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Excavations at Hog Cliff Hill, Maiden Newton, Dorset

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Ann Ellison
Affiliation:
Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit, PO Box 363, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
Philip Rahtz
Affiliation:
The Old School, Harome, Helmsley, North Yorkshire
P. C. Ensom
Affiliation:
Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XA
R. L. Otlet
Affiliation:
Carbon-14/Tritium Measurements Laboratory, Nuclear Physics Division, Building 10.46, AERE, Harwell, Oxon
D. F. Williams
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO9 5NH
P. Wilthew
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, Fortress House, 23 Savile Row, London W1X 2HE

Abstract

A segment of earlier Bronze Age arable landscape incorporating isolated round barrows on the high chalk spur of Hog Cliff Hill became the chosen location for a later Bronze Age earthwork of considerable dimensions. The area excavated within the bank and ditch was densely occupied by two major phases of buildings of timber construction, lasting into the earliest Iron Age. Sometime during the early Iron Age the oval enclosure was replaced by a more substantial one which partly followed its line and contained a series of unusual structures comprising dry-stone flint banks or wall-footings. The site was subsequently abandoned, the land probably being returned to agricultural use, until the Roman period when the agger of the Roman road from Dorchester to Ilchester was constructed across the earthwork.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1987

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