Two bowl barrows 320m south-east of Little London

List Entry Summary

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Location

The monument may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

Legacy System Information

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Asset Groupings

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List entry Description

Summary of Monument

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Reasons for Designation

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar, although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form and a diversity of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of lowland Britain. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Despite cultivation and the partial excavation of both barrow mounds in 1849, the monument south-east of Little London survives comparatively well and has potential for the recovery of archaeological evidence and environmental remains relating to the period in which the monument was constructed.

History

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Details

The monument includes two adjacent bowl barrows orientated SE-NW and set on a gentle east-facing slope above the head of the Kennet valley. The southern barrow mound is 32m in diameter and stands to a height of 2m while the northern mound is 38m across and 2.5m high. Both mounds were partially excavated by Merewether in 1849. Finds from the southern mound included a primary cremation burial as well as later Saxon inhumations, one with a knife, three earthenware beads and a metal box with chain. The northern mound included a cremation burial in a tree-trunk coffin containing a bronze dagger with three rivets. Although no longer visible at ground level, a ditch from which material was quarried during construction of the monument, surrounds both mounds. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature c.3m wide.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Selected Sources

Books and journals
Merewether, J, 'Archaeological Institute' in Memoirs of the Archaeological Institute, (1849), 96-7

National Grid Reference: SU 07040 70984

Map

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This copy shows the entry on 19-Aug-2018 at 12:07:14.