<< Our Photo Pages >> Ascott under Wychwood - Chambered Tomb in England in Oxfordshire

Submitted by vicky on Tuesday, 24 September 2002  Page Views: 16794

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Ascott under Wychwood
Country: England County: Oxfordshire Type: Chambered Tomb

Map Ref: SP299176  Landranger Map Number: 164
Latitude: 51.856193N  Longitude: 1.567268W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 3

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Ascott under Wychwood
Ascott under Wychwood submitted by Andy B : Reconstruction drawings showing the different ways Neolithic communities closed their burial sites, at Ascott-under-Wychwood, the chamber was walled up; at Hazleton offerings were made; at Fussell's Lodge the wooden mortuary chamber was burnt and a large barrow constructed; and in West Kennet, people simply stopped placing corpses in the tomb. These differences indicate that contemporary Neolithic... (Vote or comment on this photo)
Long Mound with possible Chambered Tomb in Oxfordshire

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Ascott under Wychwood
Ascott under Wychwood submitted by h_fenton : As of 2007/8 the stones from Ascott-Under-Wychwood long barrow have been removed from the Museums Resource Centre (Standlake, Oxfordshire). The stones have been set up in the Pound in the village of Ascott-Under-Wychwood between the Swan (pub) and the Church. to represent how they were in the barrow, there is also an information board about the site. Grid Reference: SP 3000 1867 Ph... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ascott under Wychwood
Ascott under Wychwood submitted by h_fenton (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ascott under Wychwood
Ascott under Wychwood submitted by Andy B : The tip of a leaf-shaped arrowhead embedded in a vertebra of an individual excavated at Ascott-under-Wychwood, the result of violence or an accident in the 3630s BC. Image copyright English Heritage, used with permission. (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
SP2917 : Coldwell Bridge by Jennifer Luther Thomas
by Jennifer Luther Thomas
©2006(licence)
SP3017 : B4437 heading away from Charlbury by andrew auger
by andrew auger
©2008(licence)
SP2917 : The course of Coldwell Brook by Jennifer Luther Thomas
by Jennifer Luther Thomas
©2006(licence)
SP2917 : Lane at Fernhill Farm by Jonathan Billinger
by Jonathan Billinger
©2015(licence)
SP2917 : Fernhill Farm by Jonathan Billinger
by Jonathan Billinger
©2015(licence)

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"Ascott under Wychwood" | Login/Create an Account | 4 News and Comments
  
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Free ebook: Building Memories: The Neolithic Long Barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood by Andy B on Friday, 28 May 2021
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Building Memories: The Neolithic Cotswold Long Barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire eBook (PDF)
Don Benson(Editor); Alasdair Whittle(Author)

It is just over forty years since the start of the excavations of the Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow (1965-69) under the direction of Don Benson. The excavations belonged to the latter part of a great period of barrow digging in southern Britain, which was ending just as, by striking contrast, intensified investigation and fieldwork at causewayed enclosures were beginning. Although a long gap has passed since the excavations took place, they have nonetheless produced a rich and important set of results, and the analysis has been enhanced by more recent techniques. The site now joins Burn Ground and Hazleton North as one of only three Cotswold long barrows or cairns to have been more or less fully excavated. The barrow had been built in two main stages, in a series of bays defined by lines of stakes and stone, and filled mainly with earth and turf, with some stone; it was enclosed or faced by stone walling, the outermost being of very fine quality. The barrow contained two opposed pairs of stone cists, each with a short passage from the long sides of the monument. The cists and passages contained the remains of some 21 people (of all ages and both sexes), probably deposited in a variety of forms from fleshed inhumations to incomplete secondary remains and cremations. The barrow was built in the 38th century cal BC and was probably one of the earliest such constructions in the region. It was probably in use for only three to five generations, lasting into the 37th century cal BC. Occupation features from the early fourth millennium cal BC included small pits, hearths and two small timber post structures, and there were finds of pottery, flint, axe fragments, stone querns and animal bone. People used cattle, sheep and pigs, and there is a range of wild species, especially in the midden. The authors of this report not only document the finds and research, but also address wider questions of how the early Neolithic inhabitants viewed their society through the barrow, and how the development of the site reflected memory and interaction with a changing world.
Reviews & Quotes
"remarkable both for its archaeology and its history.'"
Mike Pitts
British Archaeology (2007)

"shows how good quality fieldwork can recurrently fuel the needs of changing theoretical perspectives; it is a report whose content will no doubt be used time and again by future generations of scholars working in paradigms not yet defined.'"
Timothy Darvill
Antiquity (2007)

Free Download from
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/45836
and
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/45836/external_content.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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An intriguing question posed following recent accurate dating results by Andy B on Tuesday, 27 January 2015
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An intriguing question posed by archaeologists following recent accurate dating results: "Was the building of the Ascott-under-Wychwood chambered cairn witnessed by a young person who then in old age directed construction of Hazleton North"

The multiplication of AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) radiocarbon dates for human skeletal material from Neolithic chambered tombs has revolutionised our grasp of their chronology. In favourable circumstances it allows us to generate precise chronologies that reduce the broad spans of vaguely defined prehistoric time to the historical specificity of individual life spans and generations.

This has had a major impact on our understanding of Neolithic burial monuments. In the first place, precision-dating of monuments and the deposits and activities associated with them allows them to enter more fully into the discussion of memory in the societies in question.

That is borne out by recent AMS dating (backed by Bayesian statistics) of a series of Early Neolithic long mounds in southern Britain, which found that the monuments most similar in form were not necessarily the closest in time. Such a conclusion challenges the assumptions of standard typological approaches and enables new questions to be considered.

Did these monuments of the dead consciously evoke a timelessness of tradition, or deliberately copy older monument styles “to align themselves with earlier generations and their renown?" (Ref: Whittle, A. and A. Bayliss, 2007. The times of their lives: from chronological precision tokinds of history and change.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17:21-8.).

The newly precise dating also enables us to contemplate the implications of a tight and rapid sequence of events assignable to periods of a few generations. We can now ask, for example, whether the building of the Ascott-under-Wychwood chambered cairn was witnessed by a child or juvenile who then in old age was able to direct the construction of Hazleton North (Ref: Whittle, A., A. Barclay, A. Bayliss, L. McFadyen, R. Schulting and M. Wysocki, 2007.Building for the dead: events, processes and changing worldviews from the thirty-eighth to the thirty-fourth centuries cal. BC in southern Britain. Cambridge Archaeological Journal
17 (supplement): 132)

More in Rocks of ages : tempo and time in megalithic monuments., European journal of archaeology by Chris Scarre. (2010)
https://www.academia.edu/1753104/Rocks_of_Ages_Tempo_and_Time_in_Megalithic_Monuments


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Re: Ascott under Wychwood by coldrum on Sunday, 04 October 2009
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Pastscape site details:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=334700
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Re: Ascott under Wychwood by h_fenton on Sunday, 20 July 2008
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Ascott-Under-Wychwood Long Barrow was excavated 1965-9 in advance of works to straighten a road, which in the end never took place.

The barrow was 46metres long and up to 15metres wide, with an east-west alignment. The barrow was wedge shaped, the broader east end had two horns and a small forecourt, it was an earthen long Barrow with a stone revetment. The barrow contained two opposed pairs of stone cists (these are now in the Museums Resource Centre, Standlake, Oxfordshire). The bones contained in the cists were from about twenty-one individuals. The barrow was constructed about 3800BCE and in use until about 3650BCE.

Earliest evidence on the site in in the form of flints from the Mesolithic c.8000BCE with further finds from c.5000BCE. There was some neolithic occupation debris on the site including hearths, pits, and post holes which may represent structures. Additionally there were also midden deposits that dated from c.3900BCE, a short period (it is suggested possibly as little as fifty years) after the abandonment of this phase of the site the barrow was constructed and the stone cists were inserted into the midden deposits. During excavation neolithic and Roman quarries were found to the north of the barrow.

Two chamber stones removed in the late 19th century during ploughing were found at the time of excavation in the hedge bordering the road (B4437) to the south of the barrow.

This barrow was fully excavated, the stone cists were also removed and were on display in the Oxfordshire Museum (Woodstock) until the late 1990s when they were removed to the Museums Resource Centre at Standlake (formerly known as the Oxfordshire Museums Store).

There is nothing to see at this site today, it is just an overgrown field sometimes used for grazing cattle. Roughly south west about 300metres away and within sight is 'Coldwell Bridge Long Barrow 2' which is of similar size and alignment, but this barrow is in a field which has been heavily cultivated and is only visible as a slight elongated hump. Coldwell Bridge Long Barrow 2 is often confused with Ascott-Under-Wychwood Long barrow since the former is actually marked on the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey maps.

For further information see:

Benson, D. & Whittle, A. (eds) 2007. Building Memories: The Neolithic Cotswold Long Barrow at Ascott-Under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire
OXFORD: Oxbow Books

Witney Library and Wychwood (Milton-Under-Wychwood) Library both hold reference copies of this book.
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