Neolithic enclosures and Bronze Age barrows in Sussex

Professor Peter Drewett said Combe Hill has been used for thousands of years

By Nick Tarver
BBC Sussex

Looming over Willingdon are the remains of one of the most intriguing prehistoric sites in Sussex.

Combe Hill has been used by humans for ceremonial and religious reasons for thousands of years.

Signs of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and Bronze Age round barrows are still visible to the naked eye.

And as a new BBC series - A History of Ancient Britain - takes a closer look at the legacy of these peoples from long ago, Combe Hill offers the chance to see prehistoric Sussex up close.

'Exposure burial'

The ditches of the Combe Hill enclosure are still visible today

The enclosure was built around 3400BC and consists of two circles of banks and ditches, surrounding an empty circle.

Its use remains unclear - the ditches are too shallow for defensive purposes - but experts believe it is likely to be for ceremonial reasons.

Weddings, tribal meetings and even funerals have been suggested.

A more gruesome possibility includes exposure burials, where a corpse would be left in the middle of the circle for animals to strip.

According to Professor Peter Drewett, who has studied the site intensely, the enclosure would have been visible for miles around.

"The white chalk banks would have been gleaming," he said.

Excavation

The site was first properly dug in 1949 then 1962, but no artefacts were found buried in the middle of the circle.

However, in one of the ditches, which points west towards areas of known Neolithic settlement, pottery was discovered.

And in a ditch pointing east towards 'wilder' unsettled areas highly polished axe heads were found.

The white chalk banks would have been gleaming Professor Peter Drewett

"One of the current ideas about causewayed enclosures is that they symbolise the junction between the tame and the wild," said Prof Drewett.

"The pottery symbolises the new agricultural life and the axes show the boundaries of the wild.

"It's impossible to prove, but it seems to be a recurring feature of these monuments."

Round barrows

Many round barrows were crudely excavated by Victorian archaeologists

Combe Hill was also used by later Bronze Age settlers (2000-1000BC) with the area littered with round barrows.

The mounds of earth, marking the locations of graves, would again have been prominent in the landscape.

"The person who is buried here would've been the leader of the clan," said Prof Drewett. "It's built for one person, but then quite often other people are added in the side as a secondary burial.

"People were also buried crouched and they may have had something with them like a bronze axe.

"On the Sussex Downs there are 2,500 of these recorded, but probably there were double that originally."