<< Text Pages >> Gayhurst Barrow cemetery - Barrow Cemetery in England in Northamptonshire
Submitted by Andy B on Wednesday, 16 December 2009 Page Views: 5893
Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Gayhurst Barrow cemeteryCountry: England County: Northamptonshire Type: Barrow Cemetery
Map Ref: SP855448
Latitude: 52.094947N Longitude: 0.753346W
Condition:
| 5 | Perfect |
| 4 | Almost Perfect |
| 3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
| 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
| 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
| 0 | No data. |
| -1 | Completely destroyed |
| 5 | Superb |
| 4 | Good |
| 3 | Ordinary |
| 2 | Not Good |
| 1 | Awful |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
| 4 | Short walk on a footpath |
| 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
| 2 | A long walk |
| 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
| 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
| 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
| 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
| 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
| 0 | no data |
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However, the largest, a double-ditched barrow 34m in diameter, which lay at the centre of the cemetery, still survived as a low earthwork and was well-preserved, although recent decades of ploughing had just removed the mound so that the central area was suffering regular plough damage. Also, a side branch of the river was cutting into the barrow, posing a longer-term threat. The planning archaeologist for Milton Keynes, Brian Giggins, decided that gravel extraction at the site could not be stopped, given the poor preservation of six of the barrows, and called for the excavation of all seven barrows in advance of gravel extraction.
Between 1998 and 2000, Northamptonshire Archaeology, working for GFX Hartigan Ltd, excavated the entire area. The six smaller ring ditches produced meagre results, with cremation burials surviving in only two. In contrast, at the centre of the largest barrow there was a massive grave pit, 3.5m long and 1.45m deep, with a sequence of five successive burials. An extended inhumation of an adult man within an oak-lined chamber, accompanied by only a foreleg of a small pig, was followed by a cremation, a crouched inhumation burial of an older man, also within a small chamber and accompanied by two flint knives and a red-deer antler, a second cremation and, finally, a cremation within a collared urn that had been damaged by ploughing. Radiocarbon dating places the burials between c 2100 and c 1900 cal BC, while the six satellite barrows date to 1800 to 1500 cal BC.
However, what made this barrow not only remarkable, but unique in Britain, was a deposit of cattle bones, perhaps containing the remains of some 300 animals, that had been deposited as part of an elaborate funerary practice at the time of the first burial.
Source, with images at MK Heritage. See also Northamptonshire Archaeology.
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