THE BARROWS OF DORSET
By C. S. Prideaux
HE County of Dorset is exceedingly rich in the prehistoric burial-places commonly called barrows. At the present time considerably over a thousand are marked on the one-inch Ordnance Map, and, considering the numbers which have been destroyed, we may surely claim that Dorset was a populous centre in prehistoric times, owing probably to its proximity to the Continent and its safe harbours, as well as to its high and dry downs and wooded valleys.
The long barrow is the earliest form of sepulchral mound, being the burial-place of the people of the Neolithic or Late Stone Age, a period when men were quite ignorant of the use of metals, with the possible exception of gold, using flint or stone weapons and implements, but who cultivated cereals, domesticated animals, and manufactured a rude kind of hand-made pottery. Previous to this, stone implements and weapons were of a rather rude type; but now not only were they more finely chipped, but often polished.
The round barrows are the burial-places of the Goidels, a branch of the Celtic family, who were taller than the Neolithic men and had rounder heads. They belong to the Bronze Age, a period when that metal was first introduced into Britain; and although comparatively little is found in the round barrows of Dorset, still less has been discovered in the North of England, probably owing to the greater distance from the Continent.
Hand-made pottery abounds, artistically decorated with diagonal lines and dots, which are combined to form such a variety of patterns that probably no two vessels are found alike. Stone and flint implements were still in common use, and may be found almost anywhere in Dorset, especially on ploughed uplands after a storm of rain, when the freshly-turned-up flints have been washed clear of earth.
In discussing different periods, we must never lose sight of the fact that there is much overlapping; and although it is known that the long-barrow men had long heads and were a short race, averaging 5 ft. 4 in. in height, and that the round-barrow men had round heads and averaged 5 ft. 8 in.,[4] we sometimes find fairly long-shaped skulls in the round barrows, showing that the physical peculiarities of the two races became blended.
Long barrows are not common in Dorset, and little has been done in examining their contents. This is probably due to their large size, and the consequent difficulty in opening them. They are generally found inland, and singly, with their long diameter east and west; and the primary interments, at any rate in Dorset, are unburnt, and usually placed nearer the east end. Some are chambered, especially where large flat stones were easily obtainable, but more often they are simply formed of mould and chalk rubble. Their great size cannot fail to impress us, and we may well wonder how such huge mounds were constructed with the primitive implements at the disposal of Neolithic man. One near Pimperne, measured by Mr. Charles Warne, is 110 yards long, and there are others near Bere Regis, Cranborne, Gussage, and Kingston Russell; and within a couple of miles of the latter place, besides the huge long barrow, are dozens of round barrows, the remains of British villages, hut circles, stone circles, and a monolith.
PLATE I. Figs. 1 3 2 4 6 5
Bronze Age Objects from Dorset Round Barrows
(IN THE DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM).
⅕ Scale.
PLATE II. Figs. 1 3 2 4
Bronze Age Objects from Dorset Round Barrows
(IN THE DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM).
⅕ Scale.
The late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, in 1893, removed the whole of Wor Barrow, on Handley Down,[5] and made a very exhaustive examination of its contents, which presented many features of peculiar interest. This barrow, with ditch, was about 175 feet long, 125 feet wide, and 13½ feet high; inside the mound on the ground level was an oblong space, 93 ft. by 34 ft., surrounded by a trench filled with flints. The earth above the trench bore traces of wooden piles, which were, no doubt, originally stuck into the trench with the flints packed around to keep them in place, thus forming a palisade; the wooden piles in this case taking the place of the stone slabs found in the stone-chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire and elsewhere.
Six primary interments by inhumation were discovered at the south-east part of the enclosure, with a fragment of coarse British pottery. Three of the bodies were in a crouched position. The remaining three had been deposited as bones, not in sequence, the long bones being laid out by the side of the skulls; and careful measurement of these bones shows that their owners were the short people of the long-headed or Neolithic race, which confirms the first part of Dr. Thurnam’s axiom: “Long barrows long skulls, round barrows round skulls.” Nineteen secondary interments of a later date were found in the upper part of the barrow and in the surrounding ditch, with numerous pieces of pottery, flint implements, fragments of bronze and iron, and coins, proving that the barrow was used as a place of burial down to Roman times.
In Dorset the round barrows are generally found on the summits of the hills which run through the county, more particularly on the Ridgeway, which roughly follows the coast line from near Bridport to Swanage, where may be seen some hundreds of all sizes, from huge barrows over 100 feet in diameter and 15 feet in height to small mounds, so little raised above the surface that only the tell-tale shadows cast by the rising or setting sun show where a former inhabitant lies buried.
In the western part of the county they may be traced from Kingston Russell to Agger-Dun, through Sydling and Cerne Abbas to Bulbarrow, and in the east, from Swanage Bay to Bere Regis; and also near Dorchester, Wimborne, Blandford, and other places.
In the Bronze Age cremation and inhumation were both practised; but in Dorset burials by cremation are the more common. The cremated remains were sometimes placed in a hole or on the surface line, with nothing to protect them from the weight of the barrow above; at other times they were covered by flat slabs of stone, built in the form of a small closed chamber or cist. Often they were placed on a flat piece of stone, and covered with an inverted urn, or put in an urn, with a covering slab over them; and they have been found wrapped in an animal’s skin, or in a bag of some woven material, or even in a wooden coffin.
The inhumed bodies are nearly always found in a contracted posture, with the knees drawn up towards the chin; and a larger number face either east, south or west, than north. In the case of an inhumation, when the body was deposited below the old surface level, the grave was often neatly hewn and sometimes lined with slabs of stone, and it was the common custom to pile a heap of flints over it, affording a protection from wild animals; above the flints was heaped the main portion of the mound, which consisted of mould and chalk rubble.
A ditch, with or without a causeway,[6] usually surrounds each barrow, but is so often silted up that no trace of it can be seen on the surface; it probably helped to supply the chalk rubble of the barrow.
Bronze Age sepulchral pottery, which is hand-made, often imperfectly baked and unglazed, has been divided into four classes: the beaker or drinking vessel, the food vessel, the incense cup, and the cinerary urn. The two former are usually associated with inhumations; the two latter with cremations.
As a type of prehistoric ceramic art in Britain, the Hon. J. Abercromby says that the beaker is the earliest, and the cinerary urn the latest.[7]
Plate II., fig. 2, is a typical drinking vessel or beaker which was found in the hands of a skeleton during alterations to the Masonic Hall at Dorchester. It is made of thin, reddish, well-baked pottery, and from the stains inside it evidently contained food or liquid at some time. The beaker is more often met with than the food vessel, being found on the Continent as well as in England. The food vessel, on the other hand, is a type unrepresented outside the British Isles, and is entirely wanting in Wiltshire,[8] although common in the North of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester there are several fine examples found in the county, and Plate I., fig. 1, represents one taken from a barrow near Martinstown.[9] It is of unusual interest, as one-handled food-vessels are rare. In this inhumed primary interment the vessel was lying in the arms of the skeleton, whilst close by was another and much smaller vessel, with the remains of three infants.
The terms “drinking-vessel” and “food-vessel” may possibly be accurate, as these vessels may have held liquids or food; but there is no evidence to show that the so-called “incense cups” had anything to do with incense. The more feasible idea seems to be that they were used to hold embers with which to fire the funeral pile, and the holes with which they are generally perforated would have been most useful for admitting air to keep the embers alight.[10] These small vessels are usually very much ornamented, even on their bases, with horizontal lines, zigzags, chevrons, and the like, and occasionally a grape-like pattern. They are seldom more than three inches in height, but vary much in shape, and often are found broken, with the fragments widely separated, as if they had been smashed purposely at the time of the burial. Plate II., figs. 3 and 4, are from specimens in the Dorset County Museum, which also contains several other Dorset examples.
There can be no doubt as to the use of the cinerary urn, which always either contains or covers cremated remains. The urn (Plate II., fig. 1) is from the celebrated Deverel Barrow, which was opened in 1825 by Mr. W. A. Miles. The shape of this urn is particularly common in Dorset, as well as another variety which has handles, or, rather, perforated projections or knobs. A third and prettier variety is also met with, having a small base, and a thick overhanging rim or band at the mouth, generally ornamented.
It is rare to find curved lines in the ornamentation of Bronze Age pottery, but sometimes concentric circles and spiral ornaments are met with on rock-surfaces and sculptured stones. Mr. Charles Warne found in tumulus 12, Came Down, Dorchester, two flat stones covering two cairns with incised concentric circles cut on their surfaces.[11]
There is no clear evidence of iron having been found in the round barrows of Dorset in connection with a Bronze Age interment; but of gold several examples may be seen in the County Museum, and one, which was found in Clandon Barrow, near Martinstown, with a jet head of a sceptre with gold studs, is shown in Plate I., fig 2. Others were discovered in Mayo’s Barrow and Culliford Tree.[12] Bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, is the only other metal found with primary interments in our Dorset round barrows.
The County Museum possesses some excellent celts and palstaves; a set of six socketed celts came from a barrow near Agger-Dun, and look as if they had just come from the mould. They are ornamented with slender ridges, ending in tiny knobs, and have never been sharpened (two of them are figured in Plate I., figs. 3 and 4); another celt, from a barrow in the Ridgeway, is interesting as having a fragment of cloth adhering to it. Daggers are found, generally, with cremated remains, and are usually ornamented with a line or lines, which, beginning just below the point, run down the blade parallel with the cutting edges. The rivets which fastened the blade to the handle are often in position with fragments of the original wooden handle and sheath.[13] These daggers seem to be more common in Dorset than in the northern counties, and many examples may be seen in the County Museum, and two are illustrated in Plate I., figs. 5 and 6.
Bronze pins, glass beads, amber and Kimmeridge shell objects, bone tweezers and pins, slingstones and whetstones, are occasionally met with; but by far the most common objects are the flint and stone implements, weapons, and flakes.
In making a trench through a barrow near Martinstown,[14] more than 1,200 flakes or chips of flints were found, besides some beautifully-formed scrapers, a fabricator, a flint saw, most skilfully notched, and a borer with a gimlet-like point.
Arrow-heads are not common in Dorset, but six were found in a barrow in Fordington Field, Dorchester. They are beautiful specimens, barbed and tongued; the heaviest only weighs twenty-five grains, and the lightest sixteen grains. Mr. Warne mentions the finding of arrow-heads, and also (a rare find in Dorset) a stone battle-axe, from a barrow on Steepleton Down.
Charred wood is a conspicuous feature, and animal bones are also met with in the county, and in such positions as to prove that they were placed there at the time of the primary interment. Stags’ horns, often with the tips worn as though they had been used as picks, are found, both in the barrows and in the ditches.
So far only objects belonging to the Bronze Age have been mentioned; but as later races used these burial-places, objects of a later date are common. Bronze and iron objects and pottery, and coins of every period, are often found above the original interment and in the ditches. This makes it difficult for an investigator to settle with certainty the different positions in which the objects were deposited; and unless he is most careful he will get the relics from various periods mixed. Therefore, the practice of digging a hole into one of these burial-mounds, for the sake of a possible find, cannot be too heartily condemned. Anyone who is ambitious to open a barrow should carefully read those wonderful books on Excavations in Cranborne Chase, by the late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, before he puts a spade into the ground; for a careless dig means evidence destroyed for those that come after.
Most Dorset people will remember the late curator of the County Museum, Mr. Henry Moule, and perhaps some may have heard him tell this story, but it will bear repeating. A labourer had brought a piece of pottery to the Museum, and Mr. Moule explained to him that it not only came from a barrow, but that it was most interesting, and that he would like to keep it for the Museum. The man looked surprised, and said, “Well, Meäster, I’ve a-knocked up scores o’ theäsem things. I used to level them there hipes (or heäps) an’ drawed awaÿ the vlints vor to mend the roads; an’ I must ha’ broke up dozens o’ theäse here wold pots; but they niver had no cwoins inzide ’em.” Those who knew Mr. Moule can imagine his horror.
Much more remains to be done by Dorset people in investigating these most interesting relics of the past, for we know little of the builders of these mounds; and, as Mr. Warne says in his introduction to The Celtic Tumuli of Dorset:—
If the Dorsetshire barrows cannot be placed in comparison with many of those of Wiltshire ... or Derbyshire, they may, nevertheless, be regarded with intense interest, as their examination has satisfactorily established the fact that they constitute the earliest series of tumuli in any part of the kingdom; whilst they identify Dorset as one of the earliest colonised portions of Britain.