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A Distinctive Form of La Tène Barrow in Eastern Yorkshire and on the Continent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

I. M. Stead
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Extract

Bronze Age and Iron Age burials are occasionally surrounded by ditches which are, in origin at any rate, functional in that they serve as quarries for the material used in the mound. Such ditches may also have had some ritual significance, particularly those which are covered by the body of the mound. Further proof that they were not always functional is given by barrows whose ditches form a square, which is obviously not the easiest way to make a quarry for a circular barrow. Square-ditched barrows must be carefully distinguished from barrows within secondary square inclosures connected with plantations or land inclosure; however, there is a considerable number whose squared ditches are clearly original, and these can be shown to be a feature of the La Tène culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 41 , Issue 1-2 , April 1961 , pp. 44 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1961

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References

page 44 note 1 For example, Ysceifiog, Flintshire: SirFox, Cyril, Arch. Camb., 7th ser., vi, 1926, 48–85Google Scholar; and Life and Death in the Bronze Age, 1959, pp. 1–11.

page 44 note 2 Stillingfleet, E. W., Proc. Arch. Inst., York, 1846 (1848), pp. 26–32Google Scholar; Proctor, W., Proc. Yorks. Phil. Soc., 1855, p. 182Google Scholar; Greenwell, W., British Barrows, 1877, pp. 454–7Google Scholar; Greenwell, W., Arch. lx, 1906, 251–324Google Scholar.

page 45 note 1 The proton magnetometer survey was carried out by Dr. M. J. Aitken and his colleagues from the Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art. The cost of the survey and excavation was met by the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, with a grant from the Crowther-Benyon Fund. Thanks are due to Messrs. T. A. Stephenson and Sons for permission to excavate, and to Mr. N. B. Stephenson for his keen co-operation and for arranging the back-filling.

page 46 note 1 This mound appears to be a barrow marked on the Ordnance Survey maps (25 in. Sheet, Yorkshire, East Riding, 1910 edition, ccix. 4) where it is placed about 50 ft. to the west of its true position.

page 46 note 2 But a barrow is marked on this spot on the 1910 Ordnance Survey (25 in. Sheet, Yorkshire, East Riding, ccix. 4).

page 46 note 3 Atkinson, R. J. C., Antiquity, xxxi, 1957, 219–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 47 note 1 Proctor, W., Proc. Yorks. Phil. Soc., 1855, p. 218.Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 Richmond, I. A., Arch. J., lxxxix, 1932, 62–63Google Scholar, fig. 15, and pl. XIII, B.

page 47 note 3 Mortimer, J. R., Forty Years Researches …, 1905, p. 361Google Scholar, gives the only account of the chariot-burial. Mortimer, op. cit., 1905, xx, further notes, ‘I also remember seeing a small barrow close to Cawthorne Camps, which was within a four-sided trench.’

page 47 note 4 Drake, Francis, Eboracum, 1736, pl. opp. p. 36Google Scholar.

page 47 note 5 Information from Mr. R. H. Hayes. This area is now closely planted with conifers, and the most likely place for the barrow is still further obscured by a tangle of rhododendrons.

page 47 note 6 25 in. Sheet, Yorkshire, North Riding, 1928 edition, lxxv. 10, marks this barrow; on the 1854 edition, 6 in. Sheet, Yorkshire 75, it is marked as ‘Tumulus with ditch’. This barrow is some 35 ft. across and 4 or 5 ft. high.

page 48 note 1 Greenwell, W., British Barrows, 1877, p. 370, n. 1Google Scholar.

page 48 note 2 Stead, I. M., Antiquity, xxxiii, 1959, 214–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 3 Hinderwell, T., History and Antiquities of Scarborough, 2nd ed., 1811, p. 22Google Scholar.

page 48 note 4 Mainly in the parish of Skipwith; but the three most westerly barrows marked by the Ordnance Survey (see fig. 3) are in the parish of Riccall.

page 49 note 1 Burton, John, Monasticon Eboracense: and the Ecclesiastical History of Yorkshire, York, 1758, pp. 29–30Google Scholar.

page 49 note 2 Proctor, W., Proc. Yorks. Phil. Soc., 1855, pp. 187–9Google Scholar. A more detailed account, illustrated by a most useful plan, is given by Proctor in the manuscript account of the Yorkshire Antiquarian Club's work, now in the Yorkshire Museum; this latter account is the one quoted here, and the siteplan (fig. 3) is based on Proctor's plan. Proctor refers to another excavation some twenty years previously, but there appears to be no record of this. I am very grateful to Mr. G. F. Willmot, F.S.A., Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum, for permission to make use of this manuscript.

page 50 note 1 Phillips, John, The Rivers, Mountains and Sea-coast of Yorkshire, 1855, p. 203Google Scholar, describes Proctor's ‘arrowhead of flint not ill-formed’ as a ‘rather dubious flint arrow-head’.

page 51 note 1 I am grateful to Mr. J. P. Gillam, F.S.A., for details of this pottery.

page 51 note 2 Manuscript account in the Yorkshire Museum; cf. p. 49, n. 2.

page 51 note 3 Cf. Elgee, F., Early Man in North-east Yorkshire, 1930, p. 187, fig. 60.Google Scholar

page 51 note 4 But note nineteenth-century fieldwork. The sites on the Limestone Hills are now also fast disappearing, and no barrow with square-ditched inclosure is visible today.

page 52 note 1 I am very grateful to Mr. H. C. Bowen, F.S.A., of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), for information about these barrows, and for the reference to the one from Leckhampton. Mr. Bowen thinks that ‘the Cowleaze enclosures are likely to be original—though an estate map of the 18th century shows square enclosures around much larger Bronze Age barrows in the same parish—and this, coupled with an apparent posterior relationship to “Celtic” fields, suggests an Iron Age date’. The inclosures are orientated north—south.

page 52 note 2 Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans, xlvii, 1925, 91–101.

page 52 note 3 Brisson, A. and Hatt, J.-J., Rev. arch. est., vi, 1955, 313–33Google Scholar. I am very grateful to M. Brisson for showing me the unpublished plans of many of the inclosures which he has excavated.

page 53 note 1 A. Brisson and J.-J. Hatt, he. cit., plan fig. 97, p. 316.

page 53 note 2 Brisson, A., Loppin, A., and Fromols, J., Rev. arch., 1959, ii, 41–64Google Scholar.

page 53 note 3 Mentioned briefly by Lantier, R., L'Antiquité classique, xvii, 1948, 373–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 4 Enclosures III and IV at Normée are still further removed from the type under discussion; the presence of pits and post-holes inside IV, and what looks like a tutulus at the entrance suggests that this might be domestic rather than funerary. On the other hand, the cremations (Augustan to Claudian) in the ditches are in a similar position to those associated with the Écury-le-Repos site.

page 54 note 1 Gallia, xii, 1954, 151–2.

page 54 note 2 Favret, P.-M., Bull. soc. arch. champ., 1913, p. 110Google Scholar. Five chariot-burials and six other burials from this site were at the centre of circular-ditched inclosures.

page 54 note 3 Coyon, C., Bull. soc. arch. champ., 1924, pp. 30–32Google Scholar.

page 54 note 4 Bosteaux, C., Ass. fr. pour l' avancement des sciences, Rouen, 1883, ii, 586–92Google Scholar.

page 55 note 1 Brisson, A. and Hatt, J.-J., Rev. arch. est., iv, 1953, 213–17Google Scholar, plan fig. 50.

page 55 note 2 Röder, J., Bonner Jahrbücher, 148, 1948, 417–26Google Scholar.

page 55 note 3 Possibly Cernay-les-Reims (‘Barmonts’), see above, p. 54. Most of the barrows in Champagne have been long since ploughed away.

page 55 note 4 Kessler, P. T., Mainzer Zeitschrift, xxiv–xxv, 1929–30, 125–33Google Scholar; and a more brief account, Behrens, G., Germania, xiv, 1930, 24–28Google Scholar.

page 56 note 1 Bonner Jahrbücher, 142, 1937, 324–5, with a plan of the larger group.

page 57 note 1 Most of these sites are inadequately published in short notes, but there are plans of one of the Riesweiler sites (above, p. 56, n. 1) and the two sites at Waldesch (Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, xix, 1900, 36–37, 40–41, and Taf. iii, 8 and 9).

page 57 note 2 For example, Krämer, W., Bayerische Vorgeschichtsblätter, 18–19, 1951–2, 152–89Google Scholar; see also Germania, 29, 1951, 134–9. But in considering the origins Aulnay-aux-Planches must be taken into account (see above, p. 55).

page 57 note 3 For example, Apremont: Perron, E., Matériaux pour l'histoire … de l'homme, 2nd ser., xi, 1880, 337–59Google Scholar; and Vix: Joffroy, R., Monuments et mémoires, xlviii, fasc. 1, 1954Google Scholar.

page 57 note 4 Rest, W. and Röder, J., Bonner Jahrbücher, 146, 1941, 288–99Google Scholar.

page 57 note 5 At Schleidweiler-Rodt (Ldkr. Trier) there was a small rectangular, flat-bottomed ditch under a barrow some 30 ft. in diameter (Germania, xix, 1935, 66); and at Bäsch-Deuselbach (Kr. Bernkastel) a similar feature, ploughed flat, surrounded a La Tène D cremation in a grave long enough to have held an inhumation (Germania, xix, 1935, 67).

page 57 note 6 There are also two quadrilateral inclosures, each surrounding a single burial, in the La Tène cemetery at Trnovec nad Váhom—Horný Jatov, about 40 miles east of Bratislavia in Southern Czechoslovakia (Filip, J., Keltové Středni Europě 1956, fig. 85, 4Google Scholar; Benadík, B., Vlček, E., and Ambros, C., Keltské Pohrebiskd na Juhozápadnom Slovensku, 1957, pp. 21–24 and 27–28Google Scholar, and figs. 3, 6, 7.

page 58 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xl, 21–24.

page 58 note 2 Antiquity, xxxiii, 205 (1959)Google Scholar; Aitken, M. J., ‘Physics and Archaeology’, (Interscience, New York, 1961), chs. 2–3Google Scholar.

page 59 note 1 I am very grateful to Monsieur A. Varagnac, Conservateur-en-chef au Musée des Antiquités Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, for permission to publish this grave-group and the illustration of the square inclosure (fig. 5).

page 61 note 1 Unpublished sites, listed by Brisson, A. and Hatt, J.-J., Rev. arch. est., vi, 1955, 313Google Scholar, and plotted on their distribution map, pl. III.

page 62 note 1 Cheny is to the south of the main group in Champagne, and is not included on the distribution map. One inclosure surrounded an Early La Tène grave, and two others were La Tène C. Similar squares have been noted on air-photographs, but not excavated, in the nearby commune of St-Denis-les-Sens (Yonne); cf. Rev.arch.est., v, 1954,71–73.

page 62 note 2 See p. 61, note 1.

page 62 note 3 Schermer, 1952: Schermer, H., Festschrift des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums in Mainz, 1952, iii, 139–46Google Scholar.

page 62 note 4 This site is not marked on the distribution map; it is much farther south, on the right bank of the Rhine opposite Strasbourg.