Bournemouth University

School of Conservation Sciences

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Joint Day School

Unquiet Lands: People and Landscapes in Prehistoric North West Europe

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Barrow cemeteries of the Allen Valley, East Dorset: ongoing research and early results at the High Lea Farm Group, Hinton Martell
John Gale

The barrow cemeteries of the Dorset chalklands are probably best known through the well known sites of Oakley Down on Cranborne Chase or Winterbourne Poor Lot on the South Dorset Ridgeway. These examples are of course by their very nature relatively well preserved having been spared the most virulent attacks of agricultural erosion in the past - not always the recent past! On the whole the barrow cemeteries of west Dorset have tended to have faired better in the preservation stakes than their counterparts in the east of the county, with sites such as Oakley Down being the exception rather than the rule.
Grinsell’s supplement to his catalogue of Dorset Barrows published in 1981 identified increasing numbers of barrows across the county that had been observed under the ever present ‘ring ditch’ phenomena recorded on aerial photographs, testament to a rapidly disappearing and un-quantified funereal landscape, particularly but not exclusively found in the intensively ploughed fields upon Cranborne Chase in east Dorset.
This project has since the summer of 2002 been engaged on the evaluation of a single valley system (the Allen Valley) within the Chase and most particularly the High Lea Farm Barrow Group, involving a variety of survey techniques followed up by selective excavation. The Allen Valley contains large numbers of ‘destroyed’ barrows/ring ditches in a number of clusters and more recent aerial photography has further highlighted this disappearing archaeological resource. The Allen Valley on Cranborne Chase is perhaps better known for the location of the late Neolithic Henge complex of Knowlton Circles, which clearly formed the focus for a developing funereal landscape that extended along the river valley towards further the River Stour near Badbury Rings during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.
Early results would seem to suggest that the articulation of barrows within the landscape was not only achieved with due deliberation but may have been a polyfocal exercise that may provide insights into Bronze Age peoples interaction and relationship with their contemporary landscape.