West Kennet Long Barrow

Examination of a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by John Thurnam , 

In medieval times, and earlier, there must have been little speculation about the purpose of barrows and burial monuments on the British landscape. They were subject of myths and fairy tales, the homes of hobgoblins, and places where lover’s trysts, and the illegal exchange of contraband goods might have might taken place.

It may have been only in the 19th century that people began to explore them and develop explanations for their existence, as just one of an enormous variety of landscape features that some 5000 to 10,000 years of human occupation have left behind.

The people who started to wrestle with this history, the first archaeological pioneers, were members of an educated elite, reasonably wealthy, well read, well travelled, and often well placed in society.

They drew their inspiration for the findings of the archaeological work that they were undertaking from classical literature and from their knowledge of earlier civilisations elsewhere.

Many early archaeological investigations were for the purpose of looting, and even when the Society of Antiquaries was established, the reporting on the work its members were doing was short on detail.

The West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire, was excavated before 1861, and the report, which must have been quite a novelty, for the work, was published in the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London in that year.

The excavator was John Thurnam who was born near York, in 1810 to a Quaker family. He became a doctor and served as resident medical officer in the Westminster Hospital from 1834 till 1838, thereafter he was appointed medical superintendent of the Friends’ retreat in York until 1849. Finally he served as medical superintendent at the Wiltshire county asylum at Devizes from 1851 until his death in 1873.

He spent his leisure time studying mental illness, craniology, anthropology, and archaeology. (Urquhart)

When John Thurnam excavated the West Kennet Long Barrow though, he was remarkably thorough in his description of the operation itself, the nature of the finds, and of the sources and reasoning for his conclusions.

In his report to the Society of Antiquaries he describes the monument he excavated as one “of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as long barrows, which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare, but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised.”

John has then, already decided that the long Barrow was a sepulchral mound, which relates the monument to death and interment, although his predecessors were clearly not so sure.

He continues, “the long barrow near West Kennet is situated on the brow of a hill which commands a view of Avebury to the north, and St. Anne’s Hill and Wansdyke to the south, being about two miles distant from each.“

He went on to survey the monument, finding it “to be 336 feet long, 40 feet Wide at the west end, and 75 at the east.”

Beginning to describe the excavation work, he says,,,,, “The gallery (entrance) opens into a chamber of nearly quadrangular form, measuring about eight feet in length from east to west, and nine feet in breadth. It is about seven feet nine inches in clear height: “

   

Fig 13 West Kennet Long Barrow 

When he began excavating the Barrow, he found that, “In clearing out the gallery, a few scattered bones of animals, flakes and knives of flints, and fragments of British pottery, of various patterns, were picked up. There were also part of a rude bone pin, and a single bead of Kimmeridge shale, roughly made by hand.”

Within a topsoil layer “flint flakes and implements and bones of animals were much more numerous than above. The bones were nearly all those of animals likely to have been used for food , —the sheep or goat, ox of a large size, roebuck (of which there was part of a horn), swine of various ages, including boars with tusks of large size. There were also some of the bones of a badger, an animal still sometimes eaten by the peasantry.”

Beneath the topsoil, a chalk rubble, “extended to a depth of two feet, and in this were found four human skeletons, and parts of two others, all resting on the floor of the chamber.”

  

Fig 14 John Thurnam’s plan of his excavation of the Barrow 

“to the left of the entrance, was the skeleton of a youth of about seventeen years of age, apparently in a sitting posture . The skull was extensively fractured at the summit by what appeared to have been the death-blow . Behind this skeleton, and in the very angle of the chamber, was a pile of fragments of pottery.”

“Almost in the centre of the floor was the (second) skeleton, (that) of a man of about fifty years of age, of large and powerful frame. A fracture, probably the death-wound, extended from one temple to the other, through the forehead into the right cheek. “

The third skeleton “behind the last, and near the south-west corner of the chamber, was........ of a man of medium stature, from thirty to thirty-five years of age. “

In the northwest angle of the chamber was the fourth skeleton. This was “of a man of middle size, about the same age as the last. This skeleton was perhaps that of the chief for whose burial this chamber and tumulus were erected, and in honour of whom certain slaves and dependants were immolated.”

Between and behind the two previous skeletons, “close to the middle of the west wall of the chamber, were parts of the skeleton of a man of middle age. Close to these was a portion of a curious saucer of coarse pottery, perforated with a series of holes at the bottom, so as to form a kind of strainer and with a hole at each side by which it might have been suspended : another fragment of the same vessel was found at the opposite side of the chamber.”

Finally, between the sides of the two upright stones forming the west wall, was the chief part of the skull of an infant about a year old. 

In discussing the pottery finds John states that, “The quantity of coarse native pottery was very remarkable. At first it was thought that the heaps in the angles of the chamber would prove to be the fragments of vases, deposited entire when the funeral rites were completed. This, however, was not the case, and whence the fragments came, and why here deposited, must be matter of conjecture. They at least remind us of the “shards, flints, and pebbles,” which our great dramatist connects with the graves of suicides (Hamlet, v. 1), and the use of which in mediæval times may have been a relic of paganism. That the fragments found in the chamber were those of domestic vessels required for the funeral feast, is by no means clear; for in such case, had the mass of fragments been deposited, it would have been possible to have reconstructed at least some of the vessels. As it is, the variety of form and ornament, of colour and texture displayed by them is even more remarkable than their number. In hardly more than three cases were two or more fragments of the same vessel met with. In stating that there were parts of not fewer than fifty different vessels, we shall probably be very much within the truth.”

“It has been already suggested that some of the skeletons in the chamber, on the skulls of which marks of violence are evident, are those of slaves or dependants, immolated on the occasion of the burial of their chief. That this was the custom of the Celtic tribes at one period, cannot be doubted; as Cæsar tells us that, only a little before his time, the Gauls devoted to the funeral pile the favourite slaves and retainers of the dead. Mela even speaks of these immolations as being voluntarily performed, with the hope of joining the dead in a future life. These remarks apply to cremation, the usual though perhaps not universal concomitant of burial among the Gauls in the times of Cæsar and Mela.”

Current dating of the West Kennet Long Barrow has been supplied by Bayliss et al, who in their preferred interpretation, find that “the construction of the monument occurred in the middle decades of the 37th century BC. The last interments of this initial use of the chambers probably occurred in 3640–3610 cal BC, and the infilling of the chambers began in 3620–3240 cal BC, and continued into the second half of the third millennium BC.

The evidence that John uncovered in his excavation of the West Kennet Long Barrow could be reinterpreted as a structure which was effectively a man-made cave. His finding of many types of Neolithic pottery, but very few shards of which connected to each other suggests that the interior of the cairn was frequently used, often with pottery taken in, and as frequently were fragments removed. 

The presence of a skeleton, apparently in a seated position, in one corner of the excavated room poses a couple of questions. If the owner of the skeleton was brought into the cairn dead, would it have been possible to seat him as he was found? Did he die where he was found? Was the death of him and the several other individuals in the cairn a sign of the ending of use of the structure as a place where pottery was commonly introduced and broken? 

It is clear from John’s account that he had decided that the Long Barrow, and other such structures were burial monuments, and his work was used as a reference by others in the same century who were also enquiring about their purpose.

 (Thurnam) , Examination of a chambered long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by John Thurnam , ESQ ., M.D. , F.S.A.

(Urquhart) Dictionary of National Biography, Thurnam, John by Alexander Reid Urquhart