The series of photographs, taken from the southern edge of Cotley Hill, show a circular ditch known as a 'cropmark' in a field of wheat and its location relative to the village.
The cropmark has been produced by a difference in the growth of the crop over the area highlighting the features below the ground and are sometimes only visible for a short time due to weather conditions.
Such features are seen on aerial photographs, but can also be seen from vantage points as in this case. Wiltshire Council County Archaeology records show that this feature was identified by a former member of the Archaeology Service in 1996 when he too saw it from Cotley Hill. However, these photographs give a better location for the ring ditch than previously plotted.
In this case the feature is likely to be the circular ditch of a Bronze Age (c.2200BC - 800BC) round barrow, which would have surrounded a mound, now ploughed away. |
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Bronze Age barrows are the burial place of significant people, and one or more burials are usually found in the centre of the barrow, where they were either placed on the surface of ground or in a cave.
Burials can include cremations placed in urns. Excavations have shown that even though a mound has been ploughed away, there may still be remains of burials beneath the ground.
Barrows are a particularly well known feature of Wiltshire where they are usually found on higher Chalkland areas. Some of the best surviving examples are located around Stonehenge and Avebury.
Photography & text by Ron Dawson of Norton Bavant |
