|
Barrow / Cairn Cemetery
|
|
|
Details of barrows on Pastscape
Three Bronze Age barrows, known as Flowerdown Barrows, situated to the northwest of Flowerdown House at Littleton, Hampshire. The group comprises a disc barrow and two bowl barrows, and was once part of a larger barrow cemetery group that may have acted as a territorial marker. The barrows may have been disturbed in the past, possibly by 19th century antiquarians. They are now in the care of English Heritage.
The barrows are particularly well-preserved, and the disc barrow has been described as the largest and finest barrow of its kind in Hampshire. Disc barrows are rare nationally with only about 250 examples known, and often only surviving as crop marks. They were constructed as a circular area of level ground surrounded by a ditch and external bank, with one or more low mounds covering burials within the central platform. The burials were usually cremations accompanied by vessels, tools, and personal ornaments. It is likely that the individuals buried within them were of high status. This disc barrow has a circular flat platform 28 metres in diameter on which lie two circular mounds. The central mound is 7 metres in diameter and has a central hollow. The other lies to the southwest of the centre and is 6 metres in diameter.
The larger of the two bowl barrows lies to the southwest of the disc barrow; it has a circular mound with a central hollow and is 20 metres in diameter and one metre high. The smaller bowl barrow abuts the outer edge of the disc barrow bank. Its mound is 8 metres in diameter and 0.3 metres high. Bowl barrows were usually constructed of a mound of turf, soil, or rock, covering one or more burials. This was usually surrounded by a circular ditch from which the mound material may have been quarried. The burials were either inhumations or cremation burials, sometimes with grave goods such as pottery vessels, weapons, flint tools, and jewellery.
|
Posted by Chance
7th June 2014ce
|
|
Log in |
Register
Top of page