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Site name Folly Field, Bishop's Waltham
Site number 810
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4035 4043 4047 4051 4053 4065 4072 4083 4098 4104 4111 4123 4128 4129 4143 4152 4163 4169 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A bell barrow with an ovate ditch eccentric to the barrow mound, which was made up of sands and clays thrown up from the ditch in definable dumpings. Masses of clay at the mound periphery indicates definition or revetment. To the east of the central burial was an elongated pit oriented EW dug into the hard greensand, 2.7m x 1m x 1.05m deep. It was cut in stepped fashion down to an ovate cavity. A soft mud-like sterile loam filled the pit. It was refilled soon after digging and probably before the grave pit was excavated. The grave was a rough parallelogram with rounded corners oriented EW, 2.3m x 1.4m x 0.5m deep, its north west corner only 5cm from the lip of the pit. A tree trunk coffin was placed in the grave, then packed around with clay, then sand. Fine pounded charcoal had been dusted over the coffin floor, and then cereal stalks or leaves scattered. Placed centrally on the bottom of the coffin in an elongated heap was a cremation deposit of an individual c20-30. It was accompanied by two daggers resting on the coffin floor (one ogival, one with a mid-rib), and all was covered by a brown fibrous material. Near the south west corner of the coffin and outside it was an Abercromby type 3 biconical food vessel, finely decorated, which had stood upright on the sand packing the gap between coffin and grave wall.

On the sand infill of the coffin 0.2m above the cremation heap was a clean deep chocolate brown compact sand contrasting with the grey-yellow sand fill. The excavator identified this as having an anthropomorphic form and crouched in posture. Some of the food vessel sherds fell onto the shape when the coffin cover (which also protected the vessel) collapsed. These taken together have been interpreted as a representative inhumation.

From the barrow mound came 42 plain and 12 decorated sherds, of which 10 were Western Neolithic. Flints were in the upper layers of the mound material and totalled 1460, including 134 blades, hammers, cores and numerous other flakes.
Remains/Period Y4
County Hampshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 556
Y coordinate 174
Bibliographic source Ashbee 1954c, 1955b, 1957a


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004