Northwest Europe, 5C ENGLAND (Britannia), Bronze Age: Wessex Culture, Deverel-Rimbury Culture, Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age

Wessex Culture (2000-1400 BC)

The Wessex culture was a technically superior burial tradition found in central and southern England that had evolved from the Bell Beaker culture. Wessex-I (2000-1650 BC), associated with rebuilding Stonehenge, had richly furnished inhumations containing bronze daggers and axes, beads,  buttons of amber and shale, and gold dress fittings. In Wessex II (1650-1400), cremation replaced inhumation as the dominate rite, faience (ceramic) beads and ogival (segmented) daggers appeared. It is closely related to Armorican (Brittany) tumulus culture.

Deverel-Rimbury Culture (1400-1200 BC)

The Deverel-Rimbury culture is named after the type site round barrow burials at Deverel and Rimbury in Dorset. It covers a diversity of southern English wares, the three main classes being bucket, barrel and globular urns, together with smaller vessels of finer ware with impressed decoration. The culture is characterised by Celtic fields, palisaded cattle enclosures and cremation burials either in Urnfield cemeteries or under low, round barrows. Burial mounds with interned burials occur at sites such as the small farmsteads at Itford Hill, East Sussex, and New Barn Down, West Sussex, and from the enclosure at South Lodge, Wiltshire.

Evidence of Britain increasing ties with mainland Europe was found at Boughton Malherbe, Kent, where a hoard dated 850-750 BC has been assigned to the Carp’s Tongue complex, the terminal phase of the Atlantic Bronze Age, named after a type of sword found across western (‘Atlantic’) Europe.

Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age (800-00-450)

The banjo enclosure consists of a small enclosure accessed by a long parallel-sided passage which gives it the appearance of a frying pan or banjo. Excavation at Bramdean, Hampshire, suggests that it was associated with normal farming practices.