Excavations at maiden castle, dorchester

ABSTRACT EXCAVATIONS have been resumed at Maiden Castle, Dorchester, under the direction of Dr. “R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, the initial objective being the investigation of the history of the

ramparts. Digging at a point where the rampart rises to a height of fifty feet above the external ditch has revealed that the structure was composed of a core of carefully built up chalk

rubble, faced on the inner side, covered with a layer of clay and chalk and surmounted by a parapet of limestone. The parapet was partially destroyed in ancient times, and eventually

replaced by a timber palisade of which the socket holes have been found at a higher level. This palisade was constructed of stout timber posts at a distance of four or five feet apart and

doubtless joined by woven hurdles. A cutting which has been made through the main defence shows evidence of five prehistoric periods in the history of the earthwork, the earliest being a

palisaded bank of about ten feet, and culminating in an elaborate structure of masonry rising twenty feet above the internal camp. Beneath the original turf line a stone age factory floor

was uncovered, on which were innumerable flakes from implement making, and a few scrapers and other tools. On an adjacent site a series of pita has been found, of which one is nine feet

deep. These pits contained prehistoric pottery and a number of querns for grinding corn. Nearby was a group of ten loom-weights of chalk; and in the centre of this site post holes indicate

the position of a large circular hut twenty-one feet in diameter. Finally, at the oast gate of tho camp tVirce roads of late-Roman and post-Roman date have been examined and prehistoric road

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FAQs * Contact customer support RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Excavations at Maiden Castle, Dorchester. _Nature_ 136, 290 (1935).

https://doi.org/10.1038/136290c0 Download citation * Published: 01 September 1935 * Issue Date: 24 August 1935 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136290c0 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the

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