Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Query

Site name Hambledon Hill - Stepleton Spur
Site number 56
Burial codes 5003 5009 5021 5023 5025 5028 5030 5035 5036 5042 5044 5047 5051 5052 5053 5065 5075 5084 5092 5096 5101 5104 5108 5109 5110 5111 5128 5151 5152 5181 5182 5200
3500bc - 2500bc Causewayed enclosure. Burning evidence all along ditch which was bigger than that of the main enclosure. The complete prone skeleton of a male c19 with leaf shaped arrow head in thoracic cavity, was associated with the deposition of large body of charcoal in southern ditch butt by east gateway. It had been covered by chalk rubble soon after it came to be there. In both primary and secondary ditch silts there was a small quantity of human skeletal material. In the east sector of the ditch were 4 human skulls, 2 deposited as crania, 2 as flesh-bound heads [compare the main causewayed ditch vi]. Remains of post-natal infant were crammed into a natural crevice of the enclosure ditch.

The western outwork of the Hambledon site contained a quantity of human skeletal material and a human skull in the primary filling of the inner outwork on the south side of the Stepleton enclosure. 'Evidence would now seem to be accruing for the inclusion of a large number of human cranial deposits in this outer boundary ditch...' (Mercer 1980, 57). Inner outwork consistently is slighter than the outer.

RC: charcoal with human bone in primary rubble HAR-3060 2620 +/- 90
Remains/Period Y5
County Dorset
Region S
National grid square ST
X coordinate 849
Y coordinate 122
Bibliographic source Erskine 1951, Mercer 1980, 1988, Kinnes 1979


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004