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Site name Galley Hill Barrow 3
Site number 945
Burial codes 4005 4009 4021 4024 4025 4028 4030 4035 4042 4046 4051 4053 4065 4075 4084 4092 4098 4101 4104 4106 4111 4112 4128 4143 4152 4153 4181
2500bc-14/1300bc A kidney shaped barrow (compare Whiteleaf Hill Site 124) with no ditch. It appears to have had this sequence of construction: turf was stripped, stacked for a time, and the primary grave dug into the subsoil, presumably followed by the interment. The main barrow mound was then constructed of turves and clay and extended to the north west and north east using chalky material. More turf and clay then covered the newly shaped barrow. A shallow pit was dug at the end of the north east horn and one (or two) human burials inserted. At about the same time there was the placing of numerous pieces of young oxen in a shallow pit at the end of the north west horn.

The primary inhumation burial was in an oval pit 1.2m x 0.75m x 0.75m deep. It had been much disturbed by later robbing. 1.5m north a shallow hole was dug and twigs and small branches were burned in it. After the mound had been built, a large number of domestic ox bones were scattered in the vestigial forecourt between the horns, but a concentration was found in a shallow pit 0.6m x 0.9m on the northern edge of the north west horn. In a similar position in the other horn was a shallow grave 2.1m x 0.75m x 0.15m deep in which were the scattered but semi-articulated remains of two adult males, one probably an intrusive burial of Roman date as Roman bronze coins were among the bones, but the other (c28-34) was probably pre-Roman and even possibly Neolithic on anatomical evidence.
Remains/Period Y4
County Bedfordshire
Region SE
National grid square TL
X coordinate 92
Y coordinate 269
Bibliographic source Dyer 1974


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Last updated: Tues Aug 10 2004