Structure and change in Bronze Age burial mounds: an antiquarian excavation re-examined using an integrated geophysical and topographical survey at Clandon Barrow, Dorset.

Abstract

The excavation of Clandon Barrow by the antiquarian Edward Cunnington in 1882 is most notable for a rich assemblage of artefacts recovered from within it. The artefacts have been described by Stuart Needham and Ann Woodward as …..” the bringing together of the most cosmologically-charged materials of contemporary culture”…. by a local elite (Needham and Woodward, 2008, 44). The excavation itself and subsequently its interpretation has been at least partially compromised by the lack of clarity in the structural and contextual detail of the barrow mound recorded by Cunnington, made more difficult in the knowledge that the primary deposits of the monument were never reached. In an attempt to provide greater clarity upon the structural deposits through non-intrusive techniques the authors conducted a series of detailed topographic and geophysical surveys at the site in 2009 and 2011. The results provide additional data on the mounds composition including some clarity of the presence of a primary mound that was later ‘aggrandised’ by a secondary mound constructed above it. This secondary mound was slightly off-set to the original and the results of the survey confirms that its construction consists of layered strata (as implied in the excavation archive) although the time scale of such layering and its purpose remains speculative. The presence of a flint cairn lying atop the primary mound is further considered in the light of data recovered from the surveys which provides further insight into the continuing use and re-use of funerary monuments in the late 3rd millennium BC.