NEOLITHIC OF THE WYLYE VALLEY 1: CORTON LONG BARROW 71 
more open character with the Vallonia species, 
Pupilla  muscorum and AHelicella itala being 
important. This sequence suggests that an open and 
ancient woodland existed and, following clearance, 
open dry grassland developed. 
This relatively long sequence and sharp break 
may indicate a well developed soil profile with some 
internal stratigraphy (see Carter 1990), but may also 
indicate the presence of a subsoil (?tree hollow) 
feature. The difficulty of extracting soil through 
80cm of bank material and the nature of the 
augering made it difficult to discern any definite 
differences in the sampled context. An occurrence 
of a deeper feature cannot be confirmed from the 
limited augering conducted. 
Soil Pollen, by Rob Scaife 
Four subsamples taken from the snail samples were 
prepared for pollen analysis (see Table 1). These 
included samples from the soil worked into the 
mound (@83cm), the bAh horizon (@90cm) and 
the bB horizon (@100cm and 115cm). 
Standard techniques were used for the 
extraction of the sub-fossil pollen and spores 
(Moore and Webb 1978; Moore et al. 1991) with 
the addition of micromesh sieving (10). The soil 
was highly calcareous and as such represents a 
highly unsatisfactory context for pollen 
preservation. Consequently, a rigorous pollen 
extraction procedure was undertaken at the 
Department of Geography, University of 
Southampton, on relatively large samples of 6ml. 
Samples were decalcified with 10% HCL and 
deflocculated with 8% KOH. Coarse debris was 
removed through sieving at 150u and clay by 
micro-mesh (10w). Remaining silica was digested 
with 40% hydrofluoric acid. Erdtman’s acetolysis 
was carried out for removal of cellulose and 
expanding the size of pollen after extended HF 
treatment. 
Very little pollen and few spores were present in 
any of the samples, but surprisingly, the pollen 
samples contain a fair amount of humic material 
which remained on the microscope slide. There are 
a few spores of Dryopteris type (typical ferns), 
Pteridium aquilinum (bracken), and a single 
Polypodium vulgare (common polypody). These 
were far from abundant. In terms of pollen the very 
sporadic presence of Corylus avellana (hazel), a 
single Alnus (alder), a single Lactuceae (dandelion 
type) and a Poaceae (grass) were too few to record 
pollen counts. 
Pollen preservation in chalk soils is very 
variable. For instance good preservation was found 
in the Mesolithic pits at Stonehenge (Scaife 1995), 
while richly humic ancient land surfaces and turves 
from Bronze Age round barrows on King Barrow 
Ridge contained none (Scaife in Cleal and Allen 
1994). The poor preservation here may have been 
enhanced by biologically active woodland soils 
causing oxidation. Spores of ferns (esp. Polypodium) 
are often indicative of woodland but, of course, 
these represent the last vestiges of any pollen/spore 
preservation, and may be residual elements 
remaining in the soil for long periods. 
Although this is a sparse assemblage, the lack of 
Tilia (lime), a robust pollen grain, is noteworthy in 
view of its widespread dominance over many areas 
during prehistory. Interestingly other sites such as 
the buried soil under the Easton Down Neolithic 
barrow also lacked Tilia (Cruse in Whittle er al. 
1993, 219-221). The possible implications of this 
aspect will be discussed in a later paper (Allen, 
Gardiner and Scaife in prep.). 
DISCUSSION 
The Environment 
We can tentatively suggest from albeit limited 
research that ancient woodland had been cleared 
from immediately around the barrow not long 
before construction. Nevertheless, the establish- 
ment of a mixed open country mollusc fauna 
indicates that clearance was probably not for this 
construction, and that woodland was not far away. 
The position of the barrow, with its clear views to 
and from the valley floor, would only have been 
meaningful with largely unwooded valley sides. If 
the augered profile represents a buried soil rather 
than a subsoil feature (and buried soil), then 
clearance may have occurred only a relatively short 
period (possibly decades/a century) before barrow 
construction. Details from John Evans’s work on 
buried soils from other long barrows and in Wessex 
(West Kennet, Horslip, South Street, Beckhampton 
Road and Wayland’s Smithy II) indicate the 
removal of woodland and of well-established open 
grassland or even arable (South Street) conditions 
locally prior to barrow construction. Only Easton 
Down indicates clearance of woodland locally, 
possibly for the barrow or immediate pre-barrow 
events (Whittle et al. 1993). The more localised and 
less intensively modified pre-barrow environment 
