Monument record MDO20969 - Flagstones: causewayed enclosure

Site of a Neolithic enclosure, half of which was excavated from 1987-8 in advance of the construction of the Dorchester by-pass road. It was plotted from soil marks visible on aerial photographs taken during excavations.

Site of a Neolithic enclosure, located approximately 400 metres west of Mount Pleasant. Approximately half of the feature was excavated from 1987-8 in advance of the construction of the Dorchester by-pass road. It was plotted from soil marks visible on aerial photographs taken during it's excavations {1-2}. The enclosure appears to have been near circular in shape, around 100 metres in diameter, and defined by a single circuit of pits or ditch segments of varying length, depth and spacing. The chalk walls of four of the segments featured engraved designs, while human burials – one adult cremation plus two child inhumations (and bones from a third) were found in the primary silts of three further ditch segments. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the enclosure was constructed in the late fourth millennium BC, probably between 3300 and 3000 BC {3}. In the Early Bronze Age, a grave was cut in the centre of the enclosed area, comprising a ring ditch and mound associated with a crouched inhumation (MDO20970). Other features of neolithic or Bronze Age date in the interior comprise mainly pits (MDO20971). There appears to have been no significant activity at the site from the Middle Bronze Age until the Late Iron Age, when a field system was laid out in the area (MDO20972), associated with nearby settlement. This enclosure is anomalous in a number of respects when compared with causewayed enclosures generally, notably in terms of its shape (an almost perfect circle), the nature of the ditch deposits (a general lack of the sort of placed deposits which characterise many sites), and particularly its later date. Comparisons have been made instead with the first phase of Stonehenge. {4}

Record last edited

Feb 20 2019 4:22PM