Description

Summary: 1 neolithic Peterborough Ware pottery vessel partly reconstructed, decorated with finger pinched marks all over the body and bird bone impressions around the rim, from West Kennet Long Barrow, Avebury, Wiltshire, excavated by Professor Stuart Piggott and his staff and students at the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, 1955-56.

Research results

A reconstructed bowl of Middle Neolothic Peterborough ware, probably dating to 3400-2800 BC. The sherds were found during Stuart Piggott and the University of Edinburgh's 1955-56 excavation of the West Kennet long barrow, and is part of a larger assemblage of Peterborough ware thought to contain 60 separate vessels. The West Kennet assemblage was found to contain 12 vessels of Ebbsfleet ware, 19 of Mortlake ware and 17 of Fengate, the other vessels being unassigned to a particular sub-division. In particular the assemblage has helped in the reconstruction of the production of Fengate ware, which is typically found fragmentary, showing that flat bases were produced with an applied slab of clay.

The Peterborough ware assemblage from West Kennet was re-examined by Ard and Darvill (2015) as part of a wider corpus of 14 site assemblages inspected in order to assess the definition and usefulness of the three sub-divisions of the pottery style: Ebbsfleet ware, Mortlake Ware, and Fengate Ware. In addition the study also carried a literature review and search of relevant HERs and other databases to identify all known sites to have produced the fabric in England and Wales: identifying 2750 vessels across 600 sites. They conclude that the sub-division is meaningful on the basis of morphology, choice of temper and decorative techniques. They also suggest a link between Peterborough ware and deposition in pits.