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Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Settlement at Broom Hill, Michelmersh, Hants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

Between the rivers Test and Itchen in Hampshire, to the west of Winchester, and to the north-east of Romsey, there is a tract of high ground, forming the watershed between these two rivers, rising at Farley Mount, close to the Roman road from Venta to Sorbiodunum, to a height of 500 ft. above the sea. A part of this tract, particularly the area above the 300-ft. contour, in the ecclesiastical parishes of Farley Chamberlayne and Braishfield, is specially rich in surface flint implements of Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. The Broom Hill site is at the southern boundary of this area, on the borders of these two parishes and in the civil parish of Michelmersh. The position is latitude 51° 2′ north, and longitude 1°27′ west. It happens to be marked on O. S. 6-in. xlix, NW., by a triangle, showing that the place was used as a trigonometrical station, and is, therefore, readily visible for some miles around. The height of the point above sea-level is 330 ft.

Here at intervals, during the years 1932 and 1933, the writer discovered some neolithic pottery which will be described by Mr. Stuart Piggott. The site is approximately 150 yards wide from east to west, and some 250 yards long from north to south. It is a ridge of chalk, capped by a sandy clay, above which again is a rough pebbly gravel in which the pottery was found, about twenty to thirty inches below the turf. The fact that there is clay under the gravel causes the land below the hill to be exceedingly marshy, and this state of things was probably even more pronounced in ancient times. The site is a narrow neck ending in a broader portion, entirely surrounded, except at the southern end, by steep slopes or marsh. The form of the site cannot be judged from the shape of the 300-ft. contour on the map, for there is an under-feature which causes the site to assume the form of a peninsula jutting northwards. But at the narrow southern end there is no sign of any defensive bank, which might, perhaps, have been expected; but the site shows signs of having been under plough, though not in living memory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1934

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References

page 248 note 1 Arch. Journ. lxxxviii, 67 ff., esp. 82–5.

page 252 note 1 See Clark's map in Antiquity, v, 419.

page 252 note 2 Antiq. Journ. xiv, 116 and fig. 6.

page 252 note 3 Rosenberg, Kulturströmungen in Europa zur Steinzeit; Childe in Arch. Journ. lxxxviii, 58 ff.

page 252 note 4 I am indebted to Prof. Kourinny of Kiev for the trouble he has taken in trying to discover parallels among the Oussatova and allied wares. He finds, however, that the Michelmersh ornament ‘is unknown either in the Ukraine or in the U.S.S.R.’

page 253 note 1 See the Ordnance Survey's Map of Neolithic Wessex, on which the Broom Hill site is marked (no. 46).

page 253 note 2 Sussex Notes and Queries, 1933, iv, 217 ; Antiq. Journ. xiv, 41.

page 253 note 3 Arch. Journ. lxxxviii, 140; Proc. Isle of Wight Arch. Soc. 1932, ii, 196201Google Scholar.

page 253 note 4 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xlv, 366 ff.