Bowl barrow
[Image:Bowl barrow colt hoare wiltshire.png|thumb|300px|right|Engraving of a bowl barrow by Richard Colt Hoare]
A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include cairn circle, cairn ring, howe, kerb cairn, tump and rotunda grave.
Description
Bowl barrows were created from the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age in Great Britain. A bowl barrow is an approximately hemispherical mound covering one or more Inhumations or cremations. Where the mound is composed entirely of stone, rather than earth, the term cairn replaces the word barrow. The mound may be simply a mass of earth or stone, or it may be structured by concentric rings of posts, low stone walls, or upright stone slabs. In addition, the mound may have a kerb of stones or wooden posts.Barrows were usually built in isolation in various situations on plains, valleys and hill slopes, although the most popular sites were those on hilltops. Bowl barrows were first identified in Great Britain by John Thurnam, an English psychiatrist, archaeologist, and ethnologist.
British bowl barrows
[Image:Matley heath bowl barrow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A 15-metre diameter bowl barrow in the New Forest, U.K.]English Heritage proposed the following classification of British bowl barrows:Type 1: Kerbless and ditchless barrowsType 2: Kerbless with continuous ditchType 3: Kerbless with penannular ditchType 4: Kerbless with segmented ditchType 5: Kerbed but ditchlessType 6: Kerbed with continuous ditchType 7: Kerbed with pennanular ditchType 8: Kerbed with segmented ditchType 9: Structured but ditchlessType 10: Structured with continuous ditchType 11: Structured with penannular ditchType 12: Structured with segmented ditch