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

Details of site on Pastscape A Neolithic ring ditch comprising eight contiguous oval pits which form a small penannular enclosure with an internal diameter of circa 6 metres. The enclosure is open to the south east. The site is part of a complex of monuments focused on the Dorchester cursus (SU 59 NE 5) and was excavated in 1947 in advance of gravel quarrying. Located within the cursus, it shares the same alignment. The site originally featured an outer bank, and each pit had contained a post hole. 25 cremation deposits were found at the site, one accompanied by a petit tranchet derivative arrowhead. Other finds included further flints, two antler picks and traces of two wooden planks. "Site IV" excav. by O.U.A.S. 1947. A cremation cemetery with a ditch consisting of eight contiguous pits with an entrance gap to the South: it contained 25 cremations. Full report to be published by Ashmolean Museum "during 1948", with sites I, II, V and VI. (1) This site is very similar to other sites in the same complex that probably belonged to the late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. [SU 56089577]. (2) "The site was a causewayed cremation & cemetery, consisting of a discontinuous ditch of 8 segments, each in the form of an oval pit, enclosing an area some 20' in diam.; the ditch was broken by a broad entrance-gap on the SE side. A bank followed the ditch on its outer side, & in the floor of each segment was a single hole. Within the area enclosed by the bank were 25 deposits of cremated bones. The only significant find was a "petit tranchet" derivative arrowhead with one of the cremations". (3) Class I in `Classification of Henge Monuments in G.B'. (4) Dorchester IV. SU 570 957 (sic) Listed by Kinnes as a Neolithic ring ditch with cremation burials in the enclosure and the upper ditch fill. (5) Dorchester IV. Listed by Harding and Lee as a segmented ditch circle lying within the Dorchester cursus. (6) Cropmark remains of a small hengiform monument located within the Dorchester cursus at SU 5698 9578. The site appears as a sub circular enclosure defined by a single ditch with a diameter of 10m and and entrance to the south-east. The site was mapped at 1:10,000 scale for the RCHME:Thames Valley NMP (Morph NO.TG.371.25.1). (7) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE TEXT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society Oxoniensia Arch.Notes 1947 XI-XII Page(s)164 (2) Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society Oxoniensia Arch. Notes. (1946-7) 11-12 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. as T.3 p.94. (5) by Ian Kinnes 1979 Round barrows and ring-ditches in the British Neolithic British Museum occasional papers no.7 Page(s)19 (6) 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) - Site 151 175 Page(s)244 (7) RCHME/EH Aerial Photographers Comment Fiona Small/02-APR-1993/RCHME: Thames Valley NMP

Posted by Chance 5th February 2012ce

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