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Site name | Winterborne St Martin 1, Maiden Castle Long Mound |
Site number | 61 |
Burial codes | 5005 5009 5021 5023 5025 5028 5030 5032 5036 5042 5047 5051 5052 5053 5065 5075 5093 5098 5103 5104 5106 5108 5110 5128 5129 5143 5151 5152 5181 |
3500bc - 2500bc | Long mound or bank barrow oriented ESE. There was a facade at the east end formed by an arc of 4 post holes with 2 to the west, others located at each side. At the east end was a central pit with plain bowl pottery sherds, limpet shells, and comminuted bone and charcoal. There was an articulated burial (Neo Q1) of a male c25-35, with an extremely long skull but head and limbs hacked off after death. The skull was cracked by efforts assumed to be aimed at extracting the brain. 9m south east of this burial were the crouched (possibly primary) burials (Neo Q2-3) of 2 children c6-7, one child accompanied by a pygmy vessel of Neolithic A form at the shoulder. There were bones and horn cores in the east ditches of the barrow. The ditch fill examined by Sharples (1986) included antler picks, and later fills a Beaker sherd and occupation debris. From the Neolithic B filling of the ditch of the Long Mound at site L came fragments of long bones and pelvis of an adult skeleton L, probably female, a cut on a fragment of shaft of femur possibly occuring at the time of death. RC: from bone in the ditch BM-2456 2770 +/- 100, OxA-1349 2700 +/- 80; middle fill OxA-1349/1341 2710/2510 +/- 80; from the upper fill the bone with the Beaker sherd BM-2455 1520 +/- 70. |
2500bc-14/1300bc | Skeleton L above was possibly from early in this period. |
Remains/Period | Y5 Y4 |
County | Dorset |
Region | S |
National grid square | SY |
X coordinate | 668 |
Y coordinate | 885 |
Bibliographic source | Wheeler 1943, Atkinson 1952, Sharples 1986 |
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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004