| Summary : A Bronze Age bowl barrow, listed by Grinsell as East Kennett 1c. It was dug into by the Rev RC Connor in 1840. Roughly central beneath the mound was a chalk-cut grave pit feet deep and five feet wide, at the bottom of which was a crouched adult inhumation. At the feet of the skeleton was a Beaker, standing upright. In front of the body was a bronze dagger and a perforated stone battle-axe, traces of the wooden haft of the latter also apparently visible. The dagger is now in the British Museum and the Beaker in Hull Museum. The whereabouts of the battle axe are unknown. The inhumation was covered by sarsen blocks. The barrow mound itself, said to stand "four feet above the natural level", comprised chalk "covered with dark mould full of animal bones". An Ordnance Survey field visit in 1974 surveyed the mound when it was 0.6m high. Aerial photographs indicate the barrow survives as a low mound and was surrounded by a ditch, now buried, which shows as a cropmark. Images derived from airborne laser scanning (lidar) flown in 2006 confirm the survival of the barrow mound as a low earthwork. Apparently a small adjacent mound (presumably excavated at the same time?) contained "bones of deer, wild boar and birds in very large quantities". There are ring ditches to the north (NMR 946976, 220752) which show there were other barrows in the immediate vicinity. |
More information : (SU 11526683) Tumulus (NR). (1)
West of East Kennett Long Barrow, East Kennett 1c, a levelled bowl barrow 27 paces in diameter. Excavated by R C Connor in 1840: primary crouched skeleton in grave 5 ft deep, with type A beaker, dagger with 3 rivets, and perforated stone axe, with traces of wooden staff (of axe ?) on right side of body; covered with sarsen cairn, chalk rubble, and dark mould, in that order. Beaker in the Mortimer Museum of Prehistoric Archaeology, Hull. (2)
A ploughed down bowl barrow up to 33.0 metres in diameter and 0.6 metres high. Published survey 1:2500 revised. (3)
An RCHME 1:2500 scale, level 3 air photographic interpretation project (Event UID 936869) was carried out on this monument in January 1992. The site appeared as a partial ring ditch with a chalk spread probably representing the mound. The archive created by this project (Collection UID 936807) is held by RCHME. (4)
There appears to be no primary published source. The earliest reference is in a list of discoveries from the Avebury area published in 1851 by Dean Merewether. A brief description of the barrow and contents appeared a few years later by Stanley, who noted (in addition to the information given by source 2) that the soil covering the barrow mound contained large quantities of animal bones. He also referred to a small adjacent mound (which may or not be one of those in the general vicinity of East Kennet Long Barrow) which contained very large quantities of deer, wild boar and bird bones. A schematic section, as well as illustrations of the finds, were published by Thurnam and Montelius. More recently, the dagger was assigned by Gerloff to her Type Milston. Curiously she described it as lost. It is in fact in the British Museum, who have recently published a full account of the Barrow's contents and their history since discovery. The whereabouts of the battle axe remain unknown. (5-14)
The faint trace of a low mound with a diameter of 10m was visible at the given grid reference (SU 1152 6683) on Wiltshire SMR vertical photographs taken in 1991, and was presumed to be the remains of the barrow mentioned in authorities 1-14. (15)
According to Grinsell, the barrow was dug into in 1840 by the Rev. RC Connor. No primary account of the excavation appears to exist, and we are reliant on the brief information provided by Thurnam and Stanley, though their sources are unclear. The first published note appears to have been Merewether's (posthumous) summary of the Beaker, battle-axe and dagger, complete with sketch drawings. Stanley was primarily concerned with sites in Wales, but included details of the East Kennett barrow when seeking parallels for pottery vessels. He referred to "...a specimen found some years ago under a barrow at East Kennett, Wilts...It was sent by the late Bishop of Salisbury, with the other relics disinterred at the same time, to the Museum formed at the Annual Meeting of the Institute at Salisbury in 1854". He notes that the Beaker had been placed at the feet of the skeleton. "The skeleton, in perfect preservation, the head towards the east, lay in a cavity, about 5 ft deep and about the same in length, cut in the solid chalk and roughly vaulted over with blocks of "sarsen stone". Along the right side of the corpse there had been a wooden staff. There was also, near the right elbow, a beautiful axehead of hard grey limestone perforated for a haft, and a broad thin blade of bronze, probably a dagger; the handle had wholly perished, it had been attached by three rivets that still remained...The cist, in this remarkable interment, lay beneath a small barrow raised about 4ft above the natural level, and composed of chalk covered with dark mould full of animal bones. In a small adjacent mound were bones of deer, wild boar, and birds, in very large quantities."
In 1869, the then-owner of the objects, the Hon. Mrs Denison, exhibited them before a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries. No further information appeared in print, although it was noted that woodblock engravings of all three items were to be prepared for use by Thurnam. These, presumably, are the illustrations that appeared subsequently in Thurnam's 1872 paper on round barrows. Thurnam also included a schematic section of the excavated barrow, the source of which is not given. The section shows the grave pit at the exact centre of the barrow, but more significantly shows that the sarsen "vaulting" over the burial was actually within the pit and not above it. After 1869, the objects seem to have gone their separate ways. Kinnes noted that the dagger was sold at Sotheby's in 1920, having by then lost its provenance. It was eventually donated to the British Museum in 1964, by which time only two of the three rivets were present. The Beaker found its way to Hull Museum, while the location of the battle-axe remains unknwon. Kinnes suggests that the burial is likely to be quite late in the Beaker sequence. (1-16)
Images derived from airborne laser scanning (lidar) flown in 2006 confirm the survival of the barrow mound as a low spread earthwork. (17) |