Dorcester - Site II Henge (Destroyed) View all content for Dorcester - Site II (1 post)

Details of site on Pastscape A later Neolithic or Early Bronze Age ring ditch plus two concentric pit circles, part of the monument complex focused on the Dorchester cursus (SU 59 NE 5). The site was excavated in 1946 in advance of gravel extraction. The ring ditch itself appears segmented or causewayed, while the pit circles contain pits of varying size, some large enough to describe as ditch segments. All three circuits contained cremation deposits. The central area featured 4 pits, the contents of which included cremations, aninal bones and flints. A sherd of "Early Bronze Age fabric" was in one of the pits, while a Peterborough Ware sherd came from one of the ditches. Site shown in (1) as two rings of dots [taken from Air Photo: D.T.] excav. 1946 by R.J.C. Atkinson when threatened by gravel digging. Three concentric causewayed ditches, each representing a separate phase of constuction. "The almost complete absence of pottery & the presence of 21 cremations suggests that it was a cemetery, probably of the Early or Middle Bronze Age." [SU 5692 9573 D.T.]. (1) Full report to be published by Ashmolean Museum "during 1948". (2) "Excavation of [this "Site" II"] revealed the structual phases, of which the second follows very closely on the first: 1. A roughly circular ditch (outer diam. 45') was begun, but was refilled before it was completed. 2. A second ditch, with internal bank, was excavated immediately outside the first, its line being broken by several irregularly spaced causeways. 3. After some lapse of time, the second structure was destroyed, & a third ditch, set out from a different centre, was excavated round the site of the second. This ditch was regularly causewayed, & had an internal bank in which were deposited 19 cremations; two more cremations were placed at the centre of the area enclosed. There was no evidence for entrance - causeways or timber structures in any phase of construction. Objects found with the cremations may be associatied with the Secondary *Neo. communities of the first part of the 2nd millenium B.C." *"Secondary Neo." is used to denote elements in Brit. Neo. Culture other than those of Windmill Hill type & those of the Megalithic tombs of the W. &. N. (ii) "...Site II must be regarded as a sacred site of the Neo. period. roughly contemporary with site I [Oxon 46 SW 8] ..." (iii) The earlier plan (ditches 1 & 2) resembles site I while the later phase (ditch 3) is closely allied to the three small cremations. Sites IV - VI [Oxon 46 SW 10 - 12] [SU 59 NE 10-12]. (3) Finds from this site include Peterborough sherd(s), two fragments of leaf or lonzenge shaped arrowheads and a Levallois type flake. (4) Dorchester II SU 570 957. Listed by Kinnes as a Neolithic ring ditch with 3 phases. (5) Cropmark remains of a Neolithic causewayed ring ditch seen at SU 5694 9574. The site comprises two concentric circuits of segmented ditches with diameters of approximately 12m and 20m, and was mapped at 1:10,000 scale for the RCHME: Thames Valley NMP (Morph No. TG.371.22.1). (6) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE TEXT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society Oxoniensia 11-12 Page(s)162 (2) Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society Oxoniensia 12 Page(s)164 (3) by R J C Atkinson, C M Piggott and N K Sandars 1951 Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon: first report. Sites I, II, IV, V and VI, with a chapter on henge monuments (4) General reference Ref. to:- as in T.3 p.113. (5) by Ian Kinnes 1979 Round barrows and ring-ditches in the British Neolithic British Museum occasional papers no.7 Page(s)19 (6) RCHME/EH Aerial Photographers Comment Fiona Small/02-APR-1993/RCHME: Thames Valley NMP (7) by A F Harding ; with G E Lee 1987 Henge monuments and related sites of Great Britain : air photographic evidence and catalogue BAR British series1 (1974) - 175 Page(s)243-5

Posted by Chance 5th February 2012ce

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