Hostname: page-component-669899f699-ggqkh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T19:09:30.051Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Chalk Plaque Pit, Amesbury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2022

Philip Harding
Philip Harding*
Affiliation:
The Trust for Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, South Portway Estate, Old Sarum, Salisbury, Wilts SP4 6EB
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Well-defined late Neolithic structures in lowland Britain are rare. The contents of pits with Grooved Ware have, therefore, been used to interpret both settlement patterns and economic activity in this period. Pits occur both individually and in groups, are normally circular or slightly oval in plan and rarely exceed 1 m in diam or 2 m in depth (Wainwright and Longworth 1971, 250). Most were probably for grain storage (Field et al. 1964, 367) which were later filled with refuse.

The Amesbury area, 3 km E of Stonehenge, has produced several groups of pits of this type. They include five at Ratfyn (SU 15954205) N of Amesbury (Stone 1935; Warren et al. 1936, 196), four at Woodlands (SU 151431) 250 m S of Woodhenge (Stone and Young 1948; Stone 1949), a group within a henge on Coneybury Hill (SU 13434161) (Richards 1984, 183) and others on King Barrow Ridge (SU 135425) (Richards 1984).

Type
Other
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , 1988 , pp. 320 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradley, R., 1976. Maumbury Rings, Dorchester: The Excavations of 1908–1913. Oxford: Society of Antiquaries.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1931. Skara Brae: A Pictish Village in Orkney. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. L., 1970. Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. V., Cowie, T. G. and Foxon, A., 1985. Symbols of Power at the time of Stonehenge. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Cunnington, M. E., 1929. Woodhenge. Devizes: George Simpson.Google Scholar
Do Paco, A., 1941. Placas de barro de Vila Nova de Sao Pedro. Com. I Cong. Mund. Port. Lisbon.Google Scholar
Field, N. H., Matthews, C. L. and Smith, I. F., 1964. New Neolithic sites in Dorset and Bedfordshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 30, 352–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, C. and Rollo-Smith, S., 1984. The excavation of eighteen round barrows near Shrewton, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 50, 255–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwell, W., 1890. Recent researches in barrows in Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire etc. Archaeologia, 52, 1–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laidler, B. and Young, W. E. V., 1938. A surface flint industry from a site near Stonehenge. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 48, 150–60.Google Scholar
Longworth, I. H., 1971. The Pottery. In G. J. Wainwright, The excavation of a late Neolithic enclosure at Marden, Wiltshire. Antiquaries Journal 51, 177–239.Google Scholar
Longworth, I. H., Wainwright, G.J. and Wilson, K. E., 1971. The Grooved Ware site at Lion Point, Clacton. British Museum Quarterly 35, 93–124.Google Scholar
Piggott, S., 1954. The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, C. and Thomas, J., 1984. Ritual activity and structured deposition in Later Neolithic Wessex. In Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: A Review of some Current Research, 189–218. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 133.Google Scholar
Richards, J., 1984. The development of the Neolithic landscape in the environs of Stonehenge. In Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: A Review of some Current Research, 177–87. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 133.Google Scholar
Sieveking, G. de G., 1963. The pit sanctuary at Grimes Graves. British Museum Quarterly Part 2.Google Scholar
Smith, I. F., 1965. Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller 1925–1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stone, J. F. S., 1935. Some discoveries at Ratfyn, Amesbury and their bearing on the date of Woodhenge. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 47, 55–67.Google Scholar
Stone, J. F. S. and Young, W. E. V., 1948. Two pits of Grooved Ware date near Woodhenge. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 52, 287–306.Google Scholar
Stone, J. F. S., 1949. Some Grooved Ware pottery from the Woodhenge area. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 15, 122–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vatcher, F. de M., 1969. Two incised chalk plaques near Stonehenge Bottom. Antiquity 43, 310–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. and Longworth, I. H., 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968. London: Society of Antiquaries.Google Scholar
WAM, 1920. Bronze Age interment at Ratfyn, Amesbury. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 41, 190–91.Google Scholar
Warren, S. H., Piggott, S., Clark, J. G. D., Burkitt, M. C. and Godwin, H. and M. E., , 1936. Archaeology of the submerged land surface of the Essex coast. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2, 178–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, L., 1921. Discoveries at Amesbury. The Antiquaries Journal 1, 125–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar