Monument record MDO8398 - Bronze Age and Iron Age occupation evidence found at Swanworth Quarries, Worth Matravers

Finds made in this area include a Beaker, flint scrapers, Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age ("Iron Age 'A'") pottery, shale-working evidence and a stone slab-lined pit.

SY 968783. Examination of the Sheepsleights or Swanworth quarries since 1941 has revealed evidence of a Late Bronze Age settlement and Early Iron Age shale industrial site. Late Bronze Age. About six saucer shaped hollows or pits and one deeper pit were discovered between 1941-49, some containing Late Bronze Age bucket-shaped vessels probably for storing grain. An occupation floor close to the pits contained fragments of Late Bronze Age pottery, animal bones, limpet shells, scraper, rough flakes and a hammerstone. A late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age stone-lined grain storage pit containing carbonised spelt grain was found on the site in 1964 and the remains of a similar pit were seen previously in 1952; the latter containing a Late Bronze Age bronze razor (In Red House Museum Christchurch). A small rectangular stone cist was recorded about 9ft to the west of the 1964 grain pit and to the south east were three areas of dark earth, one area containing a few bone fragments and a saddle quern. A Late Bronze Age beaker found in 1958 (In British Museum Acc. 1958. 5-7.1) and a bronze armlet in 1968 were also recovered from the quarry. Evidence of an Early Iron Age shale industry, manufacturing armlets was recorded on the Late Bronze Age occupation floor (see above) although not in pits. Early Iron Age sherds, including fine black ware were also seen. (1-6)

Record last edited

Dec 9 2022 7:15PM