Round barrow cemetery at Fullamoor Plantation

Summary

Early Bronze Age round barrow cemetery, now levelled to buried ring ditches visible as crop marks, and linear features (also crop marks).

Reasons for Designation

The Early Bronze Age round barrow cemetery at Fullamoor Plantation, seen as ring ditches visible as crop marks, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Rarity: barrow cemeteries are sufficiently rare nationally that there is a presumption in favour of scheduling those that are relatively complete and that retain archaeological remains;
* Documentation/finds: aerial photographs, survey, antiquarian excavation and recent trial trenching provide good evidence for the survival of nationally important archaeological features and recovered a range of artefacts and remains related to the use of the area as a Bronze Age funerary site;
* Survival: despite the loss of upstanding barrow mounds the ditches survive well and to significant depth, and the group itself is complete and illustrative of the dispersed cemetery form;
* Diversity: a range of types of barrow remains survive, including three which share morphological similarities to late-Neolithic barrows, an unusual disc barrow, and a multi-phase double ditched barrow, representing a range of approaches to funerary ritual;
* Potential: the round barrows have the potential to include funerary deposits and artefacts which will inform on the traditions of the period and there is the potential for further remains to exist between the barrows.

History

The site, a Bronze Age barrow cemetery, was originally identified for scheduling in 1972 and an area of c20 hectares was proposed, defined by present and historic field boundaries; however, the scheduling was not completed until 2014. Aerial photographs show eleven circular and one part-circular crop marks dispersed across the site, one distinct linear crop mark running south-west to north-east to the north of the site, and miscellaneous crop marks indicating later field boundaries, ditches and scattered pits.

Barrows are mounds of earth and/or stone of various shapes and sizes that are characteristic monuments of the prehistoric periods from 3800-1400BC. The origins of each barrow site invariably lie in different combinations of timber, turf, rubble, small platforms and enclosures or ditched structures, which sometimes incorporate deposits of stone artefacts, pottery, animal and human bone. Each site utilises combinations of these components in an individual manner, with regional factors, including the availability of stone or certain soil types, a primary factor in the choice of construction materials. Throughout their life, barrows may have been modified and portions added laterally or vertically, and at each stage deposits of cultural material or human burials may have been inserted and this has led to a widespread opinion that they are burial monuments.

Round barrows vary in size from 5m to over 50m in diameter and 6m in height and their peak period of construction was between 2000 and 1500BC. Barrows are sometimes grouped together forming cemeteries, which typically consist of between five and 30 barrows in a variety of forms that have accumulated over many generations. Groups of barrows are sometimes found in association with other monuments that are also often assumed to have served ritual purposes, including avenues, cursuses, henges, mortuary enclosure and stone and timber circles. In the Thames Valley there are known to be over 37 separate barrow cemeteries made up of over 250 round barrows; there are two morphological types of barrow cemeteries, linear or nucleated, as at the Fullamoor Plantation, neither of which is predominant.

Barrows can occur anywhere within the landscape and large numbers of levelled examples occur in river valleys, as is the case with the site at Fullamoor Plantation, which is sited on the first gravel terrace of the Upper Thames. Characterised by rolling, open, low-lying farmland, the area under assessment has been under plough for multiple generations and there are no extant remains of the monuments on the ground.

An excavation of one of the circular features was undertaken in 1933 by Major Allen. He recorded the feature as a disc barrow, though it may simply have been a round barrow, with a number of small pits and the remains of a cremation interment.

The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) carried out a Level 3 survey on the western boundary of the assessment area between February and March 1991, in response to a request from Thames Water Utilities PLC, in advance of the installation of a pipeline. Trenches revealed a small assemblage of worked flint and Bronze Age pottery sherds. The distinct linear crop mark was found to be a wide ditch, possibly demarcating or enclosing an area, probably originating in the Bronze Age and with Iron Age material within the fills. At the south of the site the remains of a Roman trackway were found, dated from the stratigraphy of pottery and its position beneath the alluvial material. All crop marks seen on aerial photographs were transcribed at a scale of 1:2500, using the Bradford University AERIAL program, and the features were mapped at 1:10,000 as part of the RCHME: Thames Valley National Mapping Programme project.

In 2008 a desk-based study of a wider area, including the scheduled area, was undertaken by the Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) as part of a planning proposal to extract minerals from the site. Because of the clear presence of archaeological deposits a recommendation for field investigation was made and trial trenching was carried out by TVAS in 2013. 42 trenches were dug within the area originally proposed for scheduling, 17 of these were located specifically to target the crop mark features identified on aerial photographs and others were excavated around and between the crop mark features. A sample excavation was conducted on the eight largest of the circular features, and revealed ring ditches and pits, their size and characteristics, and a small number of finds confirming that they are levelled barrows. All ditches were bottomed. In many of these targeted trenches no finds were recovered, but in one instance part of a collared, Bronze Age urn was found, with a small amount of cremated human bone within it; in another were fragments of Peterborough ware, and elsewhere Bronze Age pottery sherds and a small amount of animal bone. The part-circular crop mark to the south east of the site was partially excavated and found to be another possible ring ditch. The bottoms of the ring ditches were shallower than the water table, hence there has been no preservation of waterlogged organic matter, as is expected on sites in the Upper Thames floodplain. No excavation was made of the three smaller circular crop marks to the north, which share morphological similarities with late Neolithic ring ditches.

Little evidence of settlement was found beyond the ring ditches, although a small number of struck flints were recorded. Excavation of the linear feature revealed a wide ditch, considered in the 1991 excavation to originate in the Bronze Age, and with Iron Age material found within the fills. Boyle et al suggest it may be part of a meander cut-off, a late-prehistoric land division to manage the flow of rivers (1998), though this has been contested. The three-sided crop mark around the circle to the north-east did not contain artefacts hence is unlikely to be an enclosed occupation site, but rather a field boundary. The groups of linear crop marks c500m and c1km to the east of the plantation appear to be enclosure/settlement complexes of Roman date. Fragmentary crop marks elsewhere in the area revealed undated linear features, characteristic of later Iron Age and Roman field boundaries and pits.

Details

Early Bronze Age round barrow cemetery now levelled to buried ring ditches visible as crop marks and linear features (also crop marks).

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: eleven circular, one part-circular and two intersecting linear crop marks on land around the Fullamoor Plantation.

DESCRIPTION: the cemetery survives as a group of ring ditches identifiable through crop marks shown on aerial photographs. There is a group of three incomplete crop marks to the north of the site: they are c7m in diameter and indicate one causewayed ring ditch, and two other ring ditches, also with possible causeways. There are six larger circular cropmarks to the north of the plantation, and three on the southern field boundary, one of which has a double ditch, another of which is incomplete. The ditches range from 16m to 33m in diameter, and have been under plough for many years hence are no longer visible as earthworks.

Other miscellaneous crop marks are likely to indicate field boundaries and enclosures of Iron Age and Roman date and of several phases of development.

EXCLUSIONS: all structures related to the modern agricultural use of the site are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath them is included.

Sources

Books and journals
Paul Ashbee, , The Bronze Age Round Barrow in Britain, (1960)
Don Benson, , David Miles, , The Upper Thames Valley: An Archaeological Survey of the River Gravels, (1974), 63-65
Boyle, A, Jennings, D, Miles, D, Palmer, S, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Butler's Field, Lechlade Volume 1: The Prehistoric and Roman Activity and Anglo-Saxon Grave Catalogue, (1998)

Websites
Possible Barrow Cemetery at Fullamoor Plantation, accessed 02/10/2015 from http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MOX81&resourceID=1033
Monument no. 238372 (circular crop marks), accessed 02/10/2015 from http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=238372
Monument no. 936555 (miscellaneous ditches), accessed 02/10/2015 from http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=936555
Monument no. 1088980 (a causewayed ring ditch and two further ring ditches), accessed 02/10/2015 from http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1088980

Other
Booth, Paul, Boyle, Angela, Keevil, Graham G, A Romano-British Kiln Site at Lower Farm, Nuneham Courtenay, and Other Sites on the Didcot to Oxford and Wooton to Abingdon Water Main, Oxfordshire, in 'Oxoniesia' (1993)
ET Leeds, Round Barrows and Ring-Ditches in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, in 'Oxoniesia' (1936)
Andy Taylor, Thames Valley Archaeological Services, Archaeological Evaluation - Land at Abingdon Road, Culham, Oxfordshire, December 2013
Heather Hopkins, Thames Valley Archaeological Services, An Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment - Land at Abingdon Road, Culham, Oxfordshire, November 2008
Ruth Beckley and David Radford, Oxford City Council. Oxford Archaeological Resource Assessment 2011: Neolithic To Bronze Age, 2012
V Fenner and C Dyer, The Thames Valley Project: a report for the National Mapping Programme, 1994. Available at http://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/thames-valley-mapping-project-nmp/ Accessed 02/10/2015

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