Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Query

Site name Yeoveney Lodge Farm, Staines
Site number 122
Burial codes 5005 5009 5021 5023 5025 5028 5030 5035 5036 5043 5044 5047 5051 5052 5053 5065 5075 5084 5092 5098 5102 5104 5106 5109 5111 5127 5128 5143 5151 5153 5181 5182
3500bc - 2500bc Causewayed enclosure with inner banks to the ditches. The ditches were irregular in shape, size and segment length. The outer ditch probably had 17 causeways, the inner c20. The ditches appeared to have filled naturally rather than been refilled, and there was some evidence for recutting.

There was a high concentration of finds in the ditch silts, especially by the ditch ends. The inner ditch was the more prolific. The ditches appear to have received deposits from their inception, and earlier Neolithic pottery continued in the layers to the top siltings, with virtually no later Neolithic material. Groups of whole bone and pottery were found separately. Two human skulls, a fragmentary mandible and a right forearm were found amid animal bones, flints and pottery, in and over the primary silt of the outer ditch. Scattered human skeletal material was found in 5 locations in the inner and outer ditches in all. The upper part of the same right arm was found in the inner ditch 94.4m away; a mandible with domestic refuse in the outer ditch, the end of an infant fibula in the inner ditch, a complete ulna and metacarpals in the primary silt of the outer ditch. Their condition suggested that the bones had been lying around on the site before deposition. Skull B had marks of fatal blows and had been severed from the body. The pottery was of Abingdon, and Hurst Fen (Mildenhall) type.

The interior of the enclosure was full of features that might have been evidence for occupation: pits, post holes, and long wall slots or palisade trenches. In the interior of the enclosure was found a single oval flat grave of an unaccompanied crouched inhumation of a female c35, on its left side, rather loosely arranged. A cremation without any associations was also found in a recut post hole in the enclosure and was possibly of Neolithic date. It appeared a token deposit from the few body parts represented, of a possible female c30 or more.
Remains/Period Y5
County Middlesex
Region SE
National grid square TQ
X coordinate 25
Y coordinate 725
Bibliographic source Ministry of Works 1962, 1963, 1964, Robertson-Mackay 1962, 1965, 1987, Kinnes 1979


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004