Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Pimperne Down
Site number 306
Burial codes 2003 2009 2021 2023 2025 2028 2030 2035 2036 2042 2045 2051 2053 2065 2075 2084 2092 2098 2102 2104 2105 2111 2127 2128 2143 2151 2181 2200
8/700bc-100bc A settlement with fragments of human skull buried in at the foot of several post holes designed for posts to retain the bank ends in the east gateway (Area IV).

Sealed by a closely packed flint cap sealing the ditch fill immediately north of the gateway, there was also the right half of a human skull split vertically and lacking the lower jaw, and a single intact human left femur near the ditch terminal point. These were several feet apart and the latter was in a scatter of ash but unburnt. They were considered deliberate deposits from their position and context. The ditch terminal appeared to have been filled in with large chalk lumps shortly after digging (there was a little silting), and the flint capping of substantial flint nodules set over that fill, the human material deposits forming part of the activity. (Area IV, E3).

The south ditch terminal showed a more progressive pattern of silting and erosion infill. There was a considerable amount of human and animal bone recovered from its filling, including 2 right and 1 left human temporal bone fragments. The deposits were considered domestic rubbish but with deliberate depositional purpose, and possibly contemporanous with activity in the north terminal. (Area IV, A4).

The bones were probably from separate individuals, but only the skull fragment could be attributed being of a young probably female c18-21.

RC: from samples from the roundhouse (Area VI): GU 1575 570 +/- 65, GU 1576 540 +/- 65, GU 1577 430 +/- 65, GU 1578 405 +/- 65, GU 1579 485 +/- 65
Remains/Period Y2
County Dorset
Region S
National grid square ST
X coordinate 891
Y coordinate 97
Bibliographic source Harding and Blake 1963, Harding 1972, Wilson 1981, Harding, Blake and Reynolds 1993, Bruck 1995


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004