Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Query

Site name Woodford 2
Site number 85
Burial codes 5005 5007 5022 5023 5025 5028 5030 5033 5053 5065 5141 5142 5167 5184 4005 4009 4022 4023 4025 4028 4030 4033 4043 4045 4048 4051 4065 4075 4092 4096 4101 4104 4105 4111 4128 4153 4161 4181 3005 3009 3022 3023 3025 3028 3030 3033 3043 3048 3051 3065 3075 3093 3104 3111 3128 3143 3152 3153 3181
3500bc - 2500bc Long barrow oriented S. At its base, in a primary phase six large pits had been dug possibly for flints. Two separate successive small timber buildings were then built on the levelled site, on the evidence of a larger and then smaller arrangement of postholes. The second of these structures might have been a mortuary building.

Then the long barrow was built comprising a regular flint cairn as a core overlying the old land surface. The ditches formed the quarry for the mound, and were irregularly cut in outline and depth. Some weathered chalk rubble surrounded the cairn. There were Neolithic sherds on the original ground surface and edge of the ditch, from the cairn. A damaged antler pick was at the south end of the west ditch. Very few flints were retained from the excavations, as with animal bones.
2500bc-14/1300bc The north end of the east ditch was possibly partially recut, and the fill included some Middle Bronze Age sherds. At the same level was an incomplete human skeleton of a male c20-25, supine, knees drawn up, probably buried in a shallow pit. A Late Middle Bronze Age sherd was at the same level as the inhumation in the ditch (a fragment of a globular urn). Two small irregular pits outside the east ditch contained cremated human bone but no associated urns. The southern example contained large pieces of charcoal beneath the cremation.
14/1300bc-8/700bc The last phase of the barrow was Late Bronze Age, comprising an inhumation and two cremation pits.
Remains/Period Y4 Y3 N5
County Wiltshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 101
Y coordinate 378
Bibliographic source Cunnington M E 1914, Grinsell 1957a, Vatcher 1964, Harding and Gingell 1986


Query

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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004