Picket Twenty Andover, Hampshire: Excavation of a Bronze Age Barrow Cemetery, 2017–2018

This book rescribes the results of excavations undertaken between 2017 and 2018 in advance of a housing development at Picket Twenty, Andover, Hampshire. The excavations revealed a barrow cemetery dating to the Early Bronze Age (2150–1500 BC). The barrow cemetery lies within the upper reaches of the Test Valley, an area of chalkland known as the Hampshire Downs. The earliest barrow contained a Beaker burial, a possible ‘founder’ monument for the cemetery. The barrows had suffered plough damage and no mounds or earthworks survived into modern times. However, the barrows were still extant during the Roman and medieval periods , as evidenced by extensive deposits of Roman refuse in the ditches, and a few medieval finds.

The barrow ditches ranged in size and form and whilst most were round, there were two oval examples. More unusual was a post alignment and stake circle outside the barrows. Most of the monuments were associated with the burial of cremated remains, some of which occurred with Collared Urn pottery. Pyre goods were occasionally present, whilst no evidence for in situ pyre sites was identified.

The earliest settlement evidence includes a Beaker pit of Chalcolithic (2400–2150 BC) date and a small number of dispersed timber structures comprising a roundhouse and a fence line that indicate small-scale open settlement across the landscape during the later Bronze Age (1500–1150 BC).