Celtic Earthworks on Salisbury Plain

Abstract

ARCHAEOLOGISTS are indebted to the Ordnance Survey for further service of no little value in the form of a map of Salisbury Plain, based on the Ordnance Survey map, 1: 25,000, and showing the Celtic fields and linear earthworks, which is now in course of preparation. The map will be issued in a series of six sections, of which the first, “Old Sarum” (Ordnance Survey, Southampton, 2s. 3d. net), is now ready. The archaeological features of the Ordnance Survey map have been taken as a basis, and to these have been added material from photographs of the plain taken by the Royal Air Force in the course of routine duties and from data recorded by members of the staff of the Survey. Dr. J. F. S. Stone, who has made a special study of linear earthworks, has also placed his information at the disposal of the Department.—No excavations have been undertaken to fill in gaps, but the hope is expressed that archaeologists, to whom the map is dedicated, will amplify by their labours the next edition. In a foreword, attention is directed to certain features of the map. A large number of ‘barrow circles’ have been located by air photography which are here recorded for the first time. Accordingly it has been thought necessary for the sake of consistency to show all barrows from neolithic to Saxon, the long barrows being numbered in accordance with the numbering in the map of Neolithic Wessex. Attention is also directed to the information afforded by the map on the movements of settlement in instances in which the site of cultivation appears to have been stationary and also to that bearing on the purpose of linear earthworks.