Beaker Age deposits on Mendip at Charterhouse Warren Farm Swallet and Bos Swallet (UBSS Proceedings v.18(3))

Abstract: The unusual nature of the stone deposits that filled the lower part of the Entrance Shaft of Charterhouse Warren Farm Swallet (clean more or less rounded stones mostly less than 10 kg weight, with more void than matrix between them) demands that they were emplaced by human agency. It is argued that the local Beaker and/or neolithic people collected the stones from their fields and dropped them into the shaft either for agricultural improvement or in connection with ritual burials or both. The stratigraphy of the Beaker Age deposits at Bos Swallet is reviewed. It is concluded that a group of Beaker 'hearth layers' on the lower slopes of the surface depression was in part disturbed by burrowing animals not by miners.