Description

Summary: 1 polished stone macehead of greenstone, ground to an oblong oval shape and pierced by a small, almost central, hole (unfinished), from material in Bowl Barrow G 13 Winterbourne Stoke, excavated by William Cunnington.

Research results

An incomplete polished macehead, from the Neolithic but found reused in the mound-material of the Winterbourne Stoke G13 Bronze Age round barrow. The barrow was excavated in the early 19th century by William Cunnington, and is made of an unsourced greenstone, with a small, slightly irregular, perforation.

This macehead was examined by Katharian Becker (2019) as part of her MSc dissertation with the University of Southampton. She suggests that the perforation on the axehead is likely not original, perhaps replacing a more regular perforation lost due to the break, and due to its stepped profile is unlikely to have been to facilitate the hafting of the object. She suggests that the depositional context of the macehead shows the continued value communities placed on what were already ancient artefacts.