Monument record MDO5643 - Bronze Age settlement at Down Farm, Gussage St Michael

A Middle Bronze Age settlement and enclosure at Down Farm, discovered during pipe-laying and excavated 1977-79. A complex sequence was identified. The earliest activity was of Later Neolithic date (MDO47833) and had no connection with the later settlement. The first, unenclosed, phase of Bronze Age activity was represented by a pair of round houses. Both share the same axis as a lyncheted field system located nearby, a system which is at right angles to the Dorset Cursus (Linear 41). The cursus was probably in use as a field boundary. Subsequently an enclosure ditch withinternal bank was constructed, representing around half the perimeter of the settlement, being present on its southeast and southwest sides and part of the northwest side. This was accompanied by a palisade trench which surrounded the entire settlement. Within the area enclosed by the palisade was a succession of round houses and a four post structure and, in the last phase, 3 parallel rows of postholes which seem to represent a long rectangular building. The settlement was associated with the use of Deverel-Rimbury pottery. The ditch contained a series of midden deposits as well as dog and cattle skulls, while pottery, flint and animal remains, among other items, came from the settlement features. A possible pond lay outside the enclosure just to the southwest. <1-4>

SU 00011467. Enclosure, area 0.14 ha., three sides ditched; roughly rectangular. Excavated by Mr M. Green; Middle Bronze Age; fence completed rough rectangle; round and long 'huts' inside. <2-3>

Described in RCHME Bowen 1991 as small enclosure with three ditched sides and roughly rectangular in shape. Excavated by Mr M Green with round and long huts found inside (Proc Dorset Natur Hist Archaeol Soc 101 (1979) 135-7.

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1981, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1979, 135-137 (Serial). SDO79.

<1.1> Wainwright, G J, 1979, Gussage All Saints. An Iron Age Settlement in Dorset, 10 (Monograph). SDO14247.

<2> Bowen, H C, 1990, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke, 91 (Monograph). SWX800.

<3> Bowen, H C, 1991, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke: Inventory, 28 (Monograph). SDO14864.

<4> Barrett, J, Bradley, R and Green, M, 1991, Landscape, Monuments and Society: the prehistory of Cranborne Chase, 183-211 (Monograph). SDO16633.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 868724 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 7 2024 4:18PM