Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Query

Site name Maiden Castle Causewayed Enclosure, Winterbourne St Martin
Site number 60
Burial codes 5003 5009 5021 5023 5025 5028 5030 5035 5036 5042 5044 5047 5051 5052 5053 5063 5075 5085 5092 5096 5101 5104 5105 5108 5109 5111 5122 5124 5127 5128 5129 5143 5151 5181 5200
3500bc - 2500bc Causewayed enclosure, whose ditches were gradually filled by 'hearths' and 'occupation earth'. The primary levels contained flint flakes, hazel nuts and animal bones. Ditches were filled in before the long mound (Site 61) was built. Part of a skull of an adult male c20-25 was found in the middle filling of the outer ditch (R5 from site R, Wheeler 1943). A fragment of skull and the right radius of a child c3-8 were found with Beaker sherds in the top of the inner ditch at the east entrance of the Iron Age camp. Fragments of long bones and pelvis of a child c1-3 were found in the same level (GM1(a) and (b) from site GM, Wheeler 1943).

In Trench I (Sharples 1986) a child skeleton was found in primary chalk rubble of the inner ditch: there was much Neolithic A and B pottery, artefacts, animal bones, flint, scored chalk lumps, and carbonised grain in the ditch layers. Trench II contained a pit (or the end section of the outer causewayed ditch) with the disarticulated remains of at least 2 human skeletons associated with several flint flakes, a stone axe and animal bones.

RC: 15 dates ranging from OxA-3080 +/-80 to OxA-1141 2410 +/-80 from animal and human bone and charcoal for the most part from ditches. Human bone from the primary fill of the outer ditch produced OxA-1338 2980 +/-80, ditto from child burial in primary fill of inner ditch OxA-1148 2860 +/-80.
Remains/Period Y5
County Dorset
Region S
National grid square SY
X coordinate 667
Y coordinate 885
Bibliographic source Wheeler 1943, Kinnes 1979, Sharples 1986, 1987, 1991


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004