Monument record MDR7776 - Aston on Trent 1 & 2 round barrows, Shardlow Road, Aston upon Trent

A circular mark that was identified at SK 4213 2921 from aerial photographs was excavated by Reaney and Hobday (Derbyshire Archaeological Society) around 1966. It proved to be a barrow. Finds included a bell beaker with associated archers wrist guard, barbed and tanged/leaf-shaped arrowheads and a necked beaker. Old ground surface beneath the barrow produced Western Neolithic pottery. Primary barrow was c. 102ft in diameter, subsequently enlarged to 115 ft. Primary burial accompanied by comb-impressed bell beaker, a polished stone wrist-guard and a flint arrowhead. After being enlarged a new ring ditch had been cut. Associated with the secondary burial was a necked beaker. Under the barrow were traces of Neolithic occupation. One pit contained traces of a hearth - with carbonised grain being recovered - provisionally identified as emmer wheat. Sample was sent for carbon dating. Hazel nut shell was also present. (1) A partially reported excavation carried out in the 1960s of an upstanding round barrow within the cursus at Aston on Trent, Derbyshire, recovered two Beakers with grave goods and an exceptionally large cache of grain from an underlying pit containing Carinated Bowl pottery. It also exposed a rare example of a preserved cursus land surface. The surviving material from the excavation was analysed again by Loveday et al, and the report was completed and published in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal. Radiocarbon dating points to more than one phase of grain charring activity, the later of which may be broadly contemporary with the cursus. Whether domestic accident or ritual sacrifice, the exceptional size of the preserved residue points to a relative abundance of grain in the earlier Neolithic. The two leached Beaker burials were either unusually surface-laid or cut in to an earlier barrow. (2)