Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:20:05.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Excavations at Shearplace Hill, Sydling St. Nicholas Dorset, England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Philip Rahtz  and
A. M. ApSimon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This report describes the excavation of a small complex of earthworks on the Dorset chalk upland (fig. 1) associated with fields and droveways. Several banked and ditched enclosures were present, the main one of which contained two sub-circular houses. The lay-out of these houses may be ascribed largely to the Deverel-Rimbury occupation of the site, but the main earthworks of the farmstead are dated on the evidence of the pottery to the early Middle Bronze Age, if not to the Wessex Bronze Age. From the plans of similar settlements with fields and droveways, then thought to belong to the Late Bronze Age (but now assigned to the Middle Bronze Age), Curwen (1938) deduced the existence of settled cultivation with the two-oxplough. The use of some form of plough during the Bronze Age has since received confirmation from the discovery of marks of cultivation in the fossil soil beneath barrows and other monuments. The placing of the houses in hollows cut into the slope recalls the Itford Hill settlement (Hollyman and Burstow, 1958) and the enclosing ditches, the Cranborne Chase sites mapped by Mrs Piggott (1951). The round houses seem to be the universal type in the Middle Bronze Age of southern England and the farmstead with 2–3 houses is comparable with Thorny Down, Plumpton Plain, Trevisker (St. Eval) and Trewey, to quote only the better known examples. It is uncertain how far we should distinguish these from what appear to be villages with up to 20-30 houses, such as occur on Dartmoor (Radford 1951).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 28 , December 1962 , pp. 289 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1962

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

REFERENCES TO LITERATURE

Abercromby, J., 1912. A Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. (2 Vols.) Oxford.Google Scholar
Ashbee, P. and Dimbleby, G. W., 1959. ‘The Excavation of a Round Barrow on Chick's Hill, East Stoke Parish, Dorset’, Proc. Dorset N. H. & Arch. Soc., LXXX, pp. 146–159.Google Scholar
Burstow, G. P. and Holleyman, G. A., 1958. ‘Late Bronze Age Settlement on Itford Hill, Sussex’, PPS, XXIII, pp. 167–212.Google Scholar
Butler, J. J. and Smith, I. F., 1956. ‘Razors, Urns and the British Middle Bronze Age’, Univ. London, Inst. of Archaeology, 12th Ann. Rep., pp. 20–52.Google Scholar
Calkin, J. B., 1958. ‘Barrels, Buckets and Globulars’, Arch. News Letter, VI, no. 5, p. 111.Google Scholar
Calkin, J. B. 1959. ‘Some Archaeological Discoveries in the Isle of Purbeck, Part II’, Proc. Dorset N. H. & Arch. Soc., XCI, pp. 114–23.Google Scholar
Curwen, E. C., 1938. ‘The Early Development of Agriculture in Britain’, PPS, IV, pp. 27–51.Google Scholar
Curwen, E. C. and Holleyman, G. A., 1935. ‘Late Bronze Age Lynchet Settlements on Plumpton Plain, Sussex’, PPS, 1, pp. 16–38.Google Scholar
Dudley, D., 1942. ‘A Late Bronze Age Settlement on Trewey Downs, Zennor, Cornwall’, Arch. Journ., XCVIII, pp. 105–30.Google Scholar
Fox, A., 1957. ‘Excavations on Dean Moor, in the Avon Valley, 1954–6. The Late Bronze Age Settlement’, Trans. Devon. Assoc., LXXXIX, pp. 18–77.Google Scholar
Fox, C. F., 1928. ‘A Bronze Age Refuse Pit at Swanwick, Hants.’, Antiq. J., VIII, pp. 331–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimes, W. F., 1960. Excavations on Defence Sites, 1939–45. 1: Mainly Neolithic—Bronze Age, H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
Hawley, W., Smith, R. A. and Wolseley, G. R., 1927. ‘Prehistoric and Roman Settlements on Park Brow’, Archaeologia, LXXVI, pp. 1–40.Google Scholar
Modderman, P. J. R., 1960. ‘Een “Hilversum” pot met wikkeldraadstempel versied en bronzen naald uit Vorstenbosch (Noord-Brabant)’, Ber. v. d. rijksdienst v. h. oudheikundig bodemonderzoek, Jahrg. 9 (1959), pp. 288–9.Google Scholar
O'Neil, B. H. St. J., 1952. ‘The Excavation of Knackyboy Cairn, St. Martins, Isles of Scilly, 1948’, Antiq. J., XXXII, pp. 21–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philippe, J., 1935. ‘Les fondeurs de bronze au Fort-Harrouard’, L'Anthropologie, XLV, pp. 15–31.Google Scholar
Piggott, C. M., 1938. ‘A Middle Bronze Age Barrow and Deverel-Rimbury Urnfield, at Latch Farm, Christchurch, Hampshire’, PPS, IV, pp. 169–87.Google Scholar
Piggott, C. M., 1951. ‘Late Bronze Age Enclosures in Sussex and Wessex’, PPS, XVI, pp. 193–5.Google Scholar
Piggott, C. M. and Piggott, S., 1944. ‘Excavation of Barrows on Crichel and Launceston Downs, Dorset’, Archaeologia, XC, pp. 47–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, A., 1898. Excavations in Cranborne Chase, IV.Google Scholar
Radford, C. A. R., 1953. ‘Prehistoric Settlements on Dartmoor and the Cornish Moors’, PPS, XVIII, pp. 55–84.Google Scholar
Smith, M. A., 1959. ‘Some Somerset Hoards and their place in the Bronze Age of Southern Britain’, PPS, XXV, pp. 144–87.Google Scholar
Stevens, F. and Stone, J. F. S., 1938. ‘The Barrows of Winterslow’, Wilts. Arch. Mag., XLVIII, pp. 174–82.Google Scholar
Stone, J. F. S., 1941. ‘The Deverel-Rimbury Settlement on Thorny Down, Winterbourne Gunner, S. Wilts.’, PPS, VII, pp. 114–33.Google Scholar
Taylor, H., 1951. ‘The Tynings Farm Barrow Group—Third Report’, Proc. Univ. Bristol Spel. Soc., VI, pp. 111–73.Google Scholar
Thomas, I., 1960. ‘Excavations at Kynance 1953–60’, The Lizard, I, no. 4, pp. 5–16.Google Scholar