| Summary : Bronze Age bowl or saucer barrow, Grinsell's Avebury 46. Identified (tentatively) with Merewether's barrow 14, excavated in 1849. Merewether reported finding two inhumations, one a child contained within a pottery vessel. The barrow now consists of an earthwork mound, with two concentric ditches only visible as cropmarks. Barrows in the vicinity of the Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure were surveyed, along with the enclosure, by RCHME in 1990, and documentary sources relating to the barrows examined as part of the Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic Project. See archive report for details. |
More information : [NB this record formerly comprised part of SU 07 SE 15, along with 3 other barrows - Grinsell's Avebury 48b, 46a and b. Each has now been recorded individually (SU 07 SE 44, 15 and 51 respectively) in order to provide a clear account and description of each. Refer to OS record card SU 07 SE 15 for original format and details].
('B': SU 09147126) Tumuli (NR). (1)
'B': A round barrow 30.0m in diameter and 0.6m high. There are no surface indications of a ditch. Under plough.
Resurveyed at 1:2500. (2)
Documentary sources dealing with the round barrows on Windmill Hill were examined as part of the RCHME project on Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic, this review also providing the context for recasting the existing Monarch records (see first paragraph). Grinsell (3a) identified this barrow with Merewether's (3b) barrow 14, which seems to equate with Smith's (3c) barrow 'h' and Goddard's (3d) Avebury 46a. Grinsell suggested that either this or Avebury 46a might have been a saucer barrow rather than a bowl barrow. Merewether dug into several barrows in the Avebury/Yatesbury area in the summer of 1849 as part of the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain, based that year in Salisbury. Merewether reported finding a small plain urn containing the unburnt skeleton of a child, as well as a crouched inhumation of an adult, complete with the exception of the bones of the left wrist and hand, and unaccompanied by any grave goods. (3)
The mound of the barrow described by authorities 1 and 2 was partially visible as cropmarks, as were two concentric circles surrounding the mound. The inner ditch measures 20m in diameter and the outer one 30m. (4-6)
The barrow mound is visible as an earthwork on lidar and was mapped as part of the Avebury WHS Lidar and NMP Review.
(7) |