Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Collingbourne Kingston 6, Snail Down
Site number 498
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4035 4041 4048 4051 4053 4065 4075 4081 4093 4098 4104 4108 4111 4122 4127 4129 4143 4152 4153 4181 4182
2500bc-14/1300bc A saucer barrow with two burial pits of identical size and shape. The central pit was 0.9m in diameter and 0.6m deep. It had a further pit 0.3m in diameter and 0.3m deep dug in its floor. In this pit were placed the cremated bones of an adult and covering the cremation a filling of earth incorporating food refuse and broken domestic pottery. In the filling were placed 2 small incense cups, and a bronze awl. A mass of packed flints sealed the pit.

The second pit was 1m or so to the south west, and similarly constructed, but the cremation was of an adolescent whose skull had been trepanned shortly before or after death - the disc had been removed and deliberately placed at the base of the pile of bones. A similar fill of domestic refuse covered the cremation, but there were no grave goods. A small pit to the south east contained a southern British food vessel inverted over food bones. No trace of any mounds was found covering the pits. A weathered greenstone axe of Group 1 was found in an ancient tree hollow below the bank; some Beaker sherds appeared here and there lower down in the ditch 15cm above the floor.
Remains/Period Y4
County Wiltshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 215
Y coordinate 519
Bibliographic source Thomas and Thomas 1955


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004