Monument record MDR6514 - Early Bronze Age cairn, Scarcliffe Park

SK 512703. A burial cairn in Scarcliffe Park (site 29 on the published plan) produced flint debris, early Bronze Age pottery, a bronze awl and two pit burials, with a "V" perforated button of jet or shale. Sites 40 - 42, although shown as hut platforms, may also be Bronze Age. (1) An early Bronze Age stone cairn situated south of Owl Spring in Scarcliffe Park was excavated in 1969-73 for H C Lane by Sherwood Archaeological Society. The cairn was approximately 11 metres in diameter with a retaining kerb of large stones set on edge. Underneath several of the kerb stones was sealed an old ground surface containing occupation debris, pot boilers, flint flakes and fragments of bone. Occupation debris including a fragment of a saddle quern was spread throughout. Near the centre of the cairn a holed stone stood above the surrounding cairn material and below this was a contracted burial associated with a 'V'-perforated jet button, a bronze awl, several flints including a knife and indeterminate Beaker sherds. It appeared that a pit had been dug in the natural magnesian limestone and filled with wedged stones. Stones lay under and over the body and no attempt seemed to have been made to form a cist. Elsewhere in the barrow a second pit was identified. It was found to contain the skull and long bones of a skeleton which appeared to be disarticulated rather than crouched. There were no artifacts with this burial. In the western quadrant more bones were found, seemingly representing two further burials although there was no indication of a pit here. However, later analysis of the human bone indicated that there were three individuals represented in the latter context, giving a total of five from the site. (2) Scarcliffe Park. Mesolithic material was incorporated in the Beaker burial mound material (C. Swarbrick, pers. comm.). The wooded area of Scarcliffe Park contains at least one medium-sized Bronze Age settlement of approximately 20 acres, with large amounts of waste material, scrapers and barbed and tanged arrowheads (SMR 12301). This site lies adjacent to the Beaker barrow. (4)