TR 30034766. Ring ditch and other linear feature, west of Eastling Wood. Air photo. (1)

Recorded at TR 3001 4762 by field survey in 1991. Circular soil marks recorded as a bronze age and later ring-ditch and a quarry. (2)

The excavation exposed a subcircular earthwork consisting of a primary segmented ring-ditch and two later continuous concentrically arranged ring-ditches. The earthwork appeared to have developed in four distinct phases (three involving structural modifications, one comprising a phase of structural disintegration) and contained a minimum of eleven human burials including six in situ crouched inhumations (one was wood-encoffined) and three cremations, one of which was urned. Five of the crouched inhumations were of juveniles. The apparently protracted first use of a barrow as a burial place exclusively for children is extremely rare.

An intact and in-situ cremation vessel was recovered as were the sherds of an almost complete small ceramic cup The fragments of the cup had been deliberately re-buried along with a child's skull following the reuse of the grave for a later inhumation..

Substantial quantities of residual purposely struck flints and finished implements were recovered from the secondary and upper ring-ditch fills, as were and animal bones, mostly of cattle. The ceramic assemblage consists of a total of 267 potsherds, the majority of which were recoverd form the secondary and upper ring-ditch again.

The barrow was cut by a Late IA straight flat bottomed ditch on a northeast-southwest alignment. It may suggest that the barrow still represented a conspicuous landmark when the ditch was cut.(3-4)

<1> AP's NMR 283 (OS Card Reference). SKE34321.

<2> K A R U Record Card DV 453 (OS Card Reference). SKE45199.

<3> Cross, R. P., 1991, A256 Whitfield to Eastry Improvement Road: Initial Archaeological Field Survey, A256 Whitfield to Eastry Improvement rd, Inital arch. field survey. CAT, 1991. (Unpublished document). SKE11866.

<4> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1995, White Caps Barrow (Site 3) Assessment (Unpublished document). SKE7101.