Exçavations in Berkshire

Abstract

FURTHER particulars of the excavations on the Berkshire Downs to which reference was made in NATURE of August 18, p. 244, have been received from Mr. H. J. E. Peake. The site on which was discovered the skeleton of a dog was a round barrow on East Lockinge Down, which is mentioned in the bounds of Lakinge in a charter of A.D. 868. The remains were in the upper and larger of two holes in the chalk near the intersection of trenches dug across the barrow with the object of discovering the ditch, which was not visible on the surface. It was found that the highest point of the barrow is not in the centre. A small hole at the central point, about a foot in diameter, contained burnt human remains, but no grave furniture. The date suggested is the end of the Early Bronze or beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The irregular round barrow in the parish of East Hendred, from which the remains of the two horses were obtained, was found to have no ditch. Beneath the skeletons of the horses were a number of small objects of Roman date, including fragments of an iron knife and the pin of a bronze fibula hinged to a La T ¨ne coil. Elsewhere in the barrow were numerous fragments of Romano-British pottery and a small bronze hook. The exploration of Cuckhamsley, or Scutchermer Knob, which is known to have been rifled about a hundred years ago, provided no evidence of burial; but a number of fragments of pottery, including finger-tip ware, consistent with a fifth century B.C. dating were turned up, while 2 ft. above were potsherds and a fragment of copper or bronze of foliated design. The mound is evidently not a bronze age barrow nor the burial place of a Saxon king; what the purpose of this remarkable construction may have been has not been revealed.