Description

Summary: animal bone and teeth, early Bronze Age, horse, roe deer, ox, sheep and goat from saucer barrow Snail Down II, Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire, excavated by Nick Thomas, 1953-1957.

Research results

Animal remains excavated from the saucer barrow Collingbourne Kingston G6 (Snail Down II), excavated by Nick Thomas in 1953-1957. The barrow covered two cists, both containing a cremation, but with the upper fill of each cist filled with pottery sherds and animal bones, in a third deposit, an inverted food vessel covered further animal bones, and a number of grave goods; mirroring the manner in which numerous human cremations have been found at other barrows.

Wilkin (2011) discusses this grave group alongside a number of other Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age graves in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Oxfordshire, in order to explore the significance of the inclusion of animal remains in graves of this period for human-animal relationships. They suggest that whilst these are not frequent inclusions, only appearing in 15% of graves, they are disproportionately non-meat bearing elements such as skulls, horns, and antlers and may have had symbolic connotations. He suggests that animal remains linked practical and cosmological concerns; for example: the quality of a year’s antler harvest may have impacted communities’ ability to construct a monument, tying social identities to natural cycles. The inclusion of domestic cattle and wild deer in the same graves may have had significance in terms of how the dichotomy of hunting and farming was viewed by contemporary communities, whilst the animal remains themselves may have referenced the inherent characteristic of the animals themselves and assisted in the evocation of spirits or powers, or have had symbolic potential.