Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow

English Heritage summaries. 2002/2003

EH Project Number:	3216ANL
Funded Unit:	Cardiff University

Site description

The monument at Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire (NGR SP 299176), was a Cotswold-Severn long barrow. The site was excavated between 1965 and 1969 by Don Benson and funded by the then Ministry of Public Building and Works.

The long axis of the barrow was oriented east-west. The site was understood to comprise a primary long barrow that had been extended at a slightly later date (see Figure 1). Both the primary and secondary phases of the architecture had been trapezoidal in shape, with the higher and broader end towards the east. The primary construction was about 31.33m in length and 11.73m in width. The secondary phase of building had extended the construction to about 45.87m in length and 14.67m in width, and there was evidence for a forecourt constructed at its eastern end with northern and southern horns. Four Neolithic quarry pits were excavated to the north-west of the monument.

The barrow itself was understood to be composed of bay divisions. These bays had been divided north from south along the long axis of the barrow by an axial divide. The bays were then further divided east from west by off-set partitions, thus roughly at right angles to the axial divide. The axial divide, bays and off-sets had then been enclosed by inner and outer walls which had been constructed from courses of limestone plaques. There were two sets of two lateral chambers constructed from limestone orthostats within the matrix of the barrow (chambers 2 and 3 on the south side and chambers 5 and 6 on the north side). For some time, both sets of stone chambers were connected by lines of stakes and wooden panels that created a transverse corridor through the site. Northern and southern passage areas (recorded during excavation as 'chambers' 7 and 1 respectively) were constructed when the transverse corridor was blocked, and the northern passage was then further extended, to make a northern outermost passage, during the construction of the outer walls. Both sets of chambered areas revealed extensive deposits of human bone.

Two timber structures were located under the stonework to the east of the chambers. There was an oblique zone of midden material across this area of the site. The timber structures and the midden were Neolithic. There were pits, hearths and a tree-throw within the buried soil that were evidence for earlier activity.

Research aims and objectives

The overall proposed aim is to produce a full, detailed monograph report on the excavations. The academic aims of the work are to understand better:

Pre-barrow occupations both Mesolithic and Neolithic.
The circumstances leading up to the construction of the barrow.
The building process.
The final appearance of the monument.
The date of the pre-barrow activity and its span of use, the date of the barrow and its span of use, the sequence of human bone deposition; these criteria are being reworked through an extensive C14 dating programme.
The nature of the human bone deposits.
The local and regional setting.
These aims should result in definitive statements addressing the following specific objectives:

The relationship of Mesolithic to Neolithic activity in the pre-barrow phase. It is probable that the two are separated in time, but analysis and dating may help to refine this understanding, and put the implied continuity of place into a temporal frame.
The nature of pre-barrow Neolithic activity. Was this all connected with construction, as suggested in a draft manuscript report on the pottery and flint by Humphrey Case (dating from the 1970s), or can the post structure(s) and finds concentrations be seen as some kind of residence and midden predating the barrow?
The process of building. Academic interpretations have tended to assume a single, orderly building programme, and to concentrate on the finished monument. Several features at Ascott may challenge this view: the succession of stakeholes and stone lines in the offset bays; the extension of the barrow; the detailed phasing of the flanking revetments; the possibility of the cists having been originally free-standing; and the irregular character of the quarries together with their infilling. This may produce a view of the barrow as 'a work in progress' over a considerable period of time.
The detailed question of the final appearance of the barrow or cairn. The upper surface of the Ascott barrow was much disturbed but there is superb drystone walling down much of the two long sides. It would appear that this has slumped outwards by natural processes.
The date of construction and the span of use of the barrow. Further dating would enable comparisons within the typological range of Cotswold and other barrows, complementing existing results from Hazleton North and recent results funded by EH at West Kennet, Wayland's Smithy and Fussell's Lodge long barrows, and also results from the occupations at Yarnton in the upper Thames. Was the barrow in relatively brief use, as Saville argued for Hazleton North, or, as the stratigraphy, composition and distribution of the deposits suggest, the focus of attention for considerably longer, over many generations?
The nature of the human bone deposits. The initial analysis by Chesterman suggested processes of excarnation and secondary deposition. The counter-view of Benson and Clegg (1978) was of greater diversity, with the possibility of direct deposition of fleshed corpses. A recent study of taphonomic processes as a part of a Cambridge PhD by Mary Baxter (2001) suggests a compromise, with spatial variation across the cist area. These remain key issues in Neolithic research (see Wysocki and Whittle 2000). Analysis by Dawn Galer is already suggesting significantly fewer individuals.
The local and regional context. While there is clearly much more that could be done in the upper Evenlode valley and its surrounds in terms of survey and excavation, the proposed publication provides the opportunity to model the setting and character of local activity in relation to wider perspectives. Scattered long cairns are the principal monument of these parts; there is no other 'monument complex' of the kind to be found in parts of the upper Thames, as at Stanton Harcourt, or further afield in the upper Kennet, middle Nene or Great Ouse. It may be that there were fewer and smaller occupations than that represented in the upper Thames by the discoveries at Yarnton. The history here could be seen as a much more local one, and the probable succession of human bone deposits may mark the playing out of concerns for essentially local matters of genealogy and descent across generations.
The manuscript should be completed by the end of 2004 and will be published by Oxbow Books, Oxford.

Project team

Project Manager: Alasdair Whittle (Cardiff University) with the help of the excavator Don Benson.

Archaeological Research Assistant: Lesley McFadyen (Cardiff University).

Human Bone Research Assistant: Dawn Galer (Natural History Museum).

C14 Dating: Alex Bayliss (English Heritage), Hans van der Plicht (Groningen University) and Robert Hedges (Oxford University).

Illustrator: Ian Dennis (Cardiff University).

Molluscan Analysis, Soils and Environmental Synthesis: John Evans.

Thin Section on Soils: Richard Macphail (University College London).

Charcoal: Susan Limbrey (University of Birmingham).

Animal Bone: Jacqui Mulville (Cardiff University).

Isotope Analysis of Animal Bone: Robert Hedges (Oxford University).

Worked Flint: Kate Cramp (Oxford Archaeology).

Pottery: Alistair Barclay (Oxford Archaeology).

Organic Residue Analysis: Mark Copley and Richard Evershed (University of Bristol).

Worked Stone: Fiona Roe with help from Chris Doherty (Oxford Archaeology).

Roman Coins: Peter Guest (Cardiff University).

Post-Neolithic Metalwork: William Manning.

Bibliography

Benson, D. and Clegg, I. 1978. Cotswold burial rites? Man 13, 134-7.

Baxter, M. 2001. Human remains from the British Neolithic: a taphonomic perspective. Unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge University.

Chesterman, J.T. 1977. Burial rites in a Cotswold long barrow. Man 12, 22-32.

Saville, A. 1990. Hazleton North: the excavation of a Neolithic long cairn of the Cotswold-Severn group. London: English Heritage.

Wysocki, M. and Whittle, A. 2000. Diversity, lifestyles and rites: new biological and archaeological evidence from British Earlier Neolithic mortuary assemblages. Antiquity 74, 591-601.

This page was published 07/01/04