Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic chambered long barrow on the Berkshire Downs (now Oxfordshire), beside the Ridgeway about 2 km southwest of Uffington Castle. The visible monument comprises two phases: an earlier timber-chambered oval barrow of c. 3590–3550 BC, sealed beneath a larger trapezoidal sarsen-built chambered cairn with cruciform passage and forecourt of c. 3460–3400 BC. The Roman-period interest at the site lies in linear boundary ditches of Iron Age and Romano-British date that cross the surrounding downland.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site itself was not a Roman monument, but its incorporation into a system of later prehistoric and Roman land divisions reflects the continued structuring of the downland for stock management and estate boundaries during the Roman period, when the chalk uplands here supported extensive sheep pasture linked to villa economies in the Vale of the White Horse. The barrow likely remained a visible landmark used as a boundary marker, as was common with prehistoric monuments in Roman Britain.
Excavations by Atkinson (1962–63) and Whittle (1962–63 re-analysis), and most recently by Whittle, Bayliss and Wysocki (2007 dating programme), focused on the Neolithic phases and recovered articulated and disarticulated human remains from the chambers. The associated Iron Age and Ro
Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic chambered long barrow on the Berkshire Downs (now Oxfordshire), beside the Ridgeway about 2 km southwest of Uffington Castle. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Wayland's Smithy chambered long barrow, including an earlier barrow and Iron Age and Roman boundary ditches is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Neolithic long barrow and Romano-British inhumation cemetery 70m north of Uffington Castle on Whitehorse Hill (2.2 km), Woolstone (2.7 km), Maddle Farm Roman settlement (3.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Wayland's Smithy chambered long barrow, including an earlier barrow and Iron Age and Roman boundary ditches