stonehenge - English Heritage

047-120 section 2.qxd 6/21/05 4:19 PM Page 69
study area of the Wessex Linear Ditches Project (Bradley et
al. 1994, figure 22). A section through one part of this system
at Butterfield Down, Amesbury, failed to yield firm dating
evidence (Rawlings and Fitzpatrick 1996, 38). A section
through two of the ‘Wessex Linears’ on Earl’s Farm Down in
1991 showed that both were sizeable features about 3m wide
and 1.5m deep, but neither contained diagnostic dating
evidence from primary contexts (Cleal et al. 2004, 234–41).
Molluscan sequences from both ditches revealed that they
lay within an essentially open downland environment.
Overall, the linear boundaries within the Stonehenge
Landscape form part of a much more extensive series of
boundaries on Salisbury Plain (Bradley et al. 1994).
Burials of the middle and late second millennium BC are
usually represented by flat cemeteries typically involving
the deposition of cremated remains in small pits or in
ceramic containers usually known as ‘urns’. Several
different styles of urn have been defined, including Wessex
biconical urns (also known as Wessex handled urns or
horseshoe handled urns) and Deverel-Rimbury urns
(including what are called bucket urns, globular urns, and
barrel urns in older literature). All were mainly deposited
inverted so as to both cover and contain the associated
burial deposits. These burials are often adjacent to existing
round barrows, and in many cases were cut into the mounds
or ditches as ‘secondary’ deposits. In central southern
England generally, cemeteries of the middle and late second
millennium BC especially generally lie within a short
distance (100m–500m) of contemporary settlement sites,
and are often intervisible with them (Bradley 1981). Within
the Stonehenge Landscape evidence of small numbers of
secondary burials is commonplace in excavated barrows,
but fairly extensive cemeteries have been found at several
sites including Woodford G12 (15 burials: Gingell 1988,
26–7), Shrewton G5a (19 burials (Illustration 47): Green and
Rollo-Smith 1984, 262–3); Amesbury 71 (7 burials: Christie
1967); Winterbourne Stoke 10 (7 burials: Grinsell 1957, 201);
and Bulford 49 (4 burials: Hawley 1910, 618–20). A fine
Wessex biconical urn was found as a secondary burial at
Bulford 27 (Hawley 1910, 617 and figure 1), while at the
nearby Bulford 45 bowl barrow a Deverel-Rimbury urn had
been used (Grinsell 1957, 163). A barrel urn with applied
cordons decorated with fingertip impressions from
Amesbury G3 is one of the largest ceramic vessels from the
area, at nearly 0.6m high (Annable and Simpson 1964, 68).
It is colloquially known as the ‘Stonehenge Urn’. Broken
pottery from superficial contexts at and around other
barrow sites may suggest the former existence of a flat
cremation cemetery broken up and scattered by later
ploughing as at Durrington 7 barrow on Durrington Down
(Richards 1990, 171–84).
Stray finds of the later second and early first millennia
BC are surprisingly rare within the Stonehenge Landscape.
The scatters of Deverel-Rimbury pottery generally match the
areas of known settlement evidence and probable early
fieldsystems (Richards 1990, figure 160). Best represented are
the finds of metalwork to complement that found with
burials. An unlooped palstave was found west of Fargo
Plantation (Anon 1978, 204) perhaps associated with the
settlement in the area referred to above; a socketed bronze
knife was residual in a later context at a settlement on Fargo
Road southwest of Durrington Walls (Wainwright 1971, 82);
two socketed axes were also found in the same general area
in the late nineteenth century (Grinsell 1957, 66); a bronze
spearhead and a small socketed axe were found on Wilsford
Down (Grinsell 1957, 122); a bronze spearhead was found
during building work at Bulford Camp in 1914 (Goddard 1919,
360); a socketed spearhead came from the Amesbury area
Illustration 46
Linear earthwork and
barrow cemetery on Lake
Down. [Photograph: English
Heritage. NMR 1576/09
©Crown copyright (NMR).]
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