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Site name Gallows Hill, Arreton Down, Isle of Wight
Site number 811
Burial codes 4005 4007 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4032 4036 4043 4047 4051 4052 4053 4065 4071 4072 4084 4098 4103 4104 4105 4108 4110 4111 4121 4123 4129 4141 4151 4152 4153 4154 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A bowl barrow covering a primary inhumation of an adult female c30-40 in an oblong pit cut into the chalk, oriented NW/SE c2.4m x 0.75m. It had been robbed in the 13th Century AD. The inhumation was accompanied by a faience bead, a chalk bead, and a bead fossil. A stake circle surrounded this grave, 32 evenly spaced stakes, with a diameter of 5.5m and an entrance at the east. The stakes had been withdrawn before the grave was covered. A large inner stake circle encompassed and shared a segment of the first, c11m in diameter, slightly irregular, with probable gaps to the west, east and south. The ditch was 11.7m in diameter, dug from the same centre as the large inner stake circle, in about 50 oval depressions joined to make an irregular polygonic circle, with a causeway at the north east. It had stayed open for a year from molluscan evidence, and was filled in before the mound was raised - but only after the outer stake circle had been set at its inner lip, and the stakes then dismantled. Stake hole lines in the north east quadrant and either side of the causeway entrance beyond the ditch provided possible screens. The primary burial was covered by a small flint cairn.

The second inhumation was laid on a 0.3m thick layer of chalky loam spread over the whole area including the ditch, and was of an adolescent female on its right side, flexed, facing N, on top of a scatter of hazel charcoal fragments. The right arm was mutilated after death but before burial, the radius and ulna being at a 100o angle to each other, the arm lying behind the back.

A final stake circle was set at the outer lip of the buried ditch and left, all on the eastern perimeter. A topsoil mound then covered these burials, scraped up from occupation soil around the barrow. In the mound flanks several cremations were inserted. At the south west edge were cremated bones, probably of a male, found in four spots. Two were undisturbed heaps associated with a 5 rivet bronze dagger, a leather sheath and a bone belt hook, and two more groups came from disturbed ditch fill. The bones were a partial collection from the pyre. The main deposit was between two crescent shaped scoops, horns deepening to the north, with two small irregular pits between the horns, filled with loam. One or two disturbed cremations came from the same area, including one of the two knife daggers recovered before the excavation. The cremations are believed to be not much later than the primary inhumations.

Under and within the barrow were traces of a Late Neolithic settlement of the Peterborough culture, with a little Beaker material. There were large quantities of occupation debris in the buried soil - worked flints, mainly weathered potsherds, burnt flint, burnt clay, charcoal finely comminuted, and animal bones (sheep and goat, pig, cattle, red deer, otter and (?)wild pig and cat). These appeared also in the scooped soil tipped to form the mound. The pottery was late Peterborough ware with a few Beaker sherds. 12,892 flint flakes were recovered, including 19 petit tranchet derivative arrow heads, 133 scrapers, 86 notched flakes and blades, 17 awls, 3 saws and examples of fabricators, axes, discoidal knife, waisted core tools, chopper and other trimmed pieces. The assemblage is considered Late Neolithic by content and association.
Remains/Period Y4
County Hampshire
Region S
National grid square SZ
X coordinate 535
Y coordinate 874
Bibliographic source Alexander, Ozanne and Ozanne 1960, Ozanne and Ozanne 1961, 1962


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004