Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Litton Cheney 1/3a
Site number 713
Burial codes 4003 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4033 4041 4045 4048 4051 4065 4075 4083 4084 4092 4094 4098 4101 4104 4105 4106 4108 4110 4111 4128 4141 4153 4154 4161 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A sub-circular enclosure (possibly a small farmstead) with an internal bank and a south east entrance 1.1m wide. An inner (?)oval enclosure was in the south east quadrant and comprised a shallow foundation trench with flint nodules for post hole packing. A central post hole contained urn sherds as did the trench. Just east of the central post hole was a shallow oval pit with a lower fill of brown loam, small flints and extremely small pottery fragments, and an upper fill of large flints.

A pit to the south west of the central post hole comprised two phases. Phase I was a roughly circular pit with a mass of cremated bone of an adult male c30 or more, packed up against the east side probably originally by an upright post. Phase II was a shallower pit to the north east of this post, oval, and with the lowest fill being a pad of charcoal and cremated bone on which an upright collared urn was set containing the cremation of a male c20. The pit fill was brown clayey soil, with much charcoal and small flint pieces, and some of the urn rim fragments. No stratigraphical relationship between the pits and the enclosure could be shown.

Just outside the south east of the enclosure was an oval flint cairn of small size [3a]. The cairn contained 3 or 4 partial deposits of cremations and more pots, at least one not accompanying a cremation and all only partial deposits. The flints in the cairn were arranged carefully in circular settings, some designed to protect the pottery vessels. The cremations included at least 1 adult and 3 children (c5-10, c5-10, and 'small').

The excavator believed the interments post-dated the inner oval enclosure which had been a hut used seasonally in the Early Bronze Age.
Remains/Period Y4
County Dorset
Region S
National grid square SY
X coordinate 556
Y coordinate 917
Bibliographic source Piggott and Piggott 1939, Catherall 1975, 1976b


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004