Attitudes to Disposal of the Dead - Gazetteer Query Form

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Site name Durrington Down, Durrington 7
Site number 864
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4023 4025 4028 4030 4035 4043 4047 4051 4053 4065 4072 4075 4084 4093 4098 4101 4104 4105 4107 4108 4110 4111 4125 4128 4129 4143 4152 4153 4154 4162 4181 4200
2500bc-14/1300bc A ploughed out round barrow with the remnants of a central flint cairn set on reddish-brown clay silt buried soil at least 11m in diameter. On the soil surface were three Late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age sherds and small unidentifiable burnt bone deposits.

Below this surface was an oval grave 2.5m x 1.5m x 1.4m deep oriented EW, whose fill consisted of a mixture of redeposited clay soil, coombe rock and chalk, within which were a large cattle lumbar vertebrae and a fragment of antler. There was an inhumation of a child c7-9, crouched, head to E, knees and one arm flexed. It was accompanied by a deposit of cremated human bone in a restricted area to the rear of the pelvis and by the objects of antler and bone c0.15m from the feet. The cremation was of a child c5-10, and may have been set down in an organic container. The antler object may have been a toy as it showed signs of wear, and was accompanying the interments of young persons.

RC: from the inhumation bone OxA-1398 1750 +/- 100

There were three pits to the north east of the barrow assumed from the context to be associated with the barrow. Pit 225 was 1m in diameter and 0.4m deep, filled with a light brown soil which covered a deposit of burnt bone representing three individuals, two adults (one possibly male) and a juvenile. The cremated bone appears to have been broken into smaller pieces following cremation. Pit 230 was c1m in diameter and 0.9m deep, filled with flint nodules (and including a cattle skull) in a silty clay soil matrix which covered a crouched inhumation of a male c35-45. Pit 241 was c0.75m in diameter and 0.4m deep, filled with brown soil, natural flints, pea gravel chalk, and contained the top of a red deer antler.
Remains/Period Y4
County Wiltshire
Region S
National grid square SU
X coordinate 114
Y coordinate 443
Bibliographic source Richards 1990


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004