SDO12513 - The archaeological evaluation of a possible barrow site at Poor Common, West Parley, Dorset. Scheduled Ancient Monument No. 27478

An archaeological evaluation was carrie dout by AC archaeology during July 1997, on the site of a probable Bronze Age round barrow (Scheduled Ancieont Monument No. 27478), at Poor Common, West Parley, Dorset. Prior to this investigation there was uncertainty abou its exact position; the aim of this work was to establish by limited manual investigation, that the low mound in this area, is the actual site of the barrow originally identified and scheduled in 1955. The sequence of excavated trial pits and a single trench identified three essential criterial that support the interpretation of the mound as a round barrow; first, it could be shown that the mound had been constructed deliberately, by placing a sequence of turf stacks to form the mound; secondly, the investiagtion identiified the presence of a shallow ditchin itn two locaitons around the base of the mound; thirdly, aburied soil was identified in some (undisturbed) areas, which has been interpreted as the former (Bronze Age) land surface prior to the construction of the mound. Not unexpectedly, in an area likely to have been used for funerary rather than settlement activity, a single burnt flint flake was the only artefact recovered. The evaluation failed to identify associated burials or adjacent satellite cemetery. This is not necessarily crucial to the interpretation of the mound, as the trial pits and trench only represent a small proportion of the total area. Based on the evidence recovered from the evaluation, it is now possible to confirm the presence of a probable barrow, and to show in profile and on plan its probable extent, and confirm that the mound has been spread during ploughing. An east to west aligned linear earthwork to the southwest of the mound was also sampled by hand excavation, which revealed that it is likely to represent a headland, almost certainly dating to the most recent ploughing of the site, during the early 1970s.