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Large-scale rescue excavation (4.5 ha), directed by Roger Mercer and funded by EH and its predecessors, took place between 1974 and 1982 at Hambledon Hill, followed by smaller-scale investigations in 1983-84 and 1986. The scale of work produced an exceptional volume of data for the Neolithic period, of considerable potential, which is now being explored in the course of analysis and publication.
The chalk hill, which dominates the surrounding landscape, consists of a central dome with radiating spurs and lies off the south west edge of Cranborne Chase, immediately north of Hod Hill in the confluence of the rivers Iwerne and Stour. By the end of 1986 it was clear that the hill had been the site of an early-middle Neolithic earthwork complex up to 100ha in extent, which included a causewayed enclosure on the central dome, two long barrows, a second, smaller, causewayed enclosure on the southern (Stepleton) spur, and possibly a third Neolithic enclosure under the Iron Age hillfort on the north spur; the whole complex was surrounded by outworks. In 1996 a new earthwork survey by the RCHME, partly funded by EH, confirmed the possibility of a Neolithic date for the third enclosure on the north spur and for the outworks extending around its flanks. Equally important, the survey has advanced understanding of the development of the Iron Age hillfort and the later landscape and provided a baseline for its future management.
Molluscan analysis indicates that the complex was built and used in a predominantly wooded environment, open conditions becoming established only in the Beaker/early Bronze Age period. This accords with the results of charcoal identifications which document the exploitation of a wide range of woodland types, corresponding to the ecotonal location of the hill and perhaps to the size of its catchment. There was a preference for oak (timbers) and hazel (wattles?) in the wooden substructures of some of the banks. Where the timber lacing of an outwork bank on the southern spur seems to have burnt in situ, in the course of an incident which left a young man shot dead by a flint-tipped arrow, the charcoal tends to be distorted or disintegrated, as if by exceptional heat. There are two remarkable charcoal finds. Fragments of Cornish Heath (Erica vagans) from an earlier Neolithic pit are the sole heathland element in the vegetation and, since the species is now confined to north west Ireland and the Lizard, may relate to the transport from the south west peninsula of Gabbro-tempered pottery and/or axes of igneous and metamorphic rock, both found on the hill. A fragment of vine (Vitis vinifera) charcoal from the main causewayed enclosure ditch may reflect vine cultivation, especially in the light of a grape pip radiocarbon dated to 4660 from a pit on the southern spur. The pip was identified in the course of analysis of the charred plant remains, which include a deposit of thousands of spikelets of emmer wheat in a pit outside the Stepleton enclosure, as well as a predictable general scatter of hazelnut shells and odd cereal grains. Stable isotope analysis of the human bone indicates a range of diets, with most people consuming a lot of meat. There is no evidence of marine foods in the diet, despite relative proximity to the sea (c30 km) and the use of shoreline resources such as beach pebble hammer-stones.
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Quantification of the Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery has underscored distinctions in the use of different components of the complex. There were a number of significant contrasts between the main enclosure and the Stepleton enclosure
Both ditches are characterised by the deposition of large quantities of cultural material long after their construction. The slots of the main enclosure (narrow, shallow gullies cut into slowly accumulated silts in the ditch top) contained more finds than all the rest of the ditch fills. The +midden' layers of the Stepleton enclosure occupied a similar stratigraphic position. The quantity of finds from both suggests the use or consumption of newly introduced material rather than the redeposition of existing debris. This is reinforced by changes in the balance of pottery fabrics between these layers and earlier ones, including the chalk rubble which fills most of each ditch, by an increase in the frequency of decorated vessels in the later layers, and by the presence in them of articulated animal bone. People continued to gather at both enclosures, consuming large quantities of food and discarding large quantities of artefacts, long after the monuments had been built.
The length of use of the monuments is being established by a new programme of radiocarbon dating, although c3-400 years is probably a reasonable estimate. Actual use, although recurrent, is likely to have been seasonal and short-lived: analysis of the animal bone suggests that most of the meat consumed was slaughtered in late summer or early autumn; the cleaned emmer wheat could have been brought to the site in a processed state, and there is an unusually high proportion of small (eating and drinking) as against large (storage) vessels among the pottery. The patterns in the distribution of the material assemblage imply that different parts of the complex could have been used by different groups, with different acts and materials appropriate to each. It is possible to visualise only a very small part of what may have happened on the hill, let alone the shifting beliefs and perceptions which underlay its use. Conflict, ceremony, earthwork construction, feasting, burial, exchange of artefacts, and execution of everyday tasks all had their place, and the complexity and diversity with which the material residue of these activities was deployed are becoming more and more apparent as the analytical programme proceeds.