INVESTIGATION OF THE WHITESHEET DOWN ENVIRONS 1989-90 185 
compacted primary fill rather than the true base of 
the ditch. 
In many respects, Hambledon Hill provides the 
most obvious comparison for the range of 
monuments and activities now documented on 
Whitesheet Down. The similar physical location of 
the two sites has been noted before (Thomas 1991, 
36): both occupy the very edge of the chalk uplands, 
at the junction with the low clay vales to the west. 
Both have more than one enclosure and although 
the uninterrupted ditched enclosure at Whitesheet 
Hill has yet to be investigated, similar enclosures 
have been found which are of earlier Neolithic date, 
e.g. Bury Hill, Sussex (Bedwin 1981). 
Like those at Hambledon Hill, the monuments 
on Whitesheet Down occupy an extensive area of 
upland plateau, separated from the rest of the 
surrounding chalk massif by a number of linear 
ditches or cross-ridge earthworks. Excavation 
undertaken as part of the pipeline work indicates 
that at least one of these earthworks was 
constructed in the Romano-British period. 
Elsewhere within Wessex a range of dates has been 
suggested for this monument type, ranging from 
the Neolithic through to Romano-British. 
Although the excavated examples at Hambledon 
Hill are clearly contemporary with the causewayed 
enclosure (Mercer 1980, 40), this is a rare 
occurrence. More typical dates are from the 2nd 
and Ist millennia BC (Fowler 1964; 1965; Rahtz 
1990; Cunliffe 1991, 36-9). 
Activity and Function 
As with many Neolithic monuments there is 
evidence for earlier, non-monumental activity. At 
Whitesheet this comprises a dated and weathered 
residual pig bone in the base of the recut of the 
enclosure ditch that dates to the Early Neolithic 
(4250-3350 cal BC). 
Evidence of activities within the enclosure is 
provided by the pits. Although severely truncated 
along the trackway and old coach road, they 
nevertheless provided artefactual assemblages of 
pottery, flint, bone and charred remains. Certain of 
the pits also contained sarsen but more often large 
flint nodules, including some reused ground stone 
implements. Earlier Neolithic pottery of South- 
Western Style (Whittle 1977) and considerable 
quantities of flint debitage, much of it burnt, were 
also recovered. The flint was not calcined, but a 
very high proportion showed signs of burning 
(Healy pers. comm.). 
All of the pits contained solution features or 
pipes. This may reflect the high concentration of 
solution features on the hilltop, or there may be a 
more formal link. Excavation of pits through clay 
may have been easier than through chalk, or the 
clay may have been a valued resource. The 
coincidence of Neolithic pits and natural features 
such as tree hollows and solution features is also 
noted by Healy at Hambledon Hill (Healy in 
Mercer and Healy in prep.). 
The faunal assemblage from the pits was 
dominated by pig, with cattle, some red deer antlers 
and a few sheep/goats present. Again much of this 
material was burnt, and the pit fills contained 
considerable quantities of charcoal and charred 
hazelnuts. The features themselves showed no signs 
of internal burning suggesting that the material had 
been introduced, presumably from fairly close by, 
probably within the enclosure. 
Overall much of the debris seems to indicate 
food waste. There are no ‘placed’ items, just 
discarded material. No other obvious activities are 
immediately evident in the record. This aspect may 
find parallels in the midden layers in the outer 
enclosure of Maiden Castle (Sharples 1991, 253-4), 
also seen as the products of activities taking place 
within the enclosure. 
Whether or not these activities could be 
described as the disposal of domestic refuse or a 
more structured mode of deposition is a question 
intrinsically linked to the discussion of the function 
of causewayed enclosures (cf. Smith 1971, 100; 
Gardiner 1988, 306-15; Thomas 1991, 34; Oswald et 
al. 2001). At Hambledon Hill, Dorset (Mercer 1980, 
23), most of the gabbroic pottery, at least two 
volcanic rock axes and all of the groundstone rubbers 
were found in pits within the interior of the main 
causewayed enclosure. The flintwork tended to be 
biased towards particular artefact types and red deer 
antlers, a rarity in the ditch fills, occurred in the pit 
bases (see also Gardiner 1988, 312-3). Some of the 
pits at Hambledon Hill are described as having held 
posts which were rammed into the pit fills, and were 
suggested to represent markers or possibly structural 
elements; but Mercer concluded that ‘it would be a 
fair interpretation to infer that no feature on the 
interior suggests a purely domestic function and 
that, where the evidence is at all positive, irrational 
considerations would appear to be paramount in 
their digging, furnishing and filling’ (2bid, 25). 
No spatial patterning of the interior features 
can be observed at Whitesheet Hill, largely because 
of the linear nature of the excavated area. It is clear 
