stonehenge - English Heritage

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294: WIL 13) that was destroyed prior to the mid nineteenth
century (but see also Bonney 1981).
Whether all of these long barrows belong to the earthen
long barrow tradition (Ashbee 1984b) is far from certain
given the nature and extent of recorded excavation. Russell
(2002, 25–70) proposes the reclassification of some long
barrows as structured mounds. In view of the apparent
poverty of remains from early excavations it is possible that
some of the long barrows around Stonehenge fit within a
group of chamberless mounds in central southern England
typified by South Street, Wiltshire, and others (Ashbee et al.
1979; Darvill 2004b, 113–14).
In 1865 John Thurnam proposed the identification of oval
barrows as a distinct class of Neolithic monument on the
basis of his excavations at Winterbourne Stoke 53 (Thurnam
1869). Although this is sometimes regarded as simply the
short end of the overall spectrum of long barrow sizes,
recent work in Sussex (Drewett 1986) and Oxfordshire
(Bradley 1992) has endorsed Thurnam’s original proposition
and shown the class to be long-lived through the fourth and
third millennia BC. Such barrows (also known as ‘short’ long
barrows – see also McOmish et al. 2002, 21–31 on Salisbury
Plain examples) are generally less than 45m long and rather
squat in outline with curved side ditches. There are more
than a dozen scattered across the Stonehenge Landscape
(Map G), mainly between the Till and the Avon. From what
little information about internal structure and date can be
obtained from antiquarian excavations it seems that not all
belong to the fourth millennium BC and some may well have
been built in the third millennium BC (Illustration 27).
Excavations at the Netheravon Bake oval barrow yielded a
date of 3710–3350 BC (OxA-1407: 4760±90 BP) from antler
from the base of the phase I ditch (Richards 1990, 259), but
further details of this site remain to be published.
Immediately south of the Stonehenge Landscape the oval
barrow Woodford G2 was fully excavated by Major and Mrs
Vatcher in 1963 (Harding and Gingell 1986, 15–22) and
perhaps shows what might be expected at some of the
examples noted above.
Rather surprisingly, none of the investigated round
barrows in the Stonehenge Landscape shows conclusive
evidence of an early or middle Neolithic construction date,
despite the occurrence of a few such monuments elsewhere
in southeastern England (Kinnes 1979). A crouched
inhumation in a circular grave that was loosely associated
with early Neolithic pottery in the fill was found in 1932 at
Woodhenge, Totterdown. It may have been the focus of a
round barrow (RCHM 1979, 7), but equally it may be a pit
grave, a type also distinctive of the period although little
studied (Kinnes 1979, 126–7).
The long enclosure tradition found widely across Britain
in the fourth millennium BC is well represented in the
Stonehenge Landscape. At the small end of the sizespectrum
is the long mortuary enclosure on Normanton
Down excavated by Mrs Vatcher in 1959 (Vatcher 1961).
Approximately 36m long by 21m wide the enclosure is
defined by a discontinuous ditch and an internal bank.
The remains of a structure, possibly a portal of some kind,
lay inside what appears to be an entrance through
the earthwork at the southeast end. A radiocarbon
determination from antler in the ditch fill suggests a
date of 3550–2900 BC (BM-505: 4510±103 BP).
Rather larger is the so-called Lesser Cursus. Levelled by
ploughing between 1934 and 1954, this monument was
originally bounded by a ditch with an internal bank. Sample
excavations in 1983 showed that there were at least two
main phases to its construction. Phase I comprised a
slightly trapezoidal enclosure 200m by 60m whose ditch
may have been recut more than once. In Phase 2 this early
enclosure was remodelled by elongating it eastwards
Illustration 27
Oval barrows in the
Stonehenge Landscape.
A: Woodford G2.
B: Netheravon Bake.
[A after Harding and
Gingell 1986, figure 7;
B after McOmish et al.
2002, figure 2.8.]
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