Round Mounds and Monumentality in the British Neolithic and Beyond by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology
ISBN: 1165963
Publisher: Oxbow Books, Limited
Published: 2010-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 8.3: Schematic section of the prehistoric phases visible within the tunnel at Silbury Hill

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SEQUENCE

Although the geology of the region is chalk, a mantle of clay-with-flints (possibly eroded from upslope at some stage in the past) directly underlies Silbury Hill and was recorded in the tunnel sides. This clay deposit appears to be restricted to the footprint of the mound (discussed later).

The old ground surface

Evident throughout the majority of the tunnel sides, and sloping down to the north, is the old ground surface, which appears to extend under the entire mound (Colour Plate 1). Examination of local soils on clay-with-flints shows that this layer clearly does not represent a full soil profile, and some of the topsoil must have been removed at some stage prior to or during construction. This process could have been part of a deliberate act of ground preparation before monument construction began or could have simply occurredd as a natural part of the construction process.

Within the central part of the mound, a concentration of charcoal, charred hazel nutshell fragments and other charred plant remains, as well as two pig or wild boar teeth were recorded within a small, defined area of the upper part of the old ground surface, and may well indicate the fragmentary remains of a hearth. Small quantities of flint micro-debitage across the old ground surface indicate some, but not extensive, knapping had occurred prior to or during the initial phases of the monument (Barry Bishop pers. comm.).

The Gravel Mound

The first clear evidence for construction activity is a low, fairly unimpressive, gravel mound overlying the old ground surface in the centre; it measured just less than a metre high and nearly 10 metres in diameter (Figure 8.3 and Colour Plate 1). The material used for this mound was Pleistocene gravels, suggesting that people would have had to quarry the material or found it exposed in a river valley, for example the side of the River Kennet; either way, it was clearly very deliberately imported and used here. Environmental evidence suggests that the material was extracted from an open grassland environment. As became abundantly clear to us in the tunnel, once the loose Gravel Mound was exposed, it collapsed fairly rapidly – this was clearly not lost on the people constructing the mound, and they may have strengthened the sides with thin deposits of topsoil and subsoil.

The Lower Organic Mound

Subsequently, a series of layers of topsoil, subsoil and turf, perhaps representing basket loads of material, were dumped over the Gravel Mound, forming a larger mound (just over a metre high, and over 16 metres in diameter), although it would have still been relatively inconspicuous in the landscape (Figure 8.3 and Colour Plate 1). A stakehole recorded on the edge of these deposits can be included with the stakeholes recorded during Atkinson’s work, which are likely to be part of a sequence of stakes demarcating the edge of this Lower Organic Mound. The majority of material for this mound had probably derived from

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