Free preview of our Stone
Circles CD-ROM in the new Stone Circle Shop
Megalithic Mysteries - England Navigation:
The Long Barrow
visible from the road
is in the background
Click Here 
for Hi-Res images
(34k, 52k)
These aerial views of Winterbourne Stoke Barrow Cemetery illustrate almost
all the different varieties of earthen barrow made by Neolithic and Bronze Age man. The
former built the English 
long barrows, noted for the multiple human burials found
inside them; men, women and children. One of the easiest to see from a major road is next
to the Winterbourne Stoke crossroads (now roundabout).
Also in view are a large number of Bronze Age round barrows of various varieties. On the bigger images it is possible to make out bowl barrows, bell barrows and disc barrows (all fairly self-explanatory in shape). I have read there are 27 - try counting them! Eleven of them are roughly aligned with the long barrow.
Each round barrow has only one burial (sometime two). This suggests that between what we call Neolithic and Bronze Age periods there was a change in society towards honouring individual chieftans, as it is clear from the number of round barrows that only a few of the population were buried in one. What happened to everyone else is not known! Five of the round barrows are very early (2100BC), and contain inhumations (burials) rather than the later cremations. It is clear that the area around the abandoned long barrow remained sacred for thousands of years.
As an aside, on the subject of barrows in Wiltshire, bone flutes have been found in round barrows at Avebury and Normanton .
Access: The dual carriageway in the top picture is the A303. I haven't visited these on foot.
Personal: From a very young age I always looked out for the Long Barrow at this junction on the way to Devon or Cornwall.
Megalithic Mysteries - England Navigation:
|
Free use of images:
The above photographs are � Andy Burnham unless otherwise stated
You are free to use up to
20 of my photographs on your web site provided that:
1 - they are not images credited to another photographer
2 - you put a link to www.megalithic.co.uk
and credit Andy Burnham near every image used
For images credited to
other photographers please ask permission by contacting me
for their e-mail address.
Using material in any other way without the author's permission is strictly
forbidden.
The Stone
Circle Shop
