King Barrow Ridge - English Heritage

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stands 4.4m high and they were still some distance off the floor. Amesbury 42, the longbarrow, was excavated by Thurnam in 1866, who found the secondary inhumations oftwo infants and a crouched adult, as well as animal bones including an ox skull (Thurnam1868, table 1; Cunnington 1914).More recently, the only excavations of the round barrows have been associated withutility pipelines and storm damage. Two Neolithic post holes, between King BarrowWood and Amesbury 39, were located during digging of an electric cable trench (Vatcher& Vatcher 1969; Cleal & Allen 1994, fig 1), near a pit containing Neolithic or Bronze Agecarved chalk plaques (Harding 1988). Further south along the Ridge an early Neolithic pit,colloquially known as the ‘Coneybury anomaly’, was excavated in 1980 and 1981(Richards 1990, 40) and the nearby henge evaluated by excavation in the autumn of 1980(ibid, 123). Some of the internal pits may have pre-dated the henge enclosure andpottery suggests activity at the site spanned the early Neolithic to Middle Bronze Ageperiods. No finds were recovered from the water pipe cut through the ditch ofAmesbury 26, but the ditch appeared to be of two distinct phases: one with a flatbottomed ditch, the other with more sloping sides (Pitts 1981, 183).Thirty-nine tree-throw holes were examined following storm damage in October 1987and January 1990 (Cleal & Allen 1994). The exposed deposits were recorded, anyartefacts they contained recovered and environmental samples taken. Traces of buriedsoil horizons were identified beneath six of the barrows, which provided valuablemolluscan samples. Few finds were recorded: from Amesbury 30 a range of LateNeolithic and Early Bronze Age pottery sherds and worked flint; from Amesbury 31 threesherds of Peterborough Ware plus some flints, mostly flakes, blades and cores; fromAmesbury 32 a few sherds of Peterborough Ware and Grooved Ware, plus a smallcollection of flints, mainly flakes and blades, and in Amesbury 34 some Grooved Waresherds. The tree-throw holes provided some insight into the construction of the barrowsand located a possible pre-barrow hollow beneath Amesbury 32.Small trenches have been dug at Amesbury 42 for two important recent researchprojects. A trench over its eastern ditch was dug as part of the Stonehenge EnvironsProject and produced evidence of two phases: an earlier round bottomed andcausewayed ditch superseded by a considerably larger flat bottomed ditch just beyond it.Finds included in-situ flint knapping debris and pottery sherds representing Beakers,Collared Urns and Late Bronze Age vessels, plus some Roman period sherds (Richards1990, 99). Removal of the ploughsoil of the sampled flint scatter W59 nearby revealedseveral pits and stakeholes. They were interpreted as representing sedentary activity inthe Neolithic, with a range of domestic tasks indicated by the flint tools, pottery andanimal bones from the ploughsoil and sealed deposits (ibid, 116).A subsequent excavation of the long barrow’s eastern side by the Stonehenge RiversideProject revealed the sequence was actually the opposite (Thomas 2008, 87). The largecausewayed pits had been cut into the inside lip of the long barrow’s ditch once© ENGLISH HERITAGE 9 83 - 2011
secondary silts were forming there. An augur survey was conducted at the same timeand revealed remarkably well-preserved mound material up to 27cm deep over a buriedsoil up to 37cm deep. This is almost unprecedented in the Stonehenge area and has ahigh potential for paleaoenvironmental evidence and information on the structure anddating of the long barrow, with minimal intrusion (Allen 2008, 92).© ENGLISH HERITAGE 10 83 - 2011
Page 1: RESEARCH DEPARTMENT REPORT SERIES n
Page 4 and 5: SUMMARYA rapid field investigation
Page 6 and 7: CONTENTSIntroduction ..............
Page 8 and 9: INTRODUCTIONLevel 1 surveys were co
Page 10 and 11: Fig 1: The location of the survey a
Page 12 and 13: LANDSCAPE HISTORYEnvironmental evid
Page 14 and 15: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKG
Page 18 and 19: THE EARTHWORKSThe earthworks compri
Page 20 and 21: Amesbury 29The surviving earthworks
Page 22 and 23: Fig 4: The Old King Barrows.The sur
Page 24 and 25: Fig 5: The survey of Amesbury 42The
Page 26 and 27: the long barrow marking the boundar
Page 28 and 29: agricultural marks. Other features
Page 30 and 31: The full extent of the Park was sho
Page 32 and 33: CONCLUSIONThe rapid survey was most
Page 34 and 35: REFERENCESAinsworth, S, Bowden, M,
Page 36 and 37: Goddard, E H 1913 ‘A list of Preh
Page 38 and 39: Thomas, J, Marshall, P, Parker Pear
Page 40 and 41: APPENDIXTable 3: Measurements of th

King Barrow Ridge - English Heritage

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