The barrow whose excavation is described below was situated about 770 feet above Ordnance Datum a hundred yards south of the Hardy Monument on Black Down Hill, Portesham, on the edge of a large gravel pit. In the winning of gravel during the war the face of the pit had been worked round the barrow on both sides destroying the southern half of the ditch and part of the south side of the mound. As the mound was slowly falling into the gravel pit, it was decided by the Ministry of Works to excavate the barrow before further deterioration took place. The first-mentioned author undertook the supervision of this work for the Ministry in April and May, 1955, with a further fortnight in October of the same year, with the kind permission of the owner, Mrs H. Tuke.

Long-handled combs, predominantly made of antler — although some are of bone or perhaps whalebone — and traditionally associated with weaving, have been thought to be an almost exclusively British phenomenon (Hodson 1964, 103). They are first found in middle or later Bronze Age contexts, but are more usually associated with the Iron Age and go out of use in the later 1st century AD. Although dating of these tools is imprecise, on some sites such as Glastonbury (Bullied & Gray 1911) and Maiden Castle (Wheeler 1943, 298) one can say that the earlier ones are plain and later ones decorated, often with dot and circle and linear patterns. However evidence from Danebury shows the reverse to be the case (Cunliffe & Poole 1991). The combs measure between 80 to 222 mm with an average length of 150 mm. They are mostly dentated only at one end, although some are double-ended. There are usually between 8 and 13 teeth and at the other end the shape of the butts can be plain or they may have squared or rounded ends with or without perforations.

Anna Roes (1963) drew attention to a comb from the Frisian terps in the Netherlands (fig. 1, no. 1), housed in the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. She considered that it may well have been imported from Britain. The comb is undecorated but polished. Its length is 141 mm and width at teeth 37 mm and at the butt end 18 mm. The comb is very concave at the dentated end. There had originally been 12 teeth of which only one outer tooth remained and this is worn on its inner side. Recently two further combs have been found in the Netherlands on two domestic sites of the pre-Roman Iron Age (sites 15.04 and 16.59). Both were excavated by A. Abbink from the Institute of Prehistory of the University of Leiden in 1989 and 1990 respectively (Abbink 1989; 1991).

This paper concerns the architecture of formal burials from the La Tène period in north-western Gaul and southern Britain. The research focuses on the shape and dimensions of sepulchral pits containing inhumed or burnt human remains, on the different materials used for the internal elements, and the external constructions and structures covering, framing, or marking the burials. The study of these data exposes the preferred choices in the funerary architecture of Gallic and British communities during the last five centuries bc. The results reveal different regional funerary groups within three main cross-Channel zones according to the architectural elements of the graves and the main treatments of the body. The distinct characteristics of these groups highlight their common features and relationships with neighbouring areas of the Continental and Atlantic zones.

Ever since large amounts of Bell Beaker complex pottery were first discovered within megalithic graves in north-western France, the Bell Beaker has been tightly tied to the ‘megalithic phenomenon’. However, the fact of construction of these various kinds of megalithic monument during the Middle to Late Neolithic pre-dates the users of Bell Beakers. While this is a case of the re-use of older funerary monuments, it is assumed that Bell Beaker funerary practices witness a shift from Neolithic collective burial to individual inhumation. For a long time finds from the megalithic graves have constituted our main source of information on the Bell Beaker complex in north-western France. However, these ‘artificial caves’ have biased our understanding of the Bell Beaker complex and, in particular, of its funerary practices. The re-assessment of old finds and recent large-scale excavations have brought to light a large number of new sites, revealing a greater diversity in Bell Beaker funerary practices in the region than had been perceived previously. In the first part, we set the broader picture, stating what we know or can say about funerary practices during the Recent and Late Neolithic (3350–2550 bc), before the beginning of the Bell Beaker phenomenon. We then discuss the different Bell Beaker burial practices (2550–1950 bc), their chronological and regional variabilities, and, above all, the research biases that might have affected their understanding.