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Excavation of a Round Barrow on Overton Hill, North Wiltshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

I. F. Smith  and
D. D. A. Simpson
I. F. Smith
Affiliation:
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England)
D. D. A. Simpson
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Leicester University
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Extract

The barrow is No. 6b in L. V. Grinsell's list for the parish of West Overton (V.C.H. Wilts., 1, Part I, 1957). It stood some 400 feet to the north of the most northerly member of the conspicuous group of bowl and bell barrows that straddles the A.4 road on Overton, or Sevenbarrow, Hill, 4½ miles west of Marlborough (SU 11966835). Its position is marked on the OS. 6-inch map (SU 16NW), but not on the 1-inch (Sheet 157). The height above sea-level is about 580 feet.

The subsoil is Upper Chalk, its surface broken by irregular depressions and long parallel troughs filled with a soft buff material, evidently the result of weathering under periglacial conditions. The topsoil is a rendsina about 6 inches thick.

Most of the barrows on Overton Hill are known to have been dug into in the past. No. 6b had escaped the attentions of antiquarians, but it was evident before excavation that it had nevertheless suffered extensive disturbances.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 32 , December 1966 , pp. 122 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1966

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References

page 122 note 1 Preliminary accounts of the excavation appeared in Antiquity, XXXVIII, 1964, 57–61Google Scholar, and Wilts. Arch. Mag., vol. 58, 1963, 467Google Scholar.

page 122 note 2 V.C.H., , Wilts., 1, Part 1, 1957Google Scholar provides the information in the lists of bowl and bell barrows on Overton Hill in the parishes of Avebury and West Overton. Note that the entry for West Overton 7 (p. 195) mistakenly implies that barrow 6b had been opened by Colt Hoare. Nos. 6, 6a and 7, all dug into by both Colt Hoare and John Thurnam, were excavated by the present writers concurrently with no. 6b and proved to be tombs of Romano-British date (Wilts. Arch. Mag., vol. 59, 1964, 68–85)Google Scholar.

page 125 note 1 This unexcavated area was inspected after the site had been levelled; there was no sign that any burials had existed in this part of the mound, though graves cut into the subsoil may have been missed.

page 126 note 1 We are indebted to Professor G. W. Dimbleby for the identification of this and other charcoal specimens.

page 127 note 1 Kindly identified by Dr F. S. Wallis.

page 127 note 2 Sizable samples of the amphibian bones from this and other graves were kindly examined by Miss Grandison of the British Museum (Natural History). All the specifically identifiable parts had come from frogs.

page 127 note 3 This was examined by Professor Dimbleby, who stated that it was not wood and might have been grass.

page 129 note 1 Archaeometry, vol. 4, 1961, 51Google Scholar.

page 133 note 1 See, for example, Wilts. Arch. Mag., XX, 1882, 343Google Scholar and LX, 1965, 38.

page 133 note 2 Wilts. Arch. Mag., XX, 1882, 344Google Scholar.

page 133 note 3 Piggott, S., Abercromby and After … in Culture and Environment: Essays in Honour of Sir Cyril Fox, ed. Foster, and Alcock, , 1963, 90Google Scholar.

page 134 note 1 Guide Catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age Collections in Devizes Museum, Wilts. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc., 1964, No. 196Google Scholar.

page 134 note 2 ibid., Nos. 183–4 and 187.

page 134 note 3 PPS, IV, 1938, 93Google Scholar, fig. 22, no. 3.

page 134 note 4 PPS, XXVII, 1961, 289Google Scholar.

page 134 note 5 General accounts of primitive leather-working can be found in Singer et al., A History of Technology, 11, 1956, 147Google Scholar ff. and Ciba Review, VII, Part 81, 1950, 2938 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 135 note 1 Semenov, S. A., Prehistoric Technology, 1964, 175 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 135 note 2 Loc. cit.

page 135 note 3 Lacaille, A. D., The Stone Age in Scotland, 1954, 204 ff.Google Scholar; an example comparable with specimens from Beaker graves is shown in fig. 83, no. 1; the others are much shorter.

page 135 note 4 Clark, J. G. D., Prehistoric Europe, 1952, 225Google Scholar.

page 135 note 5 Bateman, T., Ten Years' Digging …, 1861, 103Google Scholar and elsewhere.

page 135 note 6 Wilts. Arch. Mag., LV, 1954, 320Google Scholar.

page 135 note 7 We are indebted to Mr Paul Ashbee, F.S.A., for information in advance of his own publication.

page 135 note 8 Oxon., XXVIII, 1963, 21, 25Google Scholar.

page 135 note 9 On the significance of ‘Breton’ arrowheads, see S. Piggott, op. cit., 77–8.

page 138 note 1 Ausgrabungen und Funde, Bd. 9, Heft 1, 1964, 19–22Google Scholar, Abb. 2.

page 138 note 2 Mortimer, J. R., Forty Years' Researches … 1905, 115Google Scholar, fig. 268.

page 138 note 3 ibid., 315, fig. 937.

page 138 note 4 Bateman, loc. cit., 13s; the fragments of two bone spatulae from this cremation, now in Sheffield City Museum, are exactly comparable to those from Beaker graves.

page 138 note 5 ibid., 219; a more doubtful bone example, also in Sheffield City Museum. It bears a patch of green stain from contact with copper or bronze, but no object of this nature is mentioned in the report.

page 138 note 6 Archaeohgia, LXXXIX, 1943, 113Google Scholar, pl. xlii, a, 3.

page 138 note 7 Bateman, loc. cit., 127–8. The two ‘spatulae’ survive only as representations in a book of watercolour drawings by LI. Jewitt in Sheffield City Museum.

page 138 note 8 See PPS, XXIX, 1963, p74Google Scholar, for reinterpretation of objects formerly referred to as ‘grooved whetstones’.

page 138 note 9 Guide Catalogue … Devizes Museum, op. cit., nos. 285–90. The bone object (no. 289) is fragmentary; the pointed end of the antler object (no. 290) results from decay.

page 138 note 10 Wilts. Arch. Mag., XLV, 1931, 432–58Google Scholar, pls. i, ii.

page 138 note 11 Arch. Journ., V, 1848, 322Google Scholar.

page 139 note 1 Guide Catalogue … Devizes Museum, op. cit., nos. 382–9; no. 388, of antler, appears to be one end of a spatula.

page 139 note 2 Mortimer, op. cit., 48, 93, 109; Proc. Hants Field Club, IX, 1922, 189 ff.Google Scholar, fig. 1; also two unprovenanced bone examples in Devizes Museum, both probably from Wiltshire.

page 139 note 3 Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc., vol. 81, 1959, 117Google Scholar.

page 139 note 4 Personal communication from Professor Stuart Piggott.

page 139 note 5 Archaeologia, XLIII, 1871, 425–6Google Scholar.

page 139 note 6 Piggott, op. cit., 76–7.

page 139 note 7 ibid., 84.

page 151 note 1 Smith, I. F., Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925–1939, 1965, 11Google Scholar.

page 151 note 2 ibid., figs. 31–2.

page 151 note 3 ibid., fig. 34. A pit containing sherds of Fengate ware was found during the excavation of West Overton 6a, about 100 feet to the west of the present site (Wilts. Arch. Mag., vol. 59, 1964, 82–3)Google Scholar.

page 151 note 4 Piggott, S., Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, 1954, 340–1Google Scholar.

page 151 note 5 A site near Lawford; the finds were described by Mr Bryan P. Blake in a lecture to the Prehistoric Society in 1965.

page 152 note 1 A site at Carnaby; we are indebted to Mr T. G. Manby for information in advance of his publication of the material.

page 152 note 2 The best example is illustrated in Guide Catalogue … Devizes Museum, op. cit., no. 10. See also specimens from Durrington Walls, Wilts. (Antiq. Journ., XXXIV, 1954, 155 ff.Google Scholar, fig. 7) and Hants, Roundwood. (Proc, Hants. Field Club, IX, 1922, 189 ffGoogle Scholar, pl. ii).