Dolesfield Hundred, Wiltshire, South-West England, British Isles

Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1913 V38 Pages 379-414. Tilshead. 1. "Kill Barrow [Map]," on the Tilshead — Chitterne All Saints parish boundary. Length 170ft. (Thurnam); S.E. and N.W. Opened by Thurnam in 1865.¹ At one time Thurnam believed this not to be a true "Long" barrow, but an oval one of the Bronze Age; but he subsequently changed his opinion and compared its unusual features with those of the Long Barrow, Winterbourne Stoke 53 (Hoare's No. 3). " Both... yielded deposits of burnt bones covered and intermixed with a substance resembling mortar, many of the bones being tinged of a green colour. At Kill Barrow it was clear that several bodies had been burnt very imperfectly, some of the bones being merely charred. Others were stained a brilliant green and blue, but chemical tests yielded no traces of copper. Under a pile of a white friable substance like half-dried shelly mortar, were curious masses of a sort of ossiferous breccia; the burnt human bones, black, white, blue, and green, being closely cemented by calcareous matter. I am now convinced that both are Long barrows, and not Oval ones, as I had supposed." The MS. Cat. gives some details that may not be published elsewhere: — " The primary interment consisted of piles of burnt bones on the floor of the barrow at the east end. One of these to the east of the other, would have about filled a peck; the other, 6ft. or 7ft. nearer the middle of the barrow, was in much greater quantity. These burnt bones were some of them curiously [mixed] with burnt flints, sarsen chips, &c, into what I have called an ossiferous breccia, and many were stained of a beautifully vivid blue and green colour. These burnt bones were unequally burnt, and many merely charred were quite black. Above the bones the chalk rubble of the barrow was curiously changed into a delicate friable cream-coloured substance like burnt shells. I fancy this an imperfect lime, formed probably from the burnt bones having been deposited whilst hot. This substance was very abundant, and would probably have filled a bushel." Two secondary burials of skeletons were found also. One was "one foot deep, — stretched at length, with head to the north (or N".N".W.) " The other skeleton was "in the same position, nearer the eastern end." It seems that the barrow was opened on two separate occasions. The skull from the first-mentioned secondary burial only, seems to have been sent to Cambridge.

The barrow is unploughed and in good condition, but no distinguishable ditch. O.M. 46 SW.; AAV. I. 89; Arch, xliii. 297, note; Proc. Soc. Ant., 2 S., II. 427; W.A.M. xi. 42; xiv. 259 (name); MS. Cat. 258.

Note 1. This barrow is not included among the list of those opened by Thurnam.

Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1872 V13 Pages 339-342. The Long Barrows differ in toto from those of the circular form, and belong to a different and earlier epoch. From their usually great size, with one end only devoted to interment, they may be quite as much or even more properly regarded as monuments than as mere tombs. They very commonly measure from 200 to 250 feet in length, and in rare cases even 300 or 400 feet. They seldom exceed ten feet in height, and are wider and higher at one end than at the other — usually that pointing to the east; though at times, they range north and south, in which case the south end is of larger size. It is at this larger end, under what we may term the apex of the tumulus, that the interments are found, on or but little below the natural level of the ground. At each side of the barrow is a trench, whence great part of the material of which the barrow consists has been derived; which trenches, it is remarkable, are not continued round the ends of the barrow. From the great size of the Long Barrows, and the often uncertain position of the apex, their exploration is attended with great labour and difficulty, and hence only a comparatively small number have been explored. About fifteen of those in South Wiltshire were excavated by the elder Cunnington and Sir Richard Hoare, and more recently rather more than that number by Dr. Thurnam. From these data a tolerably complete view of the character of these barrows has been obtained.¹ Usually — in at least six cases out of seven — the interments consist of unburnt bodies. Sometimes, there is a single skeleton doubled up; but more commonly a pile of many skeletons, as many perhaps as ten or twenty in number, the bones mixed promiscuously, as if removed from some prior place of burial. The greater part of the skulls are cleft, and many of the long bones split, as if the majority of those interred had been immolated, in honour perhaps of a deceased chieftain, and as if not alone human sacrifice, but cannibalism likewise, had been resorted to. In rare cases (and the Long Barrow round which they were now gathered was one), the body or bodies had been burnt, but the cremation was of a peculiar and imperfect sort, the bones being charred, rather than completely burnt like those in the Round Barrows. In one instance, that of the largest Long Barrow in South Wilts, that of Tilshead Old Ditch [Map], which measures 380ft. in length, and was imperfectly explored in 1802, Dr. Thurnam in 1865, found the true primary interment, at a depth of ten feet, consisting of one imperfectly burnt body, and immediately adjacent a doubled-up unburnt skeleton, that of a woman of small stature, the skull bearing indisputable marks of having been violently cleft before burial, and doubtless during life. The burnt body must be regarded as that of the chief, the unburnt one as that of the wife or female slave, slaughtered that she might accompany her lord to the land of spirits.

Note 1. Archæologia. Vol. XLII., p. 169.

Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1913 V38 Pages 379-414. Tilshead. 2. "Old Ditch" Barrow [Map]. Length 377ft. (Hoare); 380ft. (Thurnam); NE. and S.W. Opened, 1802, by Wm. Cunnington, who made a section 85ft. long from the E. end, but failed to find the primary burial; he noticed the usual stratum of black sooty soil, and found two secondary burnt burials near the surface of the mound. He then cut a section at the VV. end and found three skeletons lying on a pavement of flints about 18in. above the floor of the barrow. In 1865 it was re-opened by Thurnam who made a large excavation near the E. end; and only a few feet beyond where Cunnington had left off in 1802, he found the primary interment. The following account of the discovery is from the MS. Cat. " No. 235. Ancient British. From the great Long Barrow at Tilshead, near Old Ditch, excavated by Thurnam, September 29th, 1865. This (the primary interment) was found by us after great labour, and at a depth of ten feet under the highest point of the tumulus close to its eastern end. Here, at or below the base, was a pile of large flints mixed with a stratum of black earth, and below these was a small skeleton well preserved, in the contracted position and with head to the north. The skull was smashed, as I thought at first by the weight of the flints, but from the peculiar character of a contused cleft near the coronal border of the left parietal, it would appear to have been purposely cleaved before interment. Within a foot or two of the skeleton to the east, under the pile of flints, and on a sort of pavement of the same, were a heap of imperfectly burnt bones, in larger pieces than is usual in round barrows. This very exceptional deposit after cremation must have been made contemporaneously with that of the body to which the entire skeleton belonged. The burnt bones, which were unmixed with charcoal, were perhaps buried whilst still hot, many of the flints around them being of a red or blue colour and very brittle as if from the effect of heat. The only relic with them was a rude and heavy opalescent flint; whether the apparently chipped edges were intentionally given to it may be doubtful; it is 2½in. long, 1¾in. wide, and thick. Other extensive excavations were made in the most likely situations without finding anything except in one place the bones of a fox a few feet deep."

This barrow, one of the finest and longest in the county, is in excellent condition. It lies on gently sloping ground, not at the top of a hill, and in spite of its great size is not at all conspicuous. It has lately been planted with a row of trees along its crest. As its name implies it is close to the remarkable bank and ditch known as "Old Ditch" that traverses the down for some miles to E. and W. of the barrow; as noticed by Hoare "Old Ditch" makes a decided curve when it reaches the mound in order to avoid it.

The ditch of the barrow is very well defined on the north side, but not so well on the south, for "Old Ditch" passing the barrow on that side has somewhat obscured it. O.M. 54 NW.; A. W I. 90; Arch, xlii., 175, 180, 191, 192; W.A.M., xiii., 231 [Note. The Page here is incorrect; the page is 341]; Bull, de la Soc. d'Anthrop., 2 S., ii., 357, 676, fig.; Mem. Anthrop. Soc, iii., 65, PI. i.,fig. i.; MS. Cat. 235.