Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

Background to the Gazetteer | Table of Contents


Query

Site name Micheldever Wood, R4, Lunways Road
Site number 827
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4024 4025 4028 4030 4032 4036 4041 4045 4048 4051 4053 4065 4075 4081 4085 4093 4098 4103 4105 4111 4122 4128 4143 4152 \\\\n4153 4161 4181 4200 1003 1004 1009 1021 1023 1026 1028 1030 1035 1042 1047 1051 1065 1075 1084 1092 1098 1102 1104 1108 1109 1111 1128 1143 1153 1181
2500bc-14/1300bc A triple bowl barrow oriented ESE/WNW set on a deliberately levelled terrace. The site has 5 main Phases. Phase I was the creation of the level terrace. There were 12 shallow scoops or pits cut into the pre-barrow soil, not necessarily ritual or contemporary with the levelling (pit P104 HAR-1043).

Phase II was the building of the barrow and the ditch. The west mound covered a central burial pit, oval, containing a neat circular pile of ashes of a male with slight osteoarthritis, and a cat humerus. The other feature (F75) below this mound was a scatter of flint artefacts on the barrow floor. The mound had a circular central core of brown clay-loam and flint, capped by medium size flint nodules. The layer contained 61 flint artefacts and a collared urn sherd, and charcoal producing HAR-1042. There was a series of layers of orange-brown clay loam with flints, loam, chalk rubble and flint nodule concentrations. Flint artefacts and sherds were contained in the mound layers to varying degrees (sherds of Mortlake ware, Beaker sherds, collared urn sherds, and other Neolithic pottery). A secondary cremation was set into the top of the west side of the mound, comprising a smashed collared urn and a few cremated human bone fragments in association.

Between the west and east mounds was a flint cairn covering a circular pit (P100) 0.8m in diameter and 0.25m deep filled with closely packed flint nodules and containing 2 flint flakes and a chip. There was an off-centre primary burial pit (F105) containing well-calcined bones (some large pieces) of a young adult, probably female, and a bronze awl, covered by an inverted collared urn, and with pit fill of pre-barrow soil. There were 3 other pits pre-dating the cairn. The cairn mound comprised tightly packed flint nodules, and the body contained 289 flint artefacts and some cow bones.

The east mound contained a burnt area and the primary burial pit (F48). The burnt area may have been a bonfire of clearance material rather than a pyre (there was no cremated bone). The burial was in an oval pit dug through the burnt layer, and comprised an inverted collared urn containing well-calcined bones of an adult, and a small bronze awl. The pit also contained 2 flint flakes and oak and blackthorn charcoal. The mound had a clay-loam core with further layers of orange-brown clay-loam containing small broken flints, one darker layer containing flints and some sherds (1 Neolithic and 14 collared urn sherds). Remains of a chalk block circle surrounded the clay-loam core as a revetment.

A pit 0.75m east of the east mound and on the axis of the barrow contained a complete small cord decorated cup in collared urn fabric, with loam and chalk fragment fill, and silt with charcoal. Two further pits were south of the central cairn, containing loamy silty filling with charcoal including (F95) hawthorn and hazel nut, and (F103) oak. A flint chip and unidentifiable long bone fragments were in F95, and a flint flake in F103.

A ditch and external bank surrounded the triple barrow.

Phase III saw the barrow unmaintained, and cairn and ditch tumble. Charcoal gave HAR-1044.

Phase IV was a post barrow flint industry, after the barrow had presumably lost any symbolic significance since the flints in the cairn and west mound formed the flint quarry. Sherds ranged from (residual) Neolithic to collared urn, bucket urn, Iron Age and Roman. Charcoal gave HAR-1041.

Phase V was from the end of Phase IV to the present.

RC: HAR-1043 4950 +/- 170, HAR-1042 1720 +/- 80, HAR-1044 1420 +/- 90, HAR-1041 1150 +/- 90
100bc-AD43 In the settlement site there were adult skull fragments and fragmentary infant long bones in the enclosure ditch and interior pits.

In the settlement was a crouched adolescent female burial in a pit, nine complete infant burials in pits, and two more in the enclosure ditch.
Remains/Period Y4 Y1
County Hampshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 525
Y coordinate 365
Bibliographic source Fasham 1977, 1979, Wilson 1981


Query

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