Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

Background to the Gazetteer | Table of Contents


Query

Site name Stogursey 1, Wick Barrow, Pixies' Mound
Site number 287
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4035 4042 4047 4051 4065 4071 4072 4084 4093 4098 4101 4103 4104 4105 4106 4108 4110 4111 4122 4123 4125 4129 4143 4152 4154 4168 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc The round barrow comprised a mound of blocks of lias with a very substantial circular inner wall of slabs 9m in diameter. The primary interment had been removed in the 4th Century AD. The first secondary interment was 0.6m below the top of the mound, east of the centre, and comprised a crouched skeleton of a male c30. Near the right shoulder was a bell Beaker of Bi type, probably incomplete when deposited.

The second secondary interment was a crouched skeleton of a male c25 or less, probably bound, head to N, west of the centre and 0.9m below the top of the mound, accompanied by a type A necked Beaker, a fine flint dagger and a flint knife. The third secondary interment was a fragmentary contracted skeleton of a probable young adult, just within the the north part of a circular wall 1m below the surface of the barrow, with the head to the SE, and these associated finds: a necked type A Beaker (broken when deposited), 4 flint scrapers, a flint knife, and a burnisher.

Other secondary interments were to the north of the first, a confused mass of very fractured bones, 5 adults and a child, packed into a 1.8m x 0.6m area, including 5 skull fragments with woven material impressions. These were undatable, but it is conjectured that they were the original primary interments removed in the 4th Century AD. Secondary interments 1-3 were incorporated in the mound as it was built. There were also the fragmentary remains of a probable female adult and the teeth of a child associated with two minute fragments of pot and a tooth of young sheep, 0.3m below the surface and 1.1m south of the top of the walled enclosure of the mound.

Generally miscellaneous and fragmentary human bones were found, sometimes singly, sometimes in small groups, both within the walled enclosure and above and outside it.
Remains/Period Y4
County Somerset
Region SW
National grid square ST
X coordinate 209
Y coordinate 456
Bibliographic source Gray 1908a, Grinsell 1969


Query

© Internet Archaeology/Author(s)
Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004