116 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
N Vea 
A —__—— 
640 
a mae Ba : ~ 4 
! ae 
= I~ 
lan r la 
H i » 
Bim 
A 
ve a) 
/ : 
= 640 
Sand/gravel 
0 tim 
ce Dee AA 
Staining from body 
Fig. 11 Section Through the Late Bronze Age Inhumation 
during the watching brief; no dating evidence was 
recovered from the fills. The burial comprised a 
crouched inhumation of a female aged 25 — 35, 
lying on the right side in an oval pit (640) with a 
U-shaped profile, measuring1.44 m in length by 1 
m in width and 0.78 m in depth. The lower 0.04 m 
of the pit was filled by a light brown sandy gravel 
(653), overlain by 0.26 m of dark reddish-brown 
silty clay (652) containing gravel and burnt 
limestone fragments. Overlying this was a thin 
(0.03 m) layer of dirty sandy gravel with lenses of 
dark grey silt (654). The upper 0.45 m of the pit was 
filled by a greyish brown silty clay loam (641) 
containing charcoal flecks, gravel and fragments of 
burnt limestone. No pottery was recovered from the 
fills. 
Other Features 
A number of amorphous pits, scoops and postholes 
clustered along the edges of the ditches and in the 
area defined by them. Although unexcavated and 
therefore undated, their relationship to the ditches 
and other middle Bronze Age features suggests that 
they were contemporary. 
Iron Age Features 
A number of features including pits and ditches lay 
to the north and east of the middle Bronze Age 
enclosure, and many of them may be Iron Age in 
date. These included pit 428 to the north-east of 
ditch 783 (Figure 12). 
Pits 
Pit 428 was sub-circular in plan and U-shaped in 
profile, having a rounded base and steeply sloping 
sides (Figures 12 and 13). It was 1.2 m in length by 
0.9 m in width and 0.6 m in depth. With the 
exception of a layer of silty gravel at the base, the pit 
was filled by layers of silty clay. The primary fill 
(429) was a mid grey-brown silty gravel 0.43 m 
thick, displaying a steep inclination down from the 
western edge of the pit. Overlying this was a 0.30 m 
thick mid greyish brown silty clay (430) containing 
some gravel, displaying a steep inclination down 
from the eastern edge of the pit. Overlying this was 
a mid brownish-grey silty clay (431) 0.44 m thick, 
from which 26 sherds of Iron Age pottery were 
recovered. 
Undated Features 
Ring Ditch (Figure 14) 
Part of a ring ditch was found in a small trench on 
the western side of the footprint for the new A419, 
about 160 m from the middle Bronze Age 
enclosure. This feature was associated with a dense 
scatter of amorphous pits. It was decided to 
preserve these features im situ and they were 
therefore left unexcavated. 
Pits (Figure 12) 
Miscellaneous pits, some quite irregular, were 
found in all areas of the site. Some may have been 
tree-throw holes. A substantial pit (406) was cut by 
ditch 784 making it earlier than the middle Bronze 
Age settlement enclosure, although it contained 
middle Bronze Age pottery and is therefore 
described in detail below. 
Pit 406 (Figures 12 and 13) was sub-circular in plan 
and U-shaped in profile, having a rounded base and 
steep slightly convex sides. It was 2.55 m in length 
by 1.1 m wide and 1.1 m in depth. With the 
exception of a single layer of silty sand at the base, 
the pit was filled by layers of silty clay, with two 
recuts. The primary fill (407) was of light brown 
