Description

Summary: 1 small pebble of red jasper, found with a primary cremation encircled by a wreath of antlers in bowl barrow Collingbourne Kingston G19, excavated by William Cunnington

Research results

A small red jasper pebble found with a primary cremation of bowl barrow Collingbourne Kingston G19, excavated by William Cunnington. In addition to this stone, the cremation was deposited with a number of barbed-and-tanged arrowheads, and was placed within a circle of red deer antler.

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.