Proc Dorset Natur Hist Archaeol Soc 121

Describes the architecture of the Norman parish church. Includes:

Studies the size, location, contents and associated monuments of the Bronze Age barrows in central Dorset in relation to the landscape. Barrows are divided into two groups: `conspicuous' (large and prominently located) and `inconspicuous' (the majority of sites). Objects placed within inconspicuous barrows are largely found to be from the Deverel-Rimbury culture. Suggests that `Celtic' fields are in general associated more closely with inconspicuous rather than conspicuous barrows. Additionally the two groups of barrows each have different types of enclosures and fields connected to them. Considers that inconspicuous barrows were part of an ideology in which the ancestors were an important influence on the activities of the living.

Excavations revealed evidence for various phases of activity. Early Bronze Age presence in the vicinity was indicated by fragments of Beaker and other potsherds redeposited in later contexts. Early Iron Age deposits from two shallow pits may have related to some form of mortuary activity, whilst two ditches and a post-hole provided evidence from the Romano-British period. Four inhumation burials were excavated from a discrete group in the south-west of the site, two of which were dated by radiocarbon determination, one to 370 BC--AD 10 and the other to AD 430--660. Evidence of extensive thirteenth- and fourteenth-century limestone quarrying was also recorded. Includes separately authored reports on:

which reports samples of roundwood, possibly representing fuel debris, from broadleaf taxa including: maple, alder, hazel and blackthorn/cherry. There is a notable absence of oak

Describes a collection of some thirty unfinished mortars found within the rear wall of a late-eighteenth-century property. Many of the mortars appear to have been broken during manufacture, which is estimated to have occurred c. 1600 AD.

Notes the discovery in Corfe of a mid-nineteenth-century jar with a rouletted band reading `R SHERING'.

Describes the erection of an obelisk in 1727, its collapse in 1836 and its subsequent re-erection. Also relates the structure's inscription.

Documents the fieldwork undertaken in the county during the year. Reports are arranged by project type, then alphabetically by place. Features many short, separately authored reports, including:

which documents Mesolithic, Neolithic, EBA, MBA, LIA/Romano-British, medieval and post-medieval finds and features

which documents various features identified through excavation including a robbed structure identified as part of the north-eastern defence of Roman Dochester

which reports the discovery of a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age crouched inhumation within a roughly circular pit. Includes four specialist reports on

and

survey and excavation centred on East Long Ground field noted four phases. Features of note include: a curvilinear ditch re-cut to include three extended inhumations; RB cremation in BBW vessel; rectangular feature, possible RB building.

notes a V-shaped ditch between the two Sixpenny Handley sites