Abstract
ABCEUEOLOCJICAL DISCOVEEIES BY AEBOPLANE AT DOBCHESTEB.-In Antiquity fov December, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford describes an interesting series of archaeological discoveries near Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, due to photographs taken from the air in June last by two officers of the Royal Air Force, Flight-Lieuts. W. E. Purdin and B. T. Hood. The photographs revealed two large circles previously entirely unknown, a rectangular enclosure having no relation to existing field divisions, a semi-circular enclosure, possibly prehistoric, a track, either prehistoric or RomanoBritish, forty feet wide-an unusual width-traces of several barrows, and a small circle about twenty feet in diameter, consisting of twelve holes which had once been filled with uprights of stone or wood. The two concentric circles first mentioned, it is interesting to note, were partly in two fields, one under barley, the other under beans; but it was only the bean field that showed the circles, of which no trace was to be seen at all at ground level. In order to test the circles and seek evidence of their date, excavations were carried out by Mr. Crawford and Mr. R. G. Collingwood in October. Two trenches were cut, the first of which found the inner circle. At one end of the trench the excavators came on sand at a depth of 2 ft. 6 in. through a deposit of reddish-yellow loam. At the other end, sand was reached at a depth of no less than 6 ft. 4 in. of brick earth, the silt filling up the old ditch. The circle-ditch originally must have been not less than 36 ft. across from lip to lip. The second trench cut the outer circle at the point where the crops divided. Here a layer of 2 J ft. of brick earth covered the sand, and the sides could be seen sloping away from the inner lip. At a depth of 5 ft. 6 in. a foot of black stuff represented the middle of the ditch. Beyond two animal bones and some fragments of bone, no finds were made. The dig, as well as the examination in detail to which Mr. Crawford has subjected the photographs, is a useful demonstration of the value of air photographs, and has thrown much light on what may be termed the technique of their use in archaeological discovery.
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Research Items. Nature 121, 71–73 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121071a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121071a0