Coldrum Long Barrow
The eastern side of the monument, showing the surviving stone burial chamber at the top of the slope and fallen sarsens at the bottom
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 Location within Kent
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| Location | Trottiscliffe, Kent |
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| Coordinates | 51°19′18″N 0°22′22″E / 51.321578°N 0.372682°ECoordinates: 51°19′18″N 0°22′22″E / 51.321578°N 0.372682°E |
| Type | Long barrow |
The Coldrum Long Barrow, also known as the Coldrum Stones and the Adscombe Stones, is a chambered long barrow located near to the village of Trottiscliffe in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Constructed circa 4000 BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives only in a ruined state.
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, the Coldrum Stones belong to a localised regional variant of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Medway, now known as the Medway Megaliths. Of these, it is in the best surviving condition, and lies near to both Addington Long Barrow and Chestnuts Long Barrow on the western side of the river. Three further surviving long barrows, Kit's Coty House, the Little Kit's Coty House, and the Coffin Stone, are located on the Medway's eastern side.
Built out of earth and around fifty local sarsen megaliths, the long barrow consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus enclosed by kerb-stones. Within the eastern end of the tumulus was a stone chamber, into which human remains were deposited on at least two separate occasions during the Early Neolithic. Osteoarchaeological analysis of these remains has shown them to be those of at least seventeen individuals, a mixture of men, women, children and adults. At least one of the bodies had been dismembered prior to burial, potentially reflecting a funerary tradition of excarnation and secondary burial. As with other barrows, Coldrum has been interpreted as a tomb to house the remains of the dead, perhaps as part of a belief system involving ancestor veneration, although archaeologists have suggested that it may also have had further religious, ritual, and cultural connotations and uses.
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