The excavation of a large circular dished earthwork near Carnforth,
North Lancashire, in 1982, has revealed a substantial Bronze Age funerary
monument. The earliest structure was a sub-rectangular enclosure of
limestone boulders dated to c. 1740–1640 BC cal. and
associated with parts of two poorly preserved inhumation burials lying on
the previously cleared ground surface. Both burials were accompanied by
typologically early metalwork. The central inhumation was associated with
a flat axe and dagger, suggesting an individual of high status as well as
providing an important link between the early stages of development of
both bronze types. The subsequent overlying cairn of smaller stones
included eleven fairly discrete concentrations of inhumed bone, and seven
of cremated bone and pottery. All this material was extremely
fragmentary, and was probably derived from later re-use of the
cairn.