Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:12:27.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Earlier Prehistoric Settlement of Cranborne Chase-the First Results of Current Fieldwork

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Summary

This paper offers a provisional assessment of the development of settlement in part of Cranborne Chase between the Mesolithic and the Late Bronze Age. It builds upon the results of Pitt Rivers' work in this region between 1880 and 1900, as well as more recent excavation and field survey. Special emphasis is placed on three factors: the relationship between activity in this area and settlement both in central Wessex and on the coastal plain; the place of the more prominent ‘public’ monuments in contemporary patterns of settlement and exchange; and the relationship between cemeteries and contemporary living sites. We present the first results from the extensive excavation of two Deverel-Rimbury enclosures and associated barrows, and a new analysis of Pitt Rivers' work on the urnfield at Handley Barrow 24.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashbee, P., 1955. ‘Excavations at Hook in Hampshire, 1954’, Proc. Hants Field Club, xix, 70–2.Google Scholar
Ashbee, P., 1970. The Earthen Long Barrow in Britain (London).Google Scholar
Barrett, J., 1980. ‘The pottery of the later Bronze Age in lowland England’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xlvi, 297319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J. and Bradley, R., 1978. ‘Trial excavation at South Lodge Camp, 1977’, Antiquity, lii, 223–7.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. and Bradley, R., 1980. Barrett, J. and Bradley, R. (eds.), Settlement and Society in the British Later Bronze Age (Oxford).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J. and Bradley, R., 1980 (i) ‘The later Bronze Age in south Wessex and Cran-borne Chase’, in Barrett, and Bradley, , 1980, pp. 181208.Google Scholar
Barrett, J., Bradley, R., Cleal, R. and Pike, H., 1978. ‘Characterisation of Deverel-Rimbury pottery from Cranborne Chase’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xliv, 135–42.Google Scholar
Bowen, H. C, 1978. ‘“Celtic” fields and “ranch boundaries” in Wessex’, in Limbrey, and Evans, , 1976, pp. 115–22.Google Scholar
Bradley, R., 1978. ‘Colonisation and land use in the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age’, in Limbrey, and Evans, , 1978, pp. 95103.Google Scholar
Bradley, R., 1980. ‘Subsistence, exchange and technology: a social framework for the later Bronze Age in southern England c. 1400-700 be’, in Barrett, and Bradley, , 1980, PP. 5775.Google Scholar
Bradley, R., 1981. ‘“Various styles of urn”—cemeteries and settlement in southern Britain 1400 to 1000 be’, in Chapman, R., Kinnes, I. and Randsborg, K. (eds.), The Archaeology of Death (Cambridge), pp. 93104.Google Scholar
Burgess, C, 1980. The Age of Stonehenge (London).Google Scholar
Burton, J., 1980. ‘Making sense of waste flakes: new methods for investigating the technology and economy behind chipped stone assemblages,’ J. Arch. Sei. vii, 131–48.Google Scholar
Calkin, J., 1951. ‘The Bournemouth, area in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times’, Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. & Arch. Soc. lxxiii, 3270.Google Scholar
Calkin, J., 1962. ‘The Bournemouth area in the Middle and Late Bronze Age with the “Deverel-Rimbury” problem reconsidered’, Arch. J. cxix, 165.Google Scholar
Care, V., 1979. ‘The production and distribution of Mesolithic axes in southern England’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xlv, 93102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, D., 1970. The Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Clay, R., 1927. ‘A Late Bronze Age urn-field at Pokesdown, Hants’, Antiq. J. vii, 465–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B., 1970. ‘A'Bronze Age settlement at Chalton, Hants. (Site 78)‘, Antiq. j. 1, 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B., 1973. ‘Chalton, Hampshire: the evolution of a landscape’, Antiq. J. liii, 173–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drew, C. and Piggott, S., 1936. ‘The excavation of Long Barrow 163a on Thickthorn Down, Dorset’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. ii, 7796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drewett, P., 1975. ‘The excavation of an oval burial mound of the third millennium B.C. at Alfriston, East Sussex, 1974’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xli, 119–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellison, A., 1980. ‘Deverel-Rimbury urn cemeteries: the evidence for social organisation’, in Barrett, and Bradley, , 1980, pp. 115–26.Google Scholar
Field, N., Mathews, L. and Smith, I., 1964. ‘New Neolithic sites in Dorset and Bed-fordshire with a note on the distribution of Neolithic storage pits in Britain’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxx, 352–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, A., 1971. ‘Territorial patterns in Bronze Age Wessex’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxxvii, 138–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gingell, C, 1980. ‘The Marlborough Downs in the Bronze Age: the first results of current research’, in Barrett, and Bradley, , 1980, pp. 209–22.Google Scholar
Green, S., 1980. The Flint Arrowheads of the British Isles (Oxford).Google Scholar
Hawkes, C., 1940. ‘The excavations at Quarley Hill, 1938’, Proc. Hants Field Club, xiv, 136–94.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C, 1947. ‘Britons, Romans and Saxons round Salisbury and in Cranborne Chase’, Arch. J. civ, 2781.Google Scholar
Holden, E., 1972. ‘A Bronze Age cemetery-barrow on Itford Hill, Beddingham’, Sussex Arch. Coll. cx, 70117.Google Scholar
Jacobi, R., 1973. ‘Aspects of the “Mesolithic Age” in Great Britain’, in Koslowski, S. (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe (Warsaw).Google Scholar
Jacobi, R., 1978. ‘Population and landscape in Mesolithic lowland Britain’, in Limbrey, and Evans, , 1976, pp. 7585.Google Scholar
Jones, M., 1980. ‘Carbonised cereals from Grooved Ware contexts’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xlvi, 61–3.Google Scholar
Leeds, E. T., 1923. ‘A Saxon village near Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire’, Archaeologia, lxxiii, 145–92.Google Scholar
Leeds, E. T., 1927. ‘A Saxon village at Sutton Courtenay: a second report’, Archaeologia, lxxvi, 5980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeds, E. T., 1934. ‘Recent Bronze Age discoveries in Berkshire and Oxfordshire’, Antiq. J. xiv, 264–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeds, E. T., 1947. ‘A Saxon village at Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire (third report)’, Archaeologia, xcii, 7993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, B., 1980. The Mesolithic of the Cranborne Chase: a Problem Oriented Approach (B.A. Dissertation, University of Sheffield).Google Scholar
Limbrey, S. and Evans, J., 1978. The Effect of Man on the Landscape: the Lowland Zone (London).Google Scholar
Manby, T., 1974. Grooved Ware Sites in Yorkshire and the North of England (Oxford).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P., 1974. ‘The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic’, in Renfrew, C. (ed.), British Prehistory: A New Outline (London), pp. 141–99.Google Scholar
Mellars, P., 1976. ‘Settlement patterns and industrial variability in the British Mesolithic’, in Sieveking, G., Longworth, I. and Wilson, K. (eds.), Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology (London), pp. 375–99.Google Scholar
Mellars, P. and Reinhardt, S., 1978. ‘The patterns of Mesolithic land use in southern England: a geological perspective’, in Mellars, P. (ed.), The Early Postglacial Settlement of Northern Europe (London), pp. 243–93.Google Scholar
Modderman, P., 1955. ‘Woonsporen uit de bronstijd en de ijzertijd op de Margijnen Enk onder Deventer, Overijssel’, Berichten van de Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodermonderzoek, vi, 2231.Google Scholar
Piggott, C. M., 1942. ‘Five Late Bronze Age enclosures in north Wiltshire’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. viii, 4861.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, C. M. and Piggott, S., 1944. ‘Excavation of barrows on Crichel and Launceston Down, Dorset’, Archaeologia, xc, 4780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S., 1938. ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. iv, 52106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S., 1954. The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Pitt Rivers, A., 1887. Excavations in Cranborne Chase, vol. 1 (London).Google Scholar
Pitt Rivers, A., 1898. Excavations in Cranborne Chase, vol. 4 (London).Google Scholar
Pitts, M. and Jacobi, R., 1979. ‘Some aspects of change in flaked stone industries of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in southern Britain’, J. Arch. Sci. vi, 163–77.Google Scholar
Proudfoot, E., 1963. ‘Report on the excavation of a bell barrow in the parish of Edmond-sham, Dorset, England’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxix, 395425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (ENGLAND), 1970. County of Dorset, vol. 2, part 3 (London).Google Scholar
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (ENGLAND), 1975. County of Dorset, vol. 5 (London).Google Scholar
Shortt, H., 1949. ‘A hoard of bangles from Ebbesbourne Wake, Wiltshire’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. liii, 104–12.Google Scholar
Smith, I., 1979. ‘The chronology of British stone implements’, in Clough, T. and Cummins, W. (eds.), Stone Axe Studies (London), pp. 1322.Google Scholar
Stone, J. and Young, W., 1948. ‘Two pits of Grooved Ware date near Woodhenge’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. lii, 287306.Google Scholar
Summers, P., 1941. ‘A Mesolithic site near Iwerne Minster, Dorset’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. vii, 145–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, H., 1925. ‘Bronze Age or earlier lynchets’, Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. & Arch. Soc. xlvi, 89100.Google Scholar
Vita-Finzi, C. and Higgs, E., 1970. ‘Prehistoric economy in the Mount Carmel area: site catchment analysis’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxxvi, 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vatcher, F., 1961. ‘The excavation of a long mortuary enclosure on Normanton Down, Wiltshire’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxvii, 160–73.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G., 1979a. Mount Pleasant (London).Google Scholar
Wainwright, G., 1979b. Gussage All Saints: an Iron Age Settlement in Dorset (London).Google Scholar
White, D., 1971. ‘Early man in Cranborne Chase’, Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist and Arch. Soc. xciii, 176–82.Google Scholar