Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:05:56.991Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Investigation into the Environment and Archaeology of the Wessex Linear Ditch System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

J. G. Evans  and
M. P. Vaughan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Investigations into a later prehistoric ditch system in an area of Wessex about 15 km. south-west of Salisbury are described. The main objectives were to study the past environment of the earthworks at various stages in their history and to investigate their form and how they may have functioned. The two parts of the system studied were just south of Blagdon Plantation, Pentridge, Dorset, and on Knoll Down, Damerham, Hants. Excavations, study of soil and sediment macromorphology, and molluscan analysis were the main techniques used.

At Blagdon Plantation the earthwork lay in an area in which there was no trace of earlier fields. The bank was of simple dump construction, the ditch shallow and flat-bottomed, possibly unfinished. The molluscan sequence prior to the construction of the earthwork indicated a succession from closed woodland to stable grassland. The ditch sequence showed no trace of shading, and there was no indication of a former hedgerow on the bank crest. At Knoll Down, the earthwork crosses lynchets of an Iron Age field system, dated by potsherds from the ancient ploughsoil sealed beneath the bank. In one profile, lynchet deposits with an open-country molluscan fauna preceded the bank, and in some sections clear ploughsoils were present. A short episode when the area was under grass immediately preceded the earthwork. At one point, where there was no accompanying buried soil, deeply incised ploughmarks were present at the base of the bank, interpreted as clearance- or marking-out lines, possibly of a symbolic nature. The bank was of simple dump construction, the ditch deep, steep-sided, and with a narrow, flat bottom. There was no indication of a hedge. An earlier, smaller ditch, which may have held a wooden palisade, had been backfilled deliberately. These changes, which may reflect friction between different groups of people on various scales, took place in a prevailing environmental background of open country.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 11 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bowen, H. C. 1975a. ‘Aerial photography and the development of the landscape in central parts of southern England’, in Wilson, D. R. (ed.), Aerial Reconnaissance for Archaeology, C.B.A. Res. Rep. 12 (London), 103–18.Google Scholar
Bowen, H. C. 1975b. ‘Pattern and interpretation: a view of the Wessex landscape from Neolithic to Roman times’, in Fowler, P. J. (ed.), Recent Work in Rural Archaeology (Bradford-on-Avon), 44–56.Google Scholar
Bowen, H. C., Evans, J. G. and Race, E. 1978. ‘An investigation of the Wessex linear ditch system’, in Bowen, H. C., Fowler, P. J. (eds.), Early Land Allotment in the British Isles, B.A.R. 48 (Oxford), 149–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, H. C. and Smith, I. F. 1977. ‘Sarsen stones in Wessex: the bocietys tirst investigations in the Evolution of the Landscape project’, Antiq. J. lvii, 185–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. and Ellison, A. 1975. Rams Hill: a Bronze Age Defended Enclosure and its Landscape, B.A.R. 19 (Oxford).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B. W. 1984. Danebury: an Iron Age Hillfort in Hampshire, C.B.A. Res. Rep. 52 (London).Google Scholar
Evans, J. G. 1972. Land Snails in Archaeology (London).Google Scholar
Evans, J. G. 1984a. ‘Stonehenge: the environment in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age and a Beaker-age burial’, Wilts. Arch. Nat. Hist. Mag. lxxviii, 7–30.Google Scholar
Evans, J. G. 1984b. ‘Excavations at Bar Point, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, 1979–80’, Cornish Studies,Google Scholar
Fleming, A. 1983. ‘The prehistoric landscape of Dartmoor, Part 2: North and East Dartmoor’, P.P.S. xlix, 195–241.Google Scholar
Ford, S. 1982. ‘Fieldwork and excavation on the Berkshire Grims Ditch’, Oxoniensia, xlvii, 13–36.Google Scholar
Kerney, M. P. 1976. Atlas of the Non-marine Mollusca of the British Isles, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Piggott, C. M. 1944. ‘The Grim's Ditch complex in Cranborne Chase’, Antiquity, xviii, 65–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, A. 1898. Excavations in Cranborne Chase, IV (London).Google Scholar
R.C.H.M.(England). 1975. An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, v: East Dorset, H.M.S.O. (London).Google Scholar
Sumner, H. 1913. The Ancient Earthworks of Cranborne Chase (London).Google Scholar