The Deverel–Rimbury culture was a name given to an archaeological culture of the British Middle Bronze Age in southern England.[1] It is named after two barrow sites in Dorset and dates to between c. 1600 BC and 1100 BC.
It is characterised by the incorrectly-named Celtic fields, palisaded cattle enclosures, small roundhouses and cremation burials either in urnfield cemeteries or under low, round barrows. Cremations from this period were also inserted into pre-existing barrows. The people were arable and livestock farmers.
Deverel–Rimbury pottery is characterised by distinctive globular vessels with tooled decoration and thick-walled, so-called "bucket urns" with cordoned, usually finger-printed decoration.[2][3][4][5][6] In the southern counties of the UK, fabric is usually coarsely flint-tempered.[2] In East Anglia and further northeast grog-tempering is typical.[6]
The term Deverel-Rimbury is now mostly used to refer to the pottery types as archaeologists today believe that Deverel–Rimbury does not represent a single homogeneous cultural group but numerous disparate groups who shared a varying range of cultural traits.