stonehenge - English Heritage

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which is surrounded by a bank and external ditch (Grinsell
1957, 226). Other large mounds include Amesbury 55, the
‘Monarch of the Plain’ as Colt Hoare called it, a bell barrow
nearly 30m in diameter and 2.2m high at the western end of
the Cursus Group.
None of the barrow cemeteries has been completely
excavated, nor have any of the large ones been subject to
detailed geophysical survey. A nucleated group of barrows
within the Stonehenge triangle (the Stonehenge Down
Group) has, however, been surveyed using magnetometry
with good results that emphasize the great diversity of
barrow forms even within the seven barrows represented
(David and Payne 1997, 83–7; Illustration 41).
Available records suggest that about 40 per cent of known
round barrows have been excavated to some degree, although
the vast majority of these took place during the nineteenth
century AD with the result that rather little is known about
what was found. In many cases re-excavation has proved
successful. Most of those studied have been upstanding
mounds. Very little work has been done with the ring-ditches
in the area; none has been fully excavated although transects
were cut through previously unrecorded examples in the Avon
Valley near Netheravon during the construction of pipetrenches
in 1991 and 1995 (Graham and Newman 1993;
McKinley 1999). This group of four or five ring-ditches also
serves to illustrate the potential for more such sites on lower
ground in the river valleys. At Butterfield Down, Amesbury, the
planning and sample excavation of a ring-ditch showed no
evidence of a central burial, but a pit grave immediately
outside the ring-ditch on the northeast side contained the
burial of a child that included one sherd believed to be from
an accessory vessel (Rawlings and Fitzpatrick 1996, 10–11).
The range of finds recovered from the excavation of
round barrows is impressive and very considerable. It
includes not only the usual selection of pottery, ornaments,
and weaponry (well described by Piggott 1973d), but also
some extremely unusual pieces such as the bone whistle
made from the long bone of a swan from Wilsford G23
(Megaw 1960, 9; Annable and Simpson 1964, 44–5) and the
bronze two-pronged object from Wilsford G58 which has
sometimes been seen as a ‘standard’ of some kind or part of
a double handle and chain from a cauldron or similar vessel
(Grinsell 1957, 212; Annable and Simpson 1964, 47–8). The
two unusual shale cups believed to be from the Amesbury
Illustration 40
Winterbourne Stoke linear
barrow cemetery northeast
of Long Barrow Crossroads.
View looking southwest.
[Photograph: English
Heritage. NMR 15077/13
©Crown copyright (NMR).]
Illustration 41
Plot of the results of a
geophysical survey over
Stonehenge and the
Stonehenge Down Group
barrow cemetery. [Survey:
English Heritage.]
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