Monument record 15373 - Neolithic Pit Burial, East of Hulme Barns Farm, Bucklow Hill

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2017, A556 Knutsford to Bowdon Improvement, Cheshire: Archaeological Strip Map and Excavation & Post Excavation Assessment, R3920 (Client Report). SCH8111.

In 2014-15, an isolated pit was found during excavations on Bucklow Hill. It was located some 250m to the north of a Bronze Age barrow containing cremation burials (see CHER 15367), a group of probable early medieval inhumation burials (CHER 15372), also a second cluster of Bronze Age cremation burials (see CHER 15369). The pit, which measured 0.95 m in diameter and 0.1 m deep, contained a single fill of loose, gritty, dark brown sand containing abundant angular cobbles, along with occasional fragments of charcoal. It also contained a small amount (0.3g) of burnt human bone from an infant, less than five years old at death, along with heat-affected stone and two pottery sherds tentatively identified as Middle/Late Neolithic Peterborough ware.

<2> Patrick Daniel, 2021, “What are the dead for?” Bronze Age burials in a multi-period landscape at Bucklow Hill, Cheshire, Archaeological Journal, 2021, p.1-82 (Article in Journal). SCH9099.

Article discussing the excavated remains at Bucklow Hill and the programme of radiocarbon dating which has resulted in the first high-resolution radiocarbon chronology for a prehistoric funerary site in the county. Given the paucity of excavation at such sites in Cheshire in recent decades, the opportunity to examine and date this site is regionally important. The time-depth of the exposed landscape is also significant, with indications of a human presence prior to the Bronze Age and more plentiful evidence for subsequent periods.