Remains/Period Y5
County Oxfordshire
Region SE
National grid square SU
X coordinate 570
Y coordinate 958
Bibliographic source Atkinson 1951a, Atkinson, Piggott and Sanders 1951, Kinnes 1979, Gibson 1992b


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004