126 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
The Fired Clay 
by Alistair Barclay 
The excavations produced a large fragment of a 
cylindrical weight (sf 121) and two small pieces of 
amorphous fired clay (contexts 585 and 621). The 
weight provides probable evidence of textile 
manufacture on the site. Similar weights have been 
found on a number of later Bronze Age sites in the 
Upper Thames valley (e.g. Wallingford, Yarnton and 
Eynsham: Barclay 2001, 139). A similar weight was 
found at a late Bronze Age site at Shorncote some 5 
km to the west (Morris 1994, 43-4 and fig 13:2). 
Fig. 18 The Loomweight 
Catalogue (Fig. 18) 
Sf 121, context 372. Clay loomweight (453 g). 
Approx. 50% complete, dia. 100 mm, ht. 67 mm. 
Manufactured from unmodified silty clay. 
The Wooden Bowl 
by Maisie Taylor 
The wooden bowl recovered from waterhole 421 
was quite fragmentary but it was possible to 
reconstruct virtually the complete profile (Figure 
19). The bowl is carved from a single piece of fine 
grained, diffuse porous wood, probably a log of 
alder. The vessel appears to be round-based, 
although the base is thickened for strength and 
stability. The sides and rim are well carved and so 
well finished that there is very little evidence for 
how the vessel was worked. 
No precise parallels of similar date have been 
found for the bowl from Latton Lands, but then 
Prehistoric wooden vessels are very rare in 
England. This is possibly because the ideal 
0 250 mm 
———— ___—__ 
1:4 
Fig. 19 The Middle Bronze Age Bowl 
conditions for preservation are equally rare, but 
may also be due to the difficulties of recognising 
this kind of material in situ. 
One of the Neolithic bowls from Etton, Cam- 
bridgeshire is very similar in profile (Taylor 1998, fig 
168), but the one from Latton Lands is much finer, 
with thinner walls. When discussing the Neolithic 
wooden bowls from Etton, it was apparent that there 
were similarities with contemporary pottery forms. 
This is not the case at Latton, however, and may 
strengthen the argument that the shapes of wooden 
bowls were determined by the character and grain of 
the wood, rather than borrowing predetermined 
shapes derived from pottery. 
The Molluscs 
by Elizabeth Stafford 
Introduction 
Six samples were submitted for analysis of molluscan 
remains from the lower fills of the two middle 
Bronze Age ditch termini, 366 and 383 (Figures 3 
and 4). 
