Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (288 page)

Any stone, usually with at least one flat surface, used for grinding foodstuffs, medicines, cosmetics, or colorants.

 
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Grinsell , Leslie Valentine
(1907–95)
[Bi].

British prehistorian who specialized in the archaeology of barrows and pursued a relentless programme of field survey and recording throughout southern England. Born and brought up in London, he joined Barclay's Bank as a clerk after leaving school. In 1925 his parents moved to Brighton and within a few months he discovered the Sussex Downs and started a lifelong interest in barrows, especially finding and recording them. By the outbreak of WW2 he had surveyed and published reports on the barrows of ten counties in meticulous detail, using his skills as a bank clerk to tabulate the descriptions. During WW2 he was a pilot officer in the photographic branch of the RAF which took him to Egypt and gave him the opportunity to visit the tombs there. After WW2 he returned to the bank briefly, taking up a position to work on the Victoria County History of Wiltshire in 1947. After completing the gazetteer for Wiltshire he joined the Bristol City Museum as Keeper of Archaeology in 1952, remaining there until he retired in 1972. Throughout his time at Bristol, and after his retirement when he continued to live in the city, he carried on with his surveys of barrows and by 1993 was proud to have completed studies on all the counties in southern England. He was treasurer of the Prehistoric Society between 1947 and 1970, and had many other interests— folklore, music, place-name studies, Egyptology, and coins. He was appointed OBE in 1972. His many publications include
The ancient burial mounds of England
(1953, London: Methuen) and
Barrow
,
pyramid and tomb
(1975, London: Thames and Hudson).
[Abio.: 1989,
An archaeological autobiography
. Gloucester: Alan Sutton]

 
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Early medieval barrow cemeteries with prehistoric antecedents on the north bank of the River
lande some 10km inland from Liep
ja on the Baltic coast. Surveys and excavations between 1984 and 1989 by Juris Urt
ns and Valerij Petrenko have revealed that the earliest traces of occupation comprise a grave of the late Neolithic Corded Ware Culture stratified below burials of the 5th to the 13th centuries
ad
in the Atkalni I cemetery.
The largest and most impressive cemetery is the barrow cemetery at Priediens (also called Pastor
ts or Priedul
ji) on the eastern outskirts of modern Grobi
a. Recent surveys show that there are at least 2000 round barrows ranging in size from 3 to 15m across and 0.1–1.4m high. Excavations over the last century or more reveal the presence of single and double burials, cremations and inhumations. The grave goods are very rich and include swords, spearheads, helmets, belts, brooches, neck-rings, suspension plates, chains, bracelets, necklaces, combs, keys, and pottery. A unique stone stele was found in one of the mounds, similar in form and decoration to the picture-stones of Gotland. A broadly contemporary area of settlement in the form of ‘dark-earth’ deposits is known along a 2km stretch of the north bank of the
lande.
[Rep.: V. Petrenko and J Urt
ns , 1995,
The archaeological monuments of Grobi
a
. Riga and Stockholm: Latvian Cultural Foundation and the Museum of National Antiquities]