English Heritage Archaeological Monographs

English Heritage, 2014. https://doi.org/10.5284/1028203. How to cite using this DOI

Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

The updated Crossref DOI Display guidelines recommend that DOIs should be displayed in the following format:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1028203
Sample Citation for this DOI

English Heritage (2014) English Heritage Archaeological Monographs [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1028203

Data copyright © English Heritage unless otherwise stated

This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Creative Commons License


Historic England logo

Primary contact

Historic England
The Engine House
Firefly Avenue
Swindon
SN2 2EH

Send e-mail enquiry

Resource identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

The updated Crossref DOI Display guidelines recommend that DOIs should be displayed in the following format:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1028203
Sample Citation for this DOI

English Heritage (2014) English Heritage Archaeological Monographs [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1028203

Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape

Healy, F., Mercer, R.


English Heritage (2008)


Abstract:

Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape

A programme of excavation and survey directed by Roger Mercer between 1974 and 1986 demonstrated that Hambledon was the site of an exceptionally large and diverse complex of earlier Neolithic earthworks, including two causewayed enclosures, two long barrows and several outworks, some of them defensive. The abundant cultural material preserved in its ditches and pits provides information about numerous aspects of contemporary society, among them conflict, feasting, the treatment of the human corpse, exchange, stock management and cereal cultivation. The distinct depositional signatures of various parts of the complex reflect their diverse use. The scale and manner of individual episodes of construction hint at the levels of organisation and co-ordination obtaining in contemporary society. Use of the complex and the construction of its various elements were episodic and intermittent, spread over 300-400 hundred years, and did not entail lasting settlement. As well as stone axe heads exchanged from remote sources, more abundant grinding equipment and pottery from adjacent regions may point to the areas from which people came to the hill. If so, it had important links with territories to the west, north-west and south, in other words with land off the Wessex Chalk, at the edge of which the complex lies. Within the smaller compass of the immediate area of the hill, including Cranborne Chase, field walking survey suggests that the hill was the main focus of earlier Neolithic activity. A complementary relationship with the Chase is indicated by a fairly abrupt diminution of activity on the hill in the late fourth millennium, when the massive Dorset cursus and several smaller monuments were built in the Chase. Renewed activity on the hill in the late third millennium and early second millennium was a prelude to occupation on and around the hill in the second millennium in the mid to late second millennium, which was followed by the construction of a hillfort on the northern spur from the early first millennium. Late Iron Age and Romano-British activity may reflect the proximity of Hod Hill. A small pagan Saxon cemetery may relate to settlement in the Iwerne valley which it overlooks.


Download monograph

Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape, Healy, F.|Mercer, R., English Heritage (2008), ISBN: 9781848021600 PDF 10 Mb

ADS logo
Data Org logo
University of York logo