M Law

Recent Investigations at Two Long Barrows and Reflections on their Context in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site and Environs

Recent geophysical surveys and excavations at Druids Lodge Estate, in fields west of the Diamond Wood in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SWHS), have confirmed the existence of the Winterbourne Stoke 71 long barrow and discovered a new long barrow (Winterbourne Stoke 86) a short distance to the south. Survey and excavation show internal features at both barrows and, alongside aerial photography, suggest that both monuments were destroyed during later prehistory. These barrows are part of a cluster around the head of the Wilsford dry valley. We review long barrows in the SWHS and environs to contextualise these discoveries, demonstrating a diversity of internal features, barrow sizes and morphologies. Chronological modelling is used to place the SWHS barrows in their inter-regional timescape and to understand the timings of the first appearance of monument types of the 4th millennium cal BC. Local topography appears to be the key factor in determining the alignment of long barrows, but the eastern ends of barrows appear to be significant. Long barrows are also considered in relation to causewayed enclosures, and movement around the landscape. Long barrows are an important structuring monument in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape, but their importance is mediated by their location relative to Stonehenge, and access to the monument from the south. There is a clear pattern of differential preservation of long barrows away from the vicinity of Stonehenge. Further field research is necessary to achieve a better understanding of long barrows in the SWHS, and it is hoped that this article stimulates interest in these highly significant monuments. This article also provides an interactive map of the SWHS, linking to simplified plans of long barrows in the study area, additional information and references for further reading for each barrow. Appendices are provided containing specialist methodologies and/or data from the geophysical surveys and the Historic England excavation, and primary excavation data from the Historic England excavation is downloadable via the Archaeology Data Service (Historic England 2018).

Back to the future? Presenting archaeology at the Green Man Festival

In the summer of 2011, Cardiff Osteoarchaeology Research Group was invited to present a number of archaeological engagement activities at the Green Man music festival as part of the Einstein’s Garden science learning area. The project, called Back to the Future?: Animals and archaeology in Einstein’s Garden comprised a number of activities, designed to cater for a wide range of ages as the festival audience typically includes young people and families. Over four days more than 2000 people visited the stall. This paper will briefly outline the activities presented, and will reflect on the challenges posed by outreach at a music festival, in particular how to hook the main festival demographic, and how to evaluate success.

Land Snails, Sand Dunes, and Archaeology in the Outer Hebrides

Abstract n Although the Western Isles have been subject to a number of recent archaeological investigations, there has been limited recent work on molluscan assemblages, despite the very good degree of preservation to be expected in a number of deposits and the significant work in the 1970s and 1980s on a number of sites such as Northton, Baleshare, and Hornish Point. In the meantime, land snail analysis has flourished in southern England and elsewhere in Europe, with the development of new techniques of numerical analysis such as the taxocene framework, the use of land snail assemblages in climate reconstruction, and recent refinements in amino acid dating. This paper provides a brief summary of the work to date on Hebridean snail assemblages, and presents preliminary results from work in progress, exploring aspects of site-formation processes, middening, land use, and relative dating that can be explored using land snails.