Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Calbourne B, Newbarn Down, Isle of Wight
Site number 1502
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4024 4025 4028 4030 4035 4043 4047 4051 4053 4065 4075 4081 4083 4084 4093 4098 4104 4111 4122 4128 4129 4141 4152 4153 4154 4156 4157 4161 4163 4164 4166 4167 4171 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A round barrow whose first phase was a stake circle enclosing 4 burials, a possible mortuary house. No 1 was in an oval pit with a stone setting, a contracted inhumation accompanied by an elaborately decorated handled Beaker bowl of Dorset type. The stain of the body survived together with traces of the wooden cist in which it had been placed. Flints were packed around the coffin. Eventually this burial was at the centre of the barrow area.

No 2 was a subsequent primary inhumation set in the back-fill of grave 1, and on top of the first burial. It was accompanied by a food vessel. No 3 was in a shaft 2.2m deep, another dissolved inhumation. No 4 was in a monoxylous coffin 2.5m long placed in a large D-shaped pit. The circle of stakes was modified to include this last grave. Inside this coffin was a triangular flint knife, a small assortment of scrapers, and a food vessel.

In phase 2, the inner stake circle was demolished and a flint cairn erected over it. A contracted satellite burial in a wooden cist was also interred north of the cairn. In phase 3 the flint cairn was probably covered by a turf mound with a close set circle of retaining stakes which passed through the satellite burial.

In phase 4 a miniature tree trunk coffin and two secondary cremations in food vessel urns were inserted below the old ground surface through shafts dug through the mound. One of the cremations used two urns, one inverted over the other as a cover.
Remains/Period Y4
County Hampshire
Region S
National grid square SZ
X coordinate 435
Y coordinate 849
Bibliographic source Tomalin 1979


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004