Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Rockbourne Down
Site number 828
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4035 4042 4044 4047 4051 4052 4053 4065 4071 4073 4085 4091 4098 4104 4106 4108 4111 4121 4125 4128 4143 4152 4153 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A ring ditch with in the SW/SE quadrants 3 pits, one filled with flint packing stones, one containing fragments of a small Middle Bronze Age collared urn but no cremation, and the third being an empty shallow scoop. There was a central grave 2.15m x 1.35m, rectangular at the top, shaping to oval at the base. Large flints filled it to a depth of 1.05m. Fragments of a disarticulated skeleton were in the chalk rubble lining the pit walls. At 1.05m there were three whole or partial skeletons, the central one with a part food vessel. On the solid chalk floor at 1.5m was a primary interment accompanied by 3 antler tines at the head.

The sequence appears to have been: primary burial, crouched, on left side, head to NW. This was disturbed by the pit dug for the secondary burial. The secondary burial was inserted, crouched, on the left side, head to SE accompanied by a deliberately broken food vessel (the bottom part only was deposited upright). It was of a young adult and the food vessel contained earth, a pike vertebra and the sacrum of a very young human. At the skeleton's neck were two perforated sea shell beads. Some bones of the disturbed primary burial were set beside this secondary. This secondary burial also, however, disturbed another (secondary) above the primary and at the same level as or possibly higher than the completely articulated secondary. This third burial's bones were collected and set beside the complete secondary, the less obvious fragments being turned back into the pit refill (some occurring high up in the redeposited chalk rubble). There was a Beaker sherd in the primary ditch silting, giving a date for the primary burial and encircling ditch.
Remains/Period Y4
County Hampshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 110
Y coordinate 180
Bibliographic source Piggott and Piggott 1945


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004