NHER 52481 (Monument record) - Site of a Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age round barrow

February 2010. Norfolk NMP.
The cropmarks and excavations described below were previously recorded as part of NHER 9585.
A Late Neolithic and/or Early Bronze Age round barrow is visible as soilmarks and cropmarks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S9), centred at TG 2397 0529. Together with a second, smaller barrow located only 30m to its northwest (NHER 52482), the site was excavated in 1989-90 in advance of the construction of the Norwich Southern Bypass. The excavations demonstrated that the barrow was used for both inhumation and cremation burial; one of the latter was carbon dated to the early to mid third millennium BC. Details of the excavation results and a wider discussion of the barrow in its topographic and archaeological context are given in the published site report (S10). The NMP mapping has demonstrated that the barrow lies in the southwest corner of what appears to be a large dispersed barrow cemetery (NHER 53403), located on a west-facing slope overlooking the confluence of the Rivers Yare and Tas.
The NMP mapping for the site largely accords with the results of the excavation, showing a slightly oval ring ditch defined by a continuous ditch; the excavation plan shows the ditch to be somewhat more substantial than indicated by the cropmark. The excavations revealed traces of the internal mound visible as soilmarks on aerial photographs taken in 1946 (S1), and demonstrated that the burials were cut through this mound rather than being sealed by it. The NMP mapped none of the internal graves or cremation pits revealed by the excavations; almost all the internal pit-like features visible on the aerial photographs (and not mapped) were indistinguishable from those in the surrounding area which are presumed to be wholly or largely of natural origin (a supposition confirmed in some cases by excavation, (S10)). The only photograph to show additional internal pit-like marks (S3), possibly including one corresponding to grave cut 21 ((S10), fig. 18) was not rectifiable and so was not used for mapping. A possible internal ditch visible towards the eastern side of the ring ditch, and which was not identified by the excavations, may simply be a frost-crack in the underlying geology, clear evidence of which is visible further to the east (also not mapped). 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 or all of which are likely to post-date the barrow site.
The ring ditch measures approximately 30m in diameter.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 12 February 2010.