Round barrow immediately south of California Belt, 190m east of Fox Head

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

This list entry does not comprise part of an Asset Grouping. Asset Groupings are not part of the official record but are added later for information.

List entry Description

Summary of Monument

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Reasons for Designation

Round barrows 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 mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus of 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 examples recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of Britain, including the Wessex area where it is often possible to classify them more closely, for example as bowl or bell barrows. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation in 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.

The Tabular Hills in the Wykeham Forest area contain a dense concentration of prehistoric monuments, dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, which includes field systems, enclosures and land boundaries as well as both round and square barrows. The spatial and chronological relationships between the round and square barrows in this area, and between both types of barrow and other prehistoric monuments, are of considerable importance for understanding the development of later prehistoric society in eastern Yorkshire. Despite disturbance, this barrow has surviving archaeological deposits which will contain information about the original form of the barrow and the burials placed within it. Evidence for earlier land use and the contemporary environment will also survive beneath the barrow mound and within the lower ditch fills. The round barrow immediately south of California Belt, 190m east of Fox Head is one of a group of three burial monuments and such clusters provide important insight into the development of ritual and funerary practice during the Bronze Age.

History

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Details

The monument includes a round barrow situated on a gentle south facing slope towards the northern edge of the Tabular Hills. The barrow has an earthen mound which stands up to 0.3m high. Originally it had a diameter of up to 30m, but ploughing has reduced this to about 18m. The mound was surrounded by a ditch up to 2m wide, but over the years this has become infilled as a result of ploughing and it is no longer visible as an earthwork feature. The barrow was partly excavated by T Brewster in 1961-2 when four cremations were uncovered, two of them within urns. The barrow lies within a dense concentration of prehistoric burial monuments in an area which also includes the remains of prehistoric settlement and land division.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Selected Sources

Books and journals
Brewster, T C M, Finney, A E, Excavation of seven round barrows on the moorlands of N E Yorks, (1995), 4-5
Lee, G E, Wykeham Archaeological Survey, (1991)

National Grid Reference: SE 95802 87195

Map

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This copy shows the entry on 20-Jul-2018 at 07:44:17.