Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T09:50:10.283Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Excavation of Nympsfield Long Barrow, Gloucestershire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2014

Extract

The Nympsfield long barrow is situated in the parish of Frocester, but is less than a mile to the north-west of Nympsfield village. The boundaries of the Parish, the Rural District and the Union, run from north to south down the centre of the field, called ‘Buckholt End,’ in which it lies. The position of the barrow is latitude 51° 42′ 35″ and longitude 2° 17′ 54″ (six-inch O.S., Gloucs. XLIX S.W.) and its height 750 feet above sea level. Ninety yards to the east of the barrow there is a road, marked by Grundy as a ‘ridgeway,’ which now runs from Selsley Hill to Uley (fig. 1). The underlying rock is the Inferior Oolite, a formation separable into numerous sub-divisions, here including, in descending order, Clypeus Grit, Upper Trigonia Grit and Upper Freestone. The greater part of the barrow, if not the whole of it rests on Clypeus Grit.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1938

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 188 note 1 Arch. J., XCI, p. 85Google Scholar, plate 1.

page 188 note 2 The writer is indebted to Mr F. B. Welch for this information.

page 188 note 3 Grouping of long barrows was also noted in Caithness. See Childe, , Prehistory of Scotland, p. 34Google Scholar.

page 188 note 4 Proc. Preh. Soc., III, p. 84Google Scholar.

page 190 note 1 For Thurnam's account see Crawford, , Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, p. 120Google Scholar.

page 190 note 2 Trans. Bristol & Glos. Arch. Soc., V, p. 34Google Scholar.

page 190 note 3 Proc. C.N.F.C., XVI, p. 17Google Scholar; XXII, p. 19; XXV, p. 229.

page 190 note 4 Op. cit., p. 122 and no. 42. Crawford reproduces Buckman's plan.

page 191 note 1 Proc. C.N.F.C., III, p. 123Google Scholar.

page 192 note 1 There was certainly a burial in Uley tumulus in Romano-British times and Uley Bury Camp appears to have been re-occupied in that period. In a field called Money Quarr on the opposite side of the road east of that tumulus many Romano-British coins have been found, while such famous Romano-British sites as Woodchester and Kingstanley are within three miles.

page 192 note 2 Old Red Sandstone tiles were used in the Hucclecote, Glos., Romano-British villa. Trans. Brist. & Glos. Arch. Soc., LV, p. 328Google Scholar.

page 192 note 3 Help in this connection was given by Mr Radford.

page 194 note 1 Arch., vol. LXXXVI, p. 152Google Scholar.

page 194 note 2 At Notgrove the floor of the terminal chamber was at a slightly higher level, than the passage and antechamber. Ibid., p. 130.

page 196 note 1 Dressed stones were noted at Notgrove (Arch., LXXXVI, p. 128Google Scholar), and at Smithy, Wayland's (Ant. J., I, p. 196)Google Scholar.

page 198 note 1 Arch., LXXXV, p. 87Google Scholar.

page 198 note 2 Ibid., LXXXVI, p. 143.

page 199 note 1 Randwick. See Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, p. 133. Rodmarton (ibid., p. 144). Fires are also recorded at Caithness but perhaps only sufficient for ritual or purificatory purposes. See Childe, , Prehistory of Scotland, p. 29Google Scholar.

page 199 note 2 Kindly identified by Mr Oliver Davies.

page 199 note 3 Proc. C.N.F.C., V, p. 340Google Scholar, ‘burnt bones in Cists 18 ins. long and 12 ins. wide on the north side of the chamber.

page 199 note 4 These small cists seem to have been found in Sweden and Denmark for Nordman, says in The Megalithic Culture of Northern Europe (1935), p. 28Google Scholar:—

‘In some cases they (the dead) seem to have been placed in small cists built of low flat stones, against the walls of passage tombs.’ They have also been found in Caithness for on p. 239 of Scotland in Pagan Times' Anderson says, ‘on the floor of the first compartment … a cist was placed formed of slabs set on edge … and covered in by two smaller slabs. It was 4 ft. 4 ins. in length, 20 ins. wide and 9 ins. deep to the level of the floor.’

page 199 note 5 Trans. Bristol & Glos. Arch. Soc., vol. LII, p. 150Google Scholar.

page 199 note 6 Childe, op. cit., p. 33.

page 200 note 1 As has already been pointed out (Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, p. 106), it is probable that the outlining walls at Uley tumulus are rectangular and not oval as planned.

page 201 note 1 Arch., LXXXVI, p. 132Google Scholar.

page 202 note 1 The photos and plans will be housed in the British Museum.

page 202 note 2 Arch., LXXXVI, p. 144Google Scholar.

page 202 note 3 At Notgrove, bones which represented a young female and a young child were found on a circular depression in front of the portal. Ibid., p. 143.

page 202 note 4 At the entrance of Uley tumulus, jaws of several wild boars to the exclusion curiously of other bones were found, one of which was bored. Arch., XLII, p. 228Google Scholar.

page 202 note 5 A white quartz pebble was found at Notgrove, Arch., LXXXVI, p. 146Google Scholar; Bryn Celli Ddu, ibid., LXXX, p. 209; Pant-y-Saer, , Arch. Camb., LXXXVIII, pp. 208 ff.Google Scholar For general notes on these pebbles see Antiquity, XI, p. 354Google Scholar.

page 204 note 1 Arch. LXXXV, p. 69Google Scholar.

page 204 note 2 Flints were found in the following places:—

page 204 note 3 Arch., LXXVI, p. 82Google Scholar.

page 204 note 4 Kindly identified by Mr Kenneth Oakley.

page 204 note 5 Information from Mr C. I. Gardiner.

page 204 note 6 Dog has been recorded from many long barrows and one of mastiff size was found at Swell 1.

page 205 note 1 Arch., LXXXVI, p. 146Google Scholar; beads have also been found in camps of the Neolithic period, e.g., Hembury Windmill Hill.

page 205 note 2 Proc. Preh. Soc., III (1937), pp. 71 ff.Google Scholar

page 205 note 3 Antiquity, 1937, p. 455Google Scholar.

page 206 note 1 Scotland in Pagan Times, p. 247.

page 206 note 2 Cf. Proc. Preh. Soc., III, p. 86Google Scholar.

page 210 note 1 Reliquiae Aquitanicae, pl. XI, B.

page 210 note 2 L'Anthropologie, VII (1897), pp. 633–52Google Scholar, figs. 8 and 32.

page 211 note 1 Ant. Journ., XIV, 115Google Scholar, no. 25.

page 211 note 2 Néolithique ancien, pl. XV, no. 1.

page 211 note 3 Ant. J., XV, p. 348Google Scholar.

page 211 note 4 Ant. J., II, pp. 229, 230Google Scholar.

page 212 note 1 Proc. C.N.F.C., III (1865), pp. 184188Google Scholar.

page 213 note 1 Curwen, C, Antiquity, 1930, p. 27Google Scholar.