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Three hilltop locations were the subject of exploratoryinvestigations in July 2011 by an international teamdrawn from Manchester University, Kyushu University(led by Associate Professor Koji Mizoguchi), theUniversity of Leipzig, Herefordshire countyarchaeological service and local volunteers. The aim ofthe field season was to confirm evidence for earlyNeolithic activity, and the possible construction ofenclosures, at these prominent hilltops which stand inclose proximity both to each other and to theCotswold-Severn chambered tomb at Arthur’s Stone,Dorstone, and the putative long barrow at CrossLodge, Dorstone.

At the Knapp, Bredwardine, following up casualdiscoveries of worked flint in the 1970s, a series oftrenches were excavated on the top and flanks of asteep-sided knoll overlooking the Wye floodplain eastof Hay-on-Wye. They produced an assemblage thatincluded many more worked flints including a numberof leaf-shaped arrowheads of strongly contrastingforms (with some evidence of production of some ofthese on-site), and sherds of plain bowl pottery from apit. No definite traces of an enclosure ringing the knollwere found: an apparent ditched feature encircling theknoll noted on a recent aerial photograph either wasnot intercepted at the right point, or was a hydrologicalfeature. One trench indicated that at least part of thetop of the hill had been deliberately cut back inantiquity, perhaps purposefully to mark the activitiesattested there.

At Dorstone Hill, a broad bank cutting off the hilltopfrom the rest of the ridge of equivalent elevation wasfirst investigated in the 1960s, but this small-scale workremains unpublished. Subsequently, much of the sitehas been damaged by arable cultivation. A 30m longtrench in 2011 extended northwards across theputative course of an associated ditch. Quarries were

NUMBER 70 April 2012

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY Registered Office University College London, Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY

http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/

The copy date for PAST 71 is 1 June 2012. Contributions to Joanna Brück, School of Archaeology, Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Email: joanna.bruck@ucd.ie Contributions on disc or as e-mail attachments are preferred (either word 6 or rtf files) but hardcopy is also accepted. Illustrations can besent as drawings, slides, prints, tif or jpeg files. The book reviews editor is Jacky Nowakowski, 4 Melrose Terrace,Campfield Hill, Truro, Cornwall TR1 1EZ. Email: jnowakowski@cornwall.gov.uk Queries over subscriptions and

membership should go to the Society administrator Tessa Machling at the London address above.

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Dorstone Hill, looking south. In the foreground the quarried areaproduced only worked flints and Neolithic pottery. The bankbeyond the quarry faces west, cutting off the neck of a broadpromontory facing the Black Mountains and overlooking the Dore Valley to the south. The site is just over two kilometres to the south of the Knapp, and partially intervisible with it.

found cut into a sandstone outcrop. They are ofuncertain date but were sealed by deposits containingonly plain bowl sherds and worked flints including atleast one broad blade fragment. The bank was notproven to be of fourth millennium date, but again onlyNeolithic finds were made, including one fine bladescraper. The form of the bank, although heavilytruncated by localised bulldozing and deep ploughingin the 1970s, is nonetheless interesting because thereappears to have been a frontal stone-clad glacis slope, backed by a timber-laced stone and earth bankthat had been heavily fired. Some resemblancestherefore exist to early Neolithic fortifications at Crickley Hill, but perhaps without the ditch foundthere. A pit containing plain bowl sherds was foundjust behind the rear of the rampart.

At Windy Ridge between Dorstone and Peterchurchand overlooking the Golden Valley, a ditch had beenlocated by aerial photography, overlooking andtraversing a prominent hill spur. The upper levels ofthe ditch were found to have been removed by earlynineteenth century quarrying (indicated by clay pipefragments), the debris of which filled most of a hollowbeside the rock outcrop. However, the basal silts of thesurviving lower portion of the ditch produced a singleleaf-shaped arrowhead from a very small slot cut acrossit. While this could have been residual, it isprovisionally regarded as a likely indicator ofconstruction during the fourth millennium BC.

Keith Ray (Herefordshire Archaeology) and JulianThomas (Manchester University)

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Northamptonshire Archaeology has been engagedsince 2006 in an ongoing programme of watching brief

during extraction works at Norton Subcourse Quarry,near Lowestoft, Norfolk. The works are funded byCemex UK Materials Ltd and overseen by theGuildhouse Consultancy. The quarry is located to thenorth of the village of Norton Subcourse, some 12miles southeast of Norwich, on gravel terracesoverlooking the lowlands of the Broads to thenortheast.

During the 2009 and 2010 seasons, two parallelditches, dated to the Middle Bronze Age by a largesherd of Deverel-Rimbury ware and aligned northwestto southeast, were found. The southern ditch cut apair of tightly crouched inhumations placed within ashallow grave, one directly above the other, and bothburied face down. It appears likely that the position ofthe burials influenced the route of the later droveway,which may have been deliberately aligned on theburial site.

The burialsThe two burials were both tightly flexed, perhapsindicating that they had been bound. The lowerskeleton was largely complete, although the right armand clavicle and both hands were absent. Thisindividual was possibly female, probably between 25-40 years old. The upper skeleton was heavily truncated,mostly from later ploughing, with only fragments ofthe right arm, the legs, parts of the pelvis and feetsurviving. This individual was probably male and over20 years old. Radiocarbon dating indicates that bothpeople could have been buried within a few years ofeach other during the Middle Bronze Age: the lowerskeleton produced a date of 3060±40 BP (1430-1210cal BC at 2 sigma; Beta-299801) while the upperskeleton was dated to 3030±40 BP (1410-1130 cal BCat 2 sigma; Beta-299800).

From what little evidence remains, it was possible to seethat the two burials had skeletal pathologies (particularly

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The burials in situ. The later ditch cut is to the left of the pictureand stud SF1 can be seen to the left of the skull.

Dorstone Hill, looking east. The bank across the neck of thepromontory was faced with a carefully placed deposit of stone

covered by large quarried slabs. Behind this, the bank comprisedclay and stones set around upright posts. Both posts and clay

had been subject to intense localised burning.

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dental pathology) which have been commonly identifiedin the Bronze Age. Metric indices were also consistentwith what would be expected for the Bronze Age. Nounusual pathological, metric or non-metric traits wereobserved. Similar flexed burials can be found at OctonWold, Humberside, and at Liberty Heath, RAFLakenheath, Suffolk. The latter, akin to the NortonSubcourse skeletons, provided evidence for thedisturbance of older burials by later interments.

The jet studsAdjacent to the skull of the lower individual were two jetstuds: one (SF 1) was found beside the lower part of theskull, roughly corresponding to the position of an ear,while the other (SF 2) was found underneath the skull.Although not identical, the two clearly formed a pair andare likely to have been worn through the earlobes.

Both studs were waisted and had conical ends. Thelarger and more gently domed stud (SF1) is black andblack-brown. It weighs 1.27g and measures 16.3mmlong by 9-13.1mm wide. A large flake scar is probablythe result of damage during manufacture, and there aremarks left by the process of cutting the central hollowand grinding it smooth. The smaller stud, with steeperconical ends (SF2), is black-brown. It weighs 0.59g andis 13.6mm long by 5.2-9.6mm wide. The absence oftool marks on SF2 may indicate wear. Both studs havea fine woody texture and are warm to the touch;analysis has confirmed that they are of jet, almostcertainly from Whitby in Yorkshire, some 260 km tothe north (but fairly easily reachable by sea). The factthat SF2 is in poorer condition than SF1 may indicatethat soft jet had been used for SF2 and hard jet for SF1;both are readily available around Whitby.

Studs are a type of personal ornament normally foundin Early Bronze Age contexts. Forty three examples ofjet, clay and other materials are known from 27findspots in England, Wales and Ireland, and thedistribution shows a marked bias towards East Anglia(and adjacent counties) and Yorkshire. A few areknown from in and around the Peak District, NorthWales and Wessex, and one pair has been found inIreland (Mary Cahill pers. comm.); however, nodefinite examples are known north of Yorkshire. Inshape they generally range from having flattish discs tohaving one or two conical ends, with varying steepnessof the cones. All are united by having a waisted profile.The examples from East Anglia and adjacent countiesare all conical.

These studs most commonly occur in funerarycontexts, although they are not unknown insettlements. The funerary finds have been found withboth inhumed and cremated human remains, with thelatter being associated with Collared Urns in six casesin Wales and the Midlands. Of the examples associatedwith unburnt bodies, the arrangement of the bodies hasranged from extended to slightly flexed, to tightlyflexed and possibly bound, as in the present case. Aclose parallel to the Norton Subcourse skeletalarrangement is that of an adult male, found with a pairof biconical studs of Kimmeridge shale (and a dog) in apit at Langtoft, Lincolnshire. Unusually, this Langtoftexample came from a male burial: in most cases wherethe sex of the deceased has been reliably identified, ithas been female - as the Norton Subcourse individual issuspected to be. Most studs are likely to belong to thefirst quarter of the second millennium BC, as in the caseof the pair of fired clay examples from Brenig 44,Clwyd. The finds from Norton Subcourse stand out asbeing significantly later than this, even though they arenot noticeably different from a pair of biconical jetstuds dated to the first quarter of the millennium atBarleycroft, Cambridgeshire (Chris Evans pers.comm.). The Norton Subcourse studs could have beenancient, heirloom objects when buried, but theobserved degree of wear is not very heavy, as one mightexpect had they been passed down the generations. Itmay be that the tradition of manufacturing studsendured for half a millennium.

Studs probably formed part of a ‘vocabulary ofprestige’ in Bronze Age societies, particularly given theuse of jet and Kimmeridge shale - both relatively scarceand precious materials. This is certainly suggested bythe high-status, ‘Wessex 1’ grave assemblage thataccompanied the fired clay example and the body of an‘aged’ woman in a barrow at Manton, Wiltshire: thegrave goods here included a miniature halberd pendantand a gold-bound amber disc pendant. The NortonSubcourse studs are a particularly interestingdemonstration of the longevity of the tradition of usingthis type of personal ornament.

The jet studs (illustration by Marion O’Neil).

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AcknowledgementsThe fieldwork was supervised for NorthamptonshireArchaeology by Mark Patenall assisted by Sam Egan,Ian Fisher, Robin Foard and Dan Riley. The workswere funded by Cemex UK Materials Ltd and overseenby Adrian Havercroft of the Guildhouse Consultancy.

Adam Yates (Northamptonshire Archaeology), AndyChapman (Northamptonshire Archaeology), SarahInskipp (Southampton University) and Alison Sheridan(National Museums Scotland); stud illustrations byMarion O’Neil

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Jersey Heritage and the Société Jersiaise are delightedto report that they have secured the return to Jerseyof a rare Neolithic jadeite ring. It was thought to havebeen lost to the island, after it was sold to a privatecollector at a Bonham’s auction in London in 1993.Thanks to a generous donation from a member of theSociété Jersiaise, the ring was bought at Christie’santiquities sale, New York, on 7th December 2011.The ring was discovered in 1986 and brought to theSociété Jersiaise for identification. It was one of twocomplete rings, along with two fragments, that hadbeen found by two local residents, on separateoccasions, in topsoil derived from the same source inthe parish of St Ouen. They were the first stone ringsever found in Jersey.

The ring, which measures 16.2cm in diameter, is thelargest and finest example found in the ChannelIslands. It features in Mark Patton’s 1990 publicationon ‘Neolithic stone rings from the Channel islands’(Annual Bulletin of the Société Jersiaise 25:2). One of

the fragments had been examined in petrological thinsection and was found to be of jadeite. In the 1990s,the Société Jersiaise acquired the other complete ring,which is on display at the Jersey Museum. This piecewas analysed by Projet JADE in 2008 and found tobe of Alpine serpentinite.

This hoard of stone rings is a highly significant findfor Jersey and the Channel Islands. Polished stonerings are extremely rare and they are normally foundas fragments, making this hoard quite exceptional.They demonstrate the wide distribution of suchprestigious artefacts made from stone quarried inhigh and remote Alpine sources. Stone rings wereimportant objects in the Western European Neolithicperiod and were circulated within an extensivenetwork, linking distant early farming communitiesin the fifth millennium BC. This is a dramaticdemonstration of the integral role of the ChannelIslands in the spread of farming, providing some ofthe earliest evidence for offshore colonisation of theAtlantic fringe.

We have made contact with both the finders, one ofwhom still owns the two fragments, and are aimingto establish a more accurate provenance for thehoard. It is also our desire to have the ring andfragments analysed non-destructively so the source oftheir stone can be determined. Jersey Heritage andthe Société Jersiaise wish to thank our manycolleagues for their support and encouragement insecuring the return of the stone ring, especially DrAlison Sheridan and the Prehistoric Society, GillianVarndell (British Museum), Dr Pierre Pétrequin (onbehalf of Projet JADE), Dr Serge Cassen and Dr IanKinnes. The stone ring will be on display at the JerseyMuseum during 2012 and then will be added to thepermanent archaeological displays at La Hougue BieMuseum in 2013.

Olga Finch, Curator of Archaeology, Jersey Heritage.olga.finch@jerseyheritage.orgwww.jerseyheritage.org

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Linear structures can be difficult to interpret, and fewcould have been more puzzling to the uninitiated thanthe alignment that was cut across Hounslow Heath in1784. It was the work of two well-known publicfigures: Major General William Roy, who had beenresponsible for mapping the Scottish Highlands, andthe great polymath Sir Joseph Banks. Funded by agrant of £2000 from King George III, their aim was toestablish an accurate baseline from which the position

Courtesy of the Société Jersiaise

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of the Greenwich Observatory could be fixed andplaced in its correct geographical relationship to theroyal observatory in Paris.

Helped by a team of soldiers, they cleared theundergrowth along a narrow strip that extended in astraight line for a little over five miles. Seven years later,in 1791, that line was surveyed again and provided thebasis for the triangulation of the whole of Britain bythe newly established Ordnance Survey. The twoprojects produced almost identical results. The latermeasurement differed from General Roy’s figure byonly four and a half inches out of a total length of over27,000 feet. It confirmed the accuracy of the originalsurvey which had been conducted under the auspicesof the Royal Society.

Unknown to Roy and Banks, and indeed to anyone atthe time, this was not the first such line extendingacross that landscape. Today, almost every section ofRoy’s original baseline has been lost beneath moderndevelopment, but its northwest end is occupied byHeathrow Airport. It was here that excavation by

Framework Archaeology identified the remains of anoddly similar feature: the extraordinary Neolithicmonument known as the Stanwell Cursus. It consistedof a narrow bank between two parallel ditches. Likethe Royal Society’s baseline, it followed an exactlystraight course, but in this case it extendedcontinuously for a little less than four kilometres - halfthe length of the strip cut through the vegetation fivethousand years later.

On one level, these features could not be less alike. Theeighteenth century baseline was laid out with scientificprecision and for entirely practical purposes. Its aimswere to fix the positions of two astronomicalobservatories in relation to one another and tofacilitate the accurate mapping of Britain. Its limitswere marked by a pair of iron cannons which were setupright in the ground like standing stones. Theprehistoric monument, on the other hand, wasconstructed in the late fourth millennium BC, andcomparison with better preserved structures elsewheresuggests that it was associated with the dead.

General Roy’s baseline, the principal Heathrow cursus and the location of the airport (drawing: Sarah Lucas)

In a way, the eighteenth century project influenced thefindings of the excavation. A U-shaped enclosure wasconstructed close to the cursus and may even havebeen orientated on the position of a group of posts thatwas there before the bank was built. To the northeast,it seems to have been directed towards the position ofthe midsummer sunrise; and to the southwest, in thedirection of the Stanwell Cursus, the open end of theenclosure was directed towards the midwinter solstice.The sunset would have been visible behind theearthwork bank. The annual movements of the sunhave hardly changed since those structures were built,and it is possible to establish its course across the skyalthough no trace of the monument survives on thesurface. This finding recalls the work carried out in1784, for its purpose was to establish the positions oftwo observatories used to study the heavenly bodies.At the same time, mapping of the excavated features atHeathrow employed a Global Positioning System. Thiswas an important innovation, but it was also the latestmanifestation of the tradition of exact measurementthat had been pioneered by the work of General Roy.

The chain of coincidence does not end there. Sir JosephBanks was a famous botanist and an explorer who hadtravelled with Captain Cook on the voyage of theEndeavour. He was president of the Royal Society, butwas also a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.General Roy was another practical man who could notbe confined to a single specialism. He is famous forsurveying the Scottish Highlands and is commonlycredited with the idea of a national mappingorganisation which eventually became the OrdnanceSurvey. What is less well known is that he was apioneer of field archaeology, whose book MilitaryAntiquities of the Romans in North Britain is stillimportant today. Roy attempted to reconstruct thecampaigns of the Roman army in Scotland, and hiswork was based on accurate surveys of the survivingearthworks of forts and marching camps.

The Stanwell Cursus was only one of five suchmonuments at Heathrow, although it was the latestand certainly the largest of them. It crosses the westside of the modern airport and extends beneath two ofthe main runways. The Royal Society’s baseline alsocrosses a runway. An archaeologist in the distant futuremight be puzzled that so many alignments should haveoccupied the same area of ground. Yet each one wascreated for a different reason.

Finally, there is a footnote to this comparison betweenthe two projects. When the results of the excavationsat Heathrow Airport were published, where did thebook launch take place? Where else but the RoyalSociety on Carlton House Terrace in London? It wasan interesting choice of venue, for it is where bothhalves of this story come together.

Richard Bradley

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On a wet Wednesday in October, the PrehistoricSociety gathered in the splendid surroundings ofBurlington House to hear a fascinating talk by DrKate Waddington of Bangor University, entitled‘Creative destruction: middens at the end of theBronze Age’. The lecture began with a discussion ofthe definition and formation processes of Late BronzeAge/Early Iron Age middens. These are large moundsof dark earth mostly composed of animal dung andthey are rich in pottery, butchered bones and otherartefacts. They are thought to be the remains ofseasonal gatherings of communities and provided astage for the creation, destruction and exchange ofobjects. Although most of these sites are in southernBritain, the discussion of Whitchurch inWarwickshire, excavated as part of Kate’s doctoralwork, provided an important insight into this periodin the Midlands.

The focus of the lecture was on the process of howcommunities dealt with the changes in societybetween the eighth and sixth centuries BC. It wasargued that the creation, destruction and exchangeof objects at midden sites provided a mechanism bywhich communities and individuals could expressnew ideologies and identities at a time when bronzewas being undermined as the material whichstructured social relationships. In this way, thedestruction of objects was creative for thoseinvolved: new ideological systems could be forgedwhere old ones could no longer prevail. In particular,the often neglected miniature axes found atWhitchurch and Potterne were argued to play animportant part in the material and conceptualtransition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

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The 2011 Sara Champion Memorial lecturer, Dr Kate Waddington(far R), with Professor Tim Champion and the President,

Dr Alison Sheridan.

Kate’s interpretation of the modified human skullsfound at Potterne was also of particular interest. Sheargued that the physical transformation of the bonesdestroyed previous identities and were a way inwhich people could forget the dead. We were alsolucky enough to get a quick preview of ongoingresearch on the dating of East Chisenbury, carriedout with Niall Sharples, Alex Bayliss and RichardMadgwick. This is suggesting that this site (andothers) could have been in use c.150 years later thanis currently understood. Overall, the lecture wasthought provoking and challenging; Kate’sinterpretations on this little understood butimportant period in British prehistory will no doubtbe influential.

Alex Davies, MA student, Cardiff University

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The AGM will be held on Saturday 9th June at4.00pm at Reading University.

Agenda1. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held at

Durham University on 14th May 2011 (papersavailable from the website or from the HonorarySecretary)

2. President’s report3. Secretary’s report4. Editor’s report and R.M. Baguley Award5. Treasurer’s report6. Report on meetings, study tours and research days7. Future composition of Council8. Awards

John and Bryony Coles AwardResearch Grants (Bob Smith Award and LeslieGrinsell Award)Conference Fund

9. Election of Officers and Members of CouncilThe meeting will be followed at 4.30 p.m. by the 21stEuropa Lecture. The lecture will be followed by awine reception.

Registered Office: University College London,Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square,London WC1H 0PY.

Notes:1. A member entitled to vote at the meeting may

appoint a proxy to attend and, on a poll, vote inhis or her stead. A proxy must be a member, otherthan an institutional member.

2. To be valid, an instrument of proxy (together withany authority under which it is signed or a copy ofthe authority certified notarily or in some otherway approved by Council) must be deposited with

the Secretary, The Prehistoric Society, c/oArchaeology, University of Southampton,Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, by 4.30 p.m.on the 31st May 2012.

3. Forms of proxy may be obtained from theSecretary at the above address.

PPRREEHHIISSTTOORRIICC SSOOCCIIEETTYYAACCTTIIVVIITTIIEESS 22001111This report covers the period January to December2011.

Meetings and study tours The Society continues to fulfill its commitment toreach wide regional audiences and promote its aimsand objectives through the delivery of an extensiveand varied series of lectures, conferences and toursacross Britain. As in previous years, many of theseevents represent collaborations with otherarchaeological bodies.

Three lectures delivered during January werecollaborative events with regional archaeologicalsocieties, all of which were well attended. Chris Evansspoke to members of the Cambridge AntiquarianSociety on ‘Environmental change, monumentalityand prehistoric land-use at Needingworth Quarry’,while in Exeter, the joint lecture with the DevonArchaeological Society was given by HenriettaQuinnell on ‘Later Iron Age ceramics and settlementin south west Britain’. Al Oswald’s lecture to theNorfolk & Norwich Archaeological Society,postponed from 2010 due to bad weather, was alsodelivered in January. The tenth Sara ChampionMemorial lecture in October, held in the Society ofAntiquaries, London, was given Dr Kate Waddingtonof Bangor University on the topic ‘Creativedestruction: middens at the end of the Bronze Age’.

Conferences held during 2011 included an event thatmarked the first formal collaboration with the SociétéPréhistorique Française. ‘Hands Across the Water’,held at Bournemouth University in May, saw a stellarline-up of speakers from both sides of la Manchediscuss cross-channel contact among early farmingcommunities. Among those presenting a range of verystimulating and sometimes provocative papers onNeolithic topics were Serge Cassen, Cyril Marcigny,Steve Shennan, Alasdair Whittle, Frances Healy, ChrisScarre and Tim Darvill. The event, which was co-supported by the Neolithic Studies Group andBournemouth University, also provided the venue forthe launch of the Stone Axe Studies III volume.

The Iron Age provided the topic for another of thepopular Thames Valley day conferences held in theSociety of Antiquaries during February. The jointPrehistoric Society/Dillington House Study Weekend

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was held in April, when Mike Parker Pearson, JulianThomas, Julian Richards and other suitably eclecticspeakers delivered a lively programme of talks on thetheme ‘Stonehenge – then and now’, the lectures beingfollowed on the second day by a tour of theStonehenge landscape. The Society provided supportto a lively meeting of the Bronze Age Forum held inCardiff during November, and to student-ledconferences in Belfast and Southampton.

The sixth Student Study Tour visited the Cotswoldsand Thames Valley over a sunny weekend in April.This was led in fine fashion by Alex Lang, TimDarvill, George Lambrick and Gill Hey. It includedvisits to iconic archaeological sites such as theRollright Stones, Crickley Hill, Stanton Harcourt andWittenham Clumps/Dorchester among others.

Europa PrizeDr Natalia Shishlina (Moscow) was the 2011recipient of the Europa Prize, which was presented inDurham. For the fourth year, the Europa Lecture waspreceded by a well-attended day-conference, on thisoccasion based around the theme ‘EurasianInteractions, 4000-1500 BC’. Speakers includedVolker Heyd, Kristian Kristiansen, Tony Wilkinson,Cyprian Broodbank, William O’Brien and Tim Taylor,who addressed topics on links between Europe andwestern Asia from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. DrShishlina’s Europa lecture, ‘The mysterious BronzeAge steppe nomads’, formed the end-piece of the dayimmediately after the Society’s AGM (see below).

Research grantsResearch Grants were awarded to E. Baysal(University of Liverpool) for work at BoncukluHöyük, Turkey; C. Frieman (University ofNottingham) for research on flint daggers; O. Harris(University of Leicester) for the ArdnamurchanTransitions Project; E. Schech (Durham University) forresearch on Iron Age glass beads; K. Waddington(Bangor University) for fieldwork on the Meillionyddenclosure (Leslie Grinsell Prize); P. Woodman(University College Cork) for work on Killurgh Caves;and R. Wragg-Sykes (University of Manchester) forfieldwork at La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey (Bob SmithPrize). The John and Bryony Coles Awards went to R.Enlander (Queen’s University, Belfast) to study rock artin Scotland; D. Lord to undertake a research trip toMalta and Gozo; and H. Stokes (University of York) toundertake sample collection and museum visits. Noaward was made from the Conference Fund.

Annual General Meeting for 2010The AGM was held at 4pm on 14th May 2011 in theArthur Holmes Lecture Theatre, Science Site, DurhamUniversity, after the Europa day-conference andimmediately before the Europa Lecture. The Presidentreflected on the success of events to mark the 75th

anniversary of the founding of the Society, and newinitiatives such as the revamped website and formaltwinning of the Society with the Société PréhistoriqueFrançaise. She also thanked all Officers and membersof Council for their work over the year, and especiallyA. Ainsworth who has now stepped down as HonTreasurer, the retiring Vice-Presidents, J. Chapmanand P. Topping, and the retiring members of Council,A. Lang, V. Edwards and N. Milner. The Presidentthanked all contributors and the organisers of theEuropa Day for their work in bringing the event tofruition, especially J. Chapman.

The following Officers and members of Council wereelected:

President Alison SheridanVice-President Stuart NeedhamHon Secretary Joshua PollardHon Treasurer Clare RandallHon Editor Julie GardinerEditor PAST Joanna BrückConservation Coordinator Adrian ChadwickMeetings Secretary Jonathan LastCouncil Tom Moore,

Beccy Scott and Marie-Louise Sørensen

The Baguley AwardThe Baguley Award was presented to Stephen Carter,Fraser Hunter and Andrea Smith for their article on‘A 5th-century BC Iron Age chariot burial fromNewbridge, Edinburgh’, published in volume 76 ofthe Proceedings.

Student AwardA newly initiated undergraduate dissertation awardhas proved very successful. There were 12 entries intotal. This year’s winner was Nicola Bray of ReadingUniversity. The three runners-up were Emily Wright(UCL), Alex Davies (Cardiff University) and MarkLawson (Newcastle University).

PublicationsDuring 2011, the Society published Volume 77 of theProceedings of the Prehistoric Society, whichcontained 12 refereed papers and one shortercontribution on various aspects of British andEuropean prehistory. There was a particular emphasison Bronze Age and Iron Age topics. Three editions ofPAST, the Society’s newsletter, were also publishedduring the year. Progress was made on the productionof further volumes in the Society’s Research Papersseries, including that on the British Chalcolithicresulting from the successful conference held in 2008,and another volume on Irish Neolithic houses.Negotiations to find a new publisher for theProceedings were on-going, with Cambridge Journals

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(Cambridge University Press) now the preferredpartner.

Membership and administrationThere are signs that the steady if slow decline inmembership that has characterised the last few yearsmay now be at an end. The new website is attractingadditional members, including a healthy number ofstudents.

As ever, the Society could not function without thehelp of a large number of individuals who give freelyof their time to organise events and deliver the resultsof their research. The Society offers sincere thanks toall the individuals who help throughout the year.

SSTTAATTEEMMEENNTT OOFFFFIINNAANNCCIIAALL AACCTTIIVVIITTIIEESSFFOORR TTHHEE YYEEAARR EENNDDEEDD 3311 DDEECCEEMMBBEERR 22001111

2011 2010£ £

Incoming resourcesFrom generated fundsVoluntary income 47,679 41,681Investment income 9,014 9,188

56,693 50,869

From charitable activitiesPublication grants 5,463 10,243Copyright fees 1,897 2,497Publications 0 572Back numbers of Proceedings 2,675 4,054Conferences 4,375 8,155Study tours 825 810Other 1,400 -

16,635 26,331

Total incoming resources 73,328 77,200

Resources expendedCosts of generating 6,765 7,537voluntary income

Charitable activitiesGrants 5,438 3,183Lectures 275 435Proceedings 37,483 34,066PAST 9,416 9,685Research papers - -Back numbers of Proceedings 2,217 2,676Conferences 9,281 11,377Study tours 1,407 1,262

65,517 62,684

Governance costs 6,325 5,806

Total resources expended 79,300 76,027

Net incoming resources -5,972 1,173

Total funds at 1 January 159,094 156,541Net incoming resources -5,972 1,173Revaluation of investments 5,791 1,380Total funds at 31 December 158,913 159,094

The Statement of Financial Activities is an extractfrom the full accounts of the Society. Copies of thefull accounts for 2011 can be obtained from TessaMachling at the registered office.

Report of the TreasurerThe Society’s situation at the end of 2011 is largelyunchanged compared to the preceding year. There hasbeen a significant increase in voluntary income(subscriptions and donations), and largely staticinvestment figures. However, there was a reduction infunds obtained from other sources during 2011.There was an increase in the overall production costof the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. A largersum was paid out in grants than in 2010. Theincreases in costs and larger grants have thereforebalanced the increased income from subscriptions.

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The Prehistoric Society Research Papers series willsoon be launching two major new books in this hard-back peer-reviewed series.

Is there a British Chalcolithic? People, place andpolity in the later 3rd millennium£39.95 – pre-publication offer £29.95

This volume with 20 papers by over 30 leadingauthorities from Britain, Ireland and northern Europeis the first publication to address the concept of aBritish Chalcolithic. While continental colleagueshave long been happy to use the term ‘Chalcolithic’ todescribe the period of pre-bronze metal use on theirside of the Channel, there has been a reluctance toembrace that term in Britain and Ireland. The volumesignificantly expands upon the successful and livelyconference in Bournemouth from which it is derived.Papers discuss the English, Welsh, Irish and Scottishevidence, and this is placed into a European contextby internationally renowned scholars.

This book will be the text-book for the Chalcolithicof Great Britain and Ireland and consequently it islarger than our previous volumes. Critical reviews ofthe evidence are presented over 362 pages, 105figures, and 34 tables, while an accompanying CDincludes further illustrations, case studies and tablesincluding gazetteers of radiocarbon dates. It will sell

for slightly more than our three previous volumes at£39.95, but is available to Society members at a pre-publication price of just £29.95. The book will belaunched at the Society’s Europa Day in Reading on9 June.

Settlements in the Irish Neolithic: new discoveries onthe edge of Europe £35 – pre-publication offer £25

The Irish Neolithic has been dominated by the studyof megalithic tombs, but the defining element of theIrish settlement evidence is the rectangular timberEarly Neolithic house, numbers of which have morethan quadrupled in the last ten years. Theconstruction of these substantial buildings was ashort-lived architectural phenomenon of as little as90 years. This book explores the evidence for IrishNeolithic houses and settlements, setting these intheir wider British and continental European context.More importantly, it incorporates the wealth of new,and often unpublished, material from developer-ledarchaeological excavations and grey-literatureresources.

The volume is due to be published in November 2012and offers the first comprehensive review of Neolithicsettlement of Ireland, providing the social context forthe more famous stone monuments that havetraditionally shaped our views of the Irish Neolithic.

Further details including full contents for thesevolumes are available on our website. You can alsonow set up a standing order to ensure that you receive

every volume at the pre-publication price; thestanding order form can be downloaded from theSociety’s website. Don’t miss out on the series!

Mike Allen, Series Editor

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‘Interpreting Identity: Our Construct or Theirs?’ wasa two-day symposium exploring prehistoric identityin Europe held in Queen’s University Belfast in May2011. The meeting was supported by the PrehistoricSociety, Northern Ireland Environment Agency andQueen’s University Belfast Student-Led InitiativeFund. Conceived and organised by Victoria Ginn,Rebecca Crozier and Rebecca Enlander (QUB post-graduates), the symposium brought together a wealthof research themes and periods.

Dr Dirk Brandherm (QUB) opened the first session(‘Material Culture of the Dead’) with his paperdiscussing burial customs, gender roles and long-termcyclical change in European Bronze Age societies,with an emphasis on Central Europe. SamanthaReiter (Aarhus University) continued the examinationof identity through burial practices and discussed ‘in-grave’ regional identities of individuals in comparisonto their “in-bone” location. Nicole Taylor (Christian-Albrechts-Unviersität zu Kiel) suggested that theconceptual bonds of our personal contexts do notnecessarily have to obscure our interpretations of

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mortuary evidence, but that the baggagearchaeologists bring with them may have its ownvalidity. Our international keynote speaker, ProfessorHelleVandkilde (Aarhus University), closed the firstday with her paper on ‘travelling cultures’ intheoretical and archaeological perspectives whichexamined, in particular, the Scanian costal site of Pileand contemporary Papua New Guinea, from theperspective of this anthropological concept.

The second day began with a session emphasisingmaterial culture of the living and was opened by DrKerri Cleary (University College Cork) who examinedhow human remains deposited in unusual contexts inBronze Age Ireland were a method for the creationand reinforcement of social relations. Dr KatherinaBecker (University of Bradford) concentrated on thecreation of multi-faceted social identities in Iron AgeIreland, with an emphasis on hoards. Dr Eoin Grogan(University of Maynooth) examined Bronze AgeIreland from the perspective of the ‘lower’ workersand suggested the presence of tight-knit social clusterswith a strong sense of community.

The third session (‘Architectural and RitualExpressions’) opened with a discussion by MichaelMacDonagh (National Roads Authority, SeniorArchaeologist) regarding the actual layout of thestone circles in Ulster and ending with a startling andconvincing conclusion. Jessica Howe (University atBuffalo) examined the potential role of DNA inestablishing relationships between possiblycontemporary monuments, with an emphasis onNeolithic tombs. Neil Carlin (University CollegeDublin) gave a detailed appraisal of Beaker objects,arguing that such objects did not simply representcommodities but instead played a key role in theconstruction of regional and supra-regional socialidentities in Ireland.

In the final session (‘Our Construct or Theirs?’),Catalin Popa (University of Cambridge) argued thatmodern Romanian identity has been shaped bynineteenth and twentieth century scholarlymanipulation of the image of Late Iron Age Romaniaand that this misrepresentation of the past has sincebeen transmitted to the population through theeducation system. Dene Wright (University ofGlasgow) offered a theoretical exploration of thephilosophical principles of understanding ‘identity’and focused on a case study from the Mesolithicperiod in West Central Scotland. The symposiumended with the guest closing speaker, Dr JoannaBrück (University College Dublin), who spoke aboutthe possibility of deconstructing Bronze Agechiefdom models.

The organisers would like to take this opportunity tothank all the speakers and the delegates, who came toBelfast from as far as America, Scandinavia and

Germany. Over 60 delegates attended the symposiumand it was great to have such a turn-out from thecommercial sector, interested members of the public,and students and academics alike. Thanks are alsoextended to our sponsors who enabled thesymposium to be fee-free. The papers from thesymposium are currently being transformed into anedited volume which will be entitled ExploringPrehistoric Identity in Northwest Europe: ourconstruct or theirs? and will be published by Oxbow.

Victoria Ginn, Rebecca Enlander and RebeccaCrozier

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Excavations by Oxford Archaeology at a site inwestern Oxfordshire have recovered a rare example ofa gold sun-disc, a type of decorative item that datesfrom the Chalcolithic period (c. 2450/2400-2200/2150 BC), when metalworking was firstintroduced into Britain. The investigations wereundertaken on behalf of Hills Aggregates Ltd inadvance of an extension to their existing sand quarryat Tubney Wood, located on the Corallian Ridge, aridge of low hills that extends south-west from Oxfordtowards Swindon and forms the interfluve betweenthe Thames Valley and the Vale of the White Horse.

The sun-disc was recovered from one of a pair ofcremation burials that were located close togetherwithin an area of disturbance, the cause of which wasnot fully understood. Each burial comprised a simplepit into which the cremated remains of an adult ofunknown sex had been placed, without an urn orevidence for other grave goods. The actual quantitiesof bone recovered from each burial was small,amounting to only 222.7g and 25.7g respectively, andclearly represented the burial of only a token amountof material from the pyre. The sun-disc was spottedduring sieving of soil from the more substantial burial.

The object was identified as a sun-disc by StuartNeedham based on photographs. The item wasapproximately oval and measured 12 x 9mm and hadbeen partially crushed. A cruciform pattern could bediscerned incised into the object, comprising fourvertical and four horizontal lines, surrounded by anincised band around the surviving parts of thecircumference, although the latter was less wellpreserved due to damage to the edges of the object.The disc was probably displayed on a garment, towhich it would have been sewn by means of twosmall perforations, each measuring c. 0.5mm across, that were located slightly off-centre to the disc c. 1.2mm apart. The Tubney disc is a little smallerthan most other examples but the decorative schemeis characteristic of the type. Most of the sun-discs that

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are presently known from the British Isles have beendiscovered in Ireland, which has produced twenty-one of the corpus of thirty-four examples; only fivehave previously been found in England. Both theirrarity and the use of gold in their manufactureindicate that sun-discs were objects of great value andindicative of the high status of the wearer.

Curiously, cremated bone from the burial returned aradiocarbon determination of 3409 +/- 30 BP (1870-1840 cal BC or 1780-1620 cal BC at 2 sigma; NZA34865), indicating that the sun-disc was severalcenturies old when it was buried and it may representan heirloom that was in circulation for a considerableperiod of time prior to deposition. A pair of similargold discs were found at Mere in Wiltshire in thenineteenth century; these were associated with aBeaker pot, tanged metal dagger, wristguard, bonespatula and the unburnt, crouched skeleton of ‘alarge man’ along with a second individual. ThisChalcolithic grave is up to 600 years older than theTubney Wood burial.

The uncovering of the two cremation burials mayalso provide a solution to the puzzle of the ‘lost’barrow at Tubney Wood. Prior to changes to thecounty boundaries in 1974, the site lay withinBerkshire, and the Victoria County History for thatcounty, published in 1924, records the existence oftwo putative round barrows within the area of thequarry, one of which it records as having been

levelled around 1872. However, historic maps of thearea, including estate maps drawn before this date,show only a single mound at a location thatcontinued to be indicated as a tumulus on modern OSmaps. This presumably represents the mound thatwas not levelled, although archaeological evaluationtrenches dug at this location in 1988 and 1991 foundno evidence for a barrow. The location of the levelledmound mentioned in the VCH is not recorded but itis possible that the two recently excavated cremationburials formed part of this monument and, althoughthe structure of the barrow itself did not survive, thatthe area of disturbance with which they wereassociated resulted from colonisation of the moundby rabbits or trees, or from the destruction of themound. At the very least, the burials provideconfirmation of the funerary use of this locationduring the Bronze Age.

Andrew Simmonds (Oxford Archaeology)

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The large iconic round barrow at Duggleby Howe,North Yorkshire, was excavated by Mortimer at theend of the nineteenth century and was seen to havebeen a complex mound covering a number ofcontracted inhumations. These inhumations wereassociated with prestige artefacts of middle Neolithictype. Dates for the burial sequence have already beenpublished (see Archaeological Journal 166) and itwas established that the primary mound wasconstructed in the 29th or 30th century cal BC.Unresolved in the site sequence, however, was thecausewayed penannular ditch that encircled themound. The enclosure has been variously comparedwith causewayed enclosures and henge monuments,but at some 380m across, the site bears morecomparison in terms of size with the large Wessexsuperhenges than with henges proper. However, thelack of an associated bank, and the interrupted andpenannular nature of the ditch, do not make thiscomparison totally convincing.

In order to date this ditch a small excavation wasmounted over both features in 2009. The enclosureditch varied between 7.75m and 5.25m wide andproved to be some 2.80m deep. The uppermostclayey fill overlay a smooth soft dark brown siltyloam with occasional chalk and flint flecks. This soilwas interpreted as representing slow natural siltingand continued more or less uninterrupted to the topof the rapid primary silts. It was removed in anumber of arbitrary spits, there being no visiblestratigraphy within the deposit apart from a slightreddening towards its base. The only interruption in

this silty fill was a dense, packed gravel layer on thewest side (outside) of the ditch. Roman Grey Waresand Huntcliffe pottery from the slow siltsimmediately below this gravel layer suggests that thisunidirectional silting is late in the ditch sequence andrelated to the digging of the later, narrower ditchrunning round the outside of the enclosure which

produced a late Roman date from a partiallyarticulated bovine carcass in its secondary fills. Asunken or partial causeway was also located withinthe excavated section of the ditch.

The base of the slow silts directly overlay a layer ofrounded weathered chalk blocks marking thestabilised top of the rapid primary silts whichcomprised a loose layer of chalk blocks withoccasional clay patches. Immediately on top of theserapid silts was a small localised patch of in situburning with carbonised plant remains(overwhelmingly hazel wood and nutshells) and someflint knapping waste. Fragments from 6 antler picksalso lay widely dispersed directly on top of the rapidsilts. Both the hazelnut shell fragments and the antlersproduced radiocarbon dates in the 25th to 23rdcenturies cal BC. These rapid silts are likely to havetaken no more than a generation or so to haveformed so the antler picks may well derive from theconstruction of subsequent sections of ditch. Theytherefore may be regarded as dating the constructionof the enclosure.

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Gradiometer survey showing the ditched enclosure surrounding the mound (a – causewayed ditch; b – medieval pit; c – Roman field boundary).

The secondary mound at Duggleby is comprisedtotally of large chalk rubble of the type excavatedfrom the enclosure ditch. The volume of the ditchequates well with the volume of the mound and asthere was no bank (either internal or external)associated with the penannular causewayed ditch, itseems logical to assume that this was the quarry forthe material used to construct the secondary mound.If this is the case, then the large barrow at Dugglebyonly reached the size we now see round about the24th century cal BC. This is almost a millennium afterthe burial sequence started in the central pit grave (c.3555-3415 cal BC at 68% probability) and almost500 years after the construction of the primarymound (c. 2915-2840 cal BC at 68% probability).Rather than the conventional view of Duggleby Howerepresenting a large Neolithic round mound, we caninstead see a complex and protracted sequence of pitburial, followed by the construction of a modestmound and finally the large chalk capping. Thissequence is interspersed with prolonged periods of novisible archaeological activity. Duggleby must now beseen as a composite mound, the result of over 1000years of intermittent development.

Full results will be published in the ArchaeologicalJournal in 2012. The excavation was generouslyfunded by English Heritage and the University ofBradford.

Alex Gibson

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IntroductionAn exciting discovery of a suite of Early Bronze Ageartefacts that are without parallel in southern Britainwas made during the excavation of a cist onWhitehorse Hill, Dartmoor, in August 2011. Theexcavation was carried out by Historic EnvironmentProjects, Cornwall Council, for the DartmoorNational Park Authority.

The cist was eroding out of the western side of a peatmound measuring approximately 12m in diameterand approximately 1.5m high. It had been open tothe elements for some time and previous attempts topreserve it in situ had failed due to its exposedlocation. At a height of 604m OD, the cist is thehighest to be recorded on Dartmoor. It is situated atthe southern end of a north-south ridge and it may besignificant that the Whitehorse cist occupies a similartopographical position to that of the Hangingstonehill cairn which lies 700m to the north. It is uncertain

how high the peat mound stood above thesurrounding moorland before the cist wasconstructed. The mound is now a prominentlandscape feature, but its current extent is largelyartificial, its edges being defined by the limit ofadjacent peat cuttings.

ExcavationVisual inspection of the cist interior prior toexcavation suggested that this was empty apart froma peaty fill in the bottom of the cist which was thoughtto be recent or disturbed. Given the probable absenceof datable artefacts and the need to establish themethod of construction, the peat mound around thecist was also investigated. This was to determine theextent to which the mound was natural and to recoversamples for dating and environmental analyses.

The investigation of the west facing section of themound revealed that it had developed naturallythrough peat growth. Two hazel stakes were foundclose to the bottom of the cist outside it; one waslocated on the eastern side and was lying prone at thelevel of the cist base. The other was situated againstthe northern side of the cist and was still vertical. Itseems possible that prior to the construction of thecist the two hazel stakes were pushed into the peat tomark the site for the cist.

The cist was set within the body of the mound andwas covered by further peat. It is uncertain whetherthis material had been backfilled onto the top of thecist, and it is perhaps more likely that it representsnatural peat growth. It is hoped thatmicromorphological analysis will clarify this.Externally, the cist measured 0.78m long by 0.68mwide and 0.3m high. It comprised a flat granite baseslab, and around this, several wedge-shaped granitestones set upright within the peat. Most of theseuprights were arranged so that the tapering end of thestone pointed downwards into the peat. A large

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Photograph showing the cist in the western section of the peatmound (© Historic Environment, Cornwall Council)

capstone was placed on top of the cist. Initially itappeared that the cist was aligned east-west and thatthe western end stone was missing. However,excavation revealed that this appearance had beencreated by end stones sinking into the peat andleaning inward. The slightly longer axis of the cistwas found to be northwest-southeast, which is inkeeping with around 94% of all other recorded cistson Dartmoor.

The original shape of the cist is uncertain. It does notappear to have been a neat rectangular shape, butmay originally have been squarer in plan.Alternatively, it could have been more irregular andbuilt around the shape of the base stone which initself is unusual in that few of Dartmoor’s cists havea basal stone. The dimensions of the site are withinthe range of those documented for such cists,although the irregular shape and use of small stonesto form the sides of the structure make it ratherdifferent from most other Dartmoor cists. Typically,they are neatly built rectangular boxes. However, afew sites have been found to be constructed fromsmaller stones and a handful of non-rectangular cistsare also known.

A cut for the cist was not visible, although it wouldhave been very difficult to identify one in the peat. Itis, however, currently considered improbable that the

cist was ever a free-standing structure. The side andend stones are unlikely to have provided long-termsupport for the capstone and they are likely to havecollapsed long before the peat developed aroundthem. It is therefore thought probable that the stoneswere set around a cutting which had been made intothe top of the peat accumulation. The difficulty incutting a neat shape into the peat might also explainwhy the cist was less regular than those associatedwith the mounds of barrows and cairns. By lining thestones around the edge of the cut, with their taperingends pointing down, the peat would have provided thestability needed to hold the cist together as a structure.However, the weight of the stones and the growth ofthe mound would have led to some distortion overtime, with some stones sinking deeper into the moundand others moving inwards. This is reflected in thefinal slightly contorted appearance of the cist.

The cist was partially filled with peat, and as notedabove it was originally thought that it was unlikely tocontain any contents. However, initial investigationof the interior revealed a burial deposit as well as anumber of objects, some of which appeared to beorganic, preserved by the wet and cool conditions. Inthe light of this, the contents of the cist were blocklifted on the basal cist slab and taken to the WiltshireConservation Service laboratory in Chippenham forexcavation by Helen Williams.

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Photograph showing the hide (left of picture), basketry object (centre) and beads exposed on cist base slab (© Wiltshire Conservation Service, Wiltshire Council)

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The artefactsAlthough further analytical work is needed before adefinitive interpretation of the artefactual assemblagecan be given, an initial appraisal is possible.Excavation of the cist revealed a range of excitingorganic and other objects that are of exceptionalrarity. At the base of the cist there was a layer ofmatted plant material, upon which was a thincomposite textile-and-animal skin object. This objectconsists of a panel of finely-woven textile set within apiece of fine animal skin, and with triangularappliqués of the same animal skin fringing the panel.As such, this is a fascinating – and, within a British ifnot European context, unique – combination oftextile with animal skin. Above this, cremated humanbone had been placed within an animal hide or pelt.At one end of the pelt was a delicate woven bag orbasket whose structure is clearly visible. In theimmediate vicinity of this container were foundpieces of jewellery and X-raying will reveal whethermore are contained inside. A further layer of mattedplant material covered these objects.

Initial assessment of the jewellery has indicated thatwe are dealing with a composite necklace – whichhad probably been de-strung at the time of deposition– together with an ear stud or labret and a bracelet orarm band The bracelet – another unique and thrillingaspect of the Whitehorse find – consists of wovenstrands of fine plant fibre, into which had beeninserted a large number of small studs of tin (thematerial identification having been confirmedthrough XRF analysis): indeed, the object isreminiscent of a fancy cat collar! The necklacecomprised around 88 small disc beads of shale andone disc bead of amber, along with 5 amber fusiformbeads and a large bead of tin. The stud, with itsgently-domed circular exterior surface and medialhollow, is similar to other studs of Early Bronze Agedate from Britain and Ireland.

The discovery of tin objects is nationally important;normally tin oxidises away, and Early Bronze Agefinds in Britain are exceptionally rare. The examplesthat spring to mind are the segmented tin bead from

Sutton Veny in Wiltshire and the tin-inlaid jet buttonfrom Rameldry Farm in Fife. The find is all the moreimportant given that Devon and Cornwall have themost important sources of tin in Europe, which werebeing exploited from the 22nd century BC onwards.Furthermore, the composite necklace constitutes thelargest find of Early Bronze Age beads in theSouthwest; only the composite necklace from UptonPyne comes near, with 55 beads.

The abundance and variety of radiocarbon-datablematerial from this cist means that its contents can beclosely dated; this is especially welcome, as dates forEarly Bronze Age activity in the Southwest arerelatively scarce. The assemblage is consistent withthat seen for high-status individuals elsewhere inEarly Bronze Age Britain, and the inclusion of whatmay be a garment echoes the significance placed onelite costume (as suggested, for example, by the Mold‘cape’ or the gold discs and amber objects from theKnowes of Trotty in Orkney). It will be particularlyinteresting to discover whether, as suspected, theindividual turns out to be female. In the meantime, adate between the 19th and 17th century BC can beestimated.

ConclusionThe original aims of the Whitehorse cist excavationwere to obtain the first radiocarbon determinationsassociated with a cist on Dartmoor and to recovervaluable environmental information. It was notanticipated that there would be much in the way ofartefactual information. The extensive antiquarianinvestigations on Dartmoor barrows and cists haddemonstrated that the deposition of artefacts wascomparatively rare. The environmental conditionswithin the cist have led to the discovery of anunparalleled assemblage of organic and otherartefacts which are unique in our knowledge of theBritish Bronze Age and therefore of nationalimportance. The ongoing analyses of this assemblagewill yield insights into materials and technologywhich have not survived elsewhere from the EarlyBronze Age in southern Britain. Importantly, this raresurvival also reminds us that monuments survivewithin, as well as below and on top of upland peat inconditions likely to preserve organic remains.

Andy M Jones (Historic Environment, CornwallCouncil), Jane Marchand (Dartmoor National ParkAuthority), Alison Sheridan (National Museum ofScotland), Vanessa Straker (English Heritage) andHenrietta Quinnell

AcknowledgementsThis project is being funded by the DartmoorNational Park Authority and English Heritage

Photograph showing the textile arm or wrist band with the tinstuds (© Wiltshire Conservation Service, Wiltshire Council)