NHER 53403 (Landscape record) - Site of Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age barrow cemetery

April 2010. Norfolk NMP.
The site of a Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age round barrow cemetery is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S4) (see records of individual barrows for more detailed list of sources), centred at TG 2412 0544. The cemetery occupies a west-facing slope overlooking the confluence of the Rivers Yare and Tas, and appears to have been fairly large and dispersed, comprising at least five and perhaps seven or more barrows. Some of the ring ditches making up the cemetery (NHER 6099, 52481-2) were excavated in advance of the construction of the Norwich Southern Bypass (S5). The results demonstrated that the cemetery was used for both inhumation and cremation burial between the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Linear features in the surrounding area are part of a large group of ditched boundaries (NHER 52489) which appear to represent several phases of field systems and trackways. Most if not all of these are likely to post-date the cemetery site, and various elements seem to slight or respect the individual barrows.
The cemetery extends across an area measuring approximately 430m by 234m. There is no clear patterning to the barrows, all of which are broadly circular in plan and range from 18m to 39m in diameter.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 12 April 2010.