More information : (SU 13744318) Long Barrow (AT) (1) Amesbury 42. A long barrow 265 ft long, 70 ft wide and 4 ft high; the side ditches have been ploughed out. Orientation N-S It was excavated by Thurnam who found animal bones and the sketetons of two infants and one adult, probably secondaries. (2-3) A long barrow orientated N-S, 81 metres long, 15 metres wide, 0.9m high with traces of a broad shallow ditch on the eastern side. A trackway runs along the crest of the barrow and is slowly denuding it. Published (1:2500) survey revised. (4)
Originally recorded as Amesbury 42 by Goddard (5)
SU 62 (Kinnes) Amesbury 42, long barrow with type A ditches (Kinnes). The mortuary area was unlocated. The inhumation of a child was overlain by a deposit of animal remains. The mound was of chalk rubble and contained two secondary inhumations. (6)
Sample excavations were carried out on the western side of the barrow as part of the Stonehenge Environs Project (W58). Almost all traces of the mound and buried soil had been removed and two phases of construction were noted within the ditch. The phase 1 ditch was round-bottomed ditch 1.4m wide and 1.3m deep, separated by a causeway 0.4m wide. Flint knapping debris was recovered from the ditch base.
The phase 2 ditch was also flat-bottomed, 4.0m wide, 2.2m deep. Flint knapping debris, animal bone and Late Neolithic/Bronze Age pottery was recovered from the primary fills, and Roman pottery and animal bone were recovered from the upper fills.
The excavations provided a limited indication of the morphology of the two indivdual phases of the monument which may be comparable to other complex barrows, but its relationship to the eastern terminal of the Stonehenge Cursus must also be taken into consideration. A Magnetometer survey confirms the position of the north-south cursus terminal ditch 20m west of the long barrow with an apparent west flanking barrow ditch present between the terminal and the long barrow. (7)
The long barrow is visible as a very slight earthwork on aerial photographs, and has been mapped from aerial photographs by both RCHME's Salisbury Plain Training Area NMP and EH's Stonehenge WHS Mapping Project. (9-10)
The Neolithic long barrow referred to above (1-10) and known as Amesbury 42 survives as very slight earthworks, which were surveyed by English Heritage as part of the Stonehenge WHS Landscape Project. The long barrow comprises a linear bank that extends roughly north / south for circa 70m and is flanked by a ditch to either side. The bank measures 20m wide and the ditches circa 11m wide. It has been nearly flattened by ploughing and is overlain by a byway. (11) |