Monument record 5390/0/2 - Neolithic human remains and Early Bronze Age Round Barrow (Barrow 6), West Cotton

A multi-phase round barrow, one of a complex of monuments investigated as part of the Raunds area project. It comprises three concentric ditches and a central mound, the latter extended with the addition of each surrounding ditch. The first ditch appears to have been centred on a tree-throw hole (or perhaps a tree). A grave within this central area cut the tree-throw hole, suggesting that the tree was no longer extant at the time this burial occurred. The grave contained a crouched adult male inhumation which has a calibrated radiocarbon date of 2035-1914 BC. Grave goods included a flint dagger, flint knife and flint flake, a chalk object, a V-perforated jet button and a Beaker. Beneath the grave was a small pit which contained the disarticulated remains of at least one male and another individual of uncertain sex. The latter produced a calibrated radiocarbon date of 3337-3099 BC. The first mound is presumed to have been constructed soon after the Beaker inhumation. When excavated, the primary mound survived to a height of 0.30 metres. Digging of the middle ditch was followed by extension of the mound over the inner ditch. Likewise, digging the outer ditch (diameter 31 metres) was followed by a further extension of the mound to cover the middle ditch. The outer ditch features two causeways on its eastern side where it intersected with the earthwork bank of enclosure SP 97 SE 86. A cremation in a collared urn, plus two further deposits of cremated bone, one beneath a small urn, were inserted into the secondary fill of the outer ditch on its eastern side. Charcoal associated with one of these cremations has been dated to 1734-1533 Cal BC.

{1} Late Neolithic/early Bronze Age activity. Beside the oblong enclosure was a multi-phased ditched round barrow with Beaker burial. Grave goods included a long-necked beaker, a jet button, a flint dagger, a small flint knife, a flint flake and a lump of chalk with possible incised lines. The crouched burial overlay a further burial. The burials were covered by a turf mound still standing 0.3m high beneath the alluvium. Two cremations were also found within the outer periphery of the barrow.

{2} Multiphased ditched round barrow; inhumation with beaker, flint dagger, knife and flake, and a jet button, Bronze Age in date. Two Phase III cremations with urns were also found within the mound, Neolithic in date.

{5} Barrow 6 was built some 15m from the north-east end of the Long Mound and, like that monument, was much damaged by later activity. Several features were cut into the area later covered by the mound, some of them pre-dating it by as much as 2,000 years; a small stone setting was built and Mesolithic and Neolithic artefacts were present. One pit is likely to have open when the barrow was built. The incomplete, disarticulated remains of two individuals who had died in the late 4th millennium were stacked in a small pit beneath the base of a much larger inhumation containing the articulated inhumation of a man who had died about a thousand years later, at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millenia. The Neolithic remains may have lain in a marked and remembered pit or were brought from elsewhere to form part of the new burial. The common orientation of the pit and grave suggest the latter. The first ditch was subcircular in plan around most of the circuit and the mound was constructed of turf and/ore turf and topsoil. When the first ditch was almost completely silted, a larger, deeper ditch was dug close to its outer edge; probably at the same time sandy loam (likely to have been topsoil from the excavation of the ditch) was applied to the mound, followed by gravel from lower down in the ditch. A third ditch was subsequently excavated, eccentric to the existing mound and including two breaks, almost certainly prompted by a desire to incorporate the ditched enclosure to south-east. The mound was again enlarged. The outer ditch silted naturally. Three satellite cremations were inserted in the area of the intersection of the outer ditch and ditched enclosure. One contained the cremated remains of a young woman with a stylistically late Collared Urn and a fired clay stud. Another cremation contained the remains of a miniature Collared Urn, which had been burnt and seems to have already been broken when it was buried. A range of radiocarbon dates were obtained.

<1> Windell D., 1988, West Cotton Excavations, (unchecked) (Interim Note). SNN39521.

<2> 1993, SMR REPORT FORM, (unchecked) (Note). SNN48777.

<3> Windell D., West Cotton, Raunds: The Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age Ritual Focus, (unchecked) (Report). SNN55619.

<4> Windell D.; Chapman A.; Woodiwiss J., 1990, From Barrows to Bypass: Excavations at West Cotton, Raunds, Northamptonshire, 1985-1989, (unchecked) (Report). SNN62621.

<5> Harding, J. and Healy, F., 2008, The Raunds Area Project: A Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscape in Northamptonshire, p. 130-136 (Report). SNN106245.

<6> Windell D.; Chapman A.; Woodiwiss J., 1990, From Barrows to Bypass: Excavations at West Cotton, Raunds, Northamptonshire, 1985-1989 (Report). SNN62621.

<7> Gibson, A. (Ed.), 1989, Midlands Prehistory: Some Recent and Current Researches Into the Prehistory of Central England, p. 85-94 (Series). SNN106973.

Record last edited

Aug 5 2024 3:50PM