Description

Summary: 1 bag of animal bone fragments, possibly antler, from the excavations of the neolithic long barrow at Cold Kitchen Hill, Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire by F de M and HFW Vatcher, 1964

Research results

Fragments of Antler excavated from a Neolithic Longbarrow on Cold Kitchen Hill (Kingston Deverill G1), Kingston Deverill, by F de M and HFW Vatcher in 1964. Unfortunately, the faunal remains from the site received little attention from either the excavators or Harding (1986), who subsequently published the results, and very little of the animal remains were retained and deposited with the museum. Re-examining the surviving material and archive Pollard (1993) and Banfield (2018) note that several pieces of antler appear to have been deliberately deposited as part of larger groups of animal remains in the north ditch: unworked antler was deposited with cow bones which were possibly at least partially fleshed and may have been contained within a hide sack, and in the same ditch a canid skeleton was deposited within a ring of cattle mandibles and worked antler.

In her PhD with the university of Leicester, Bandfield (2018) re-examined the osseous assemblages Beckhampton Road, West Kennet and Cold Kitchen Hill long barrows, as well as material held by other institutions from a number of Neolithic long barrows in the Avebury and Salisbury plain areas. She takes a post-humanist approach to these materials, seeking to re-analyse and re-emphasise faunal assemblages which garnered little attention from the original excavators and in initial post-excavation analyses and publication. In doing so, she illustrates both the potential importance of human-animal relations to the communities who contructed these monuments, but also the significant meaning these remains may have conveyed.

This material is commented on by Pollard (1993) in his PhD with the University of Cardiff. Using material culture and anthropological theory, he refers to deposits within pits and other features across Wessex in order to demonstrate probable intentionality in the structure of the deposit.