Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-xtvcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-23T22:31:32.103Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Excavations in the Prehistoric Ritual Complex near Milfield, Northumberland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

A. F. Harding
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The complex of sites that forms the subject of this account lies in the extreme north-east corner of England, about 10 km south-east of the river Tweed in the parishes of Kirknewton, Ewart, Akeld and Milfield, district of Berwick-upon-Tweed, county of Northumberland (fig. 1). The sites have mainly been discovered by means of air photography, but some were recorded as earthworks in the last century while two standing stones survive to this day. The modern discovery of the complex can be attributed to St Joseph during aerial surveys in the late 1940s, when a henge monument 1 km south-south-east of Milfield was located; this was subsequently included by Atkinson (1949–50, 64–5; 1951, 105–6) in his list of henges. It was recorded as a class II monument, and the presence of a pair of roughly parallel ditches (a ‘droveway’) passing through the site was noted. Further aerial survey work revealed that this site was one of several in the area around Milfield. In 1971 McCord and Jobey published further sites of henge type at West Akeld Steads, Ewart Park, East Marleyknowe and Milfield North (1971, 123–4), bringing the total of hengiform sites to five, and recording the full known extent of the ‘droveway’. The remaining sites were located by St Joseph and McCord but not published; they were noticed by the present author (among others) in the course of examination of all air photographs of the area, and appear on the plots of air photographs in the archives of the Northern Air Photography Committee, held in the Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (fig. 2).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 47 , December 1981 , pp. 87 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Atkinson, R. J. C., 1949–1950. ‘Four new henge monuments in Scotland and Northumberland’, Proc Soc. Antiquaries Scotland, 84, 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, R. J. C., Piggott, C. M. and Sandars, N. K., 1951. Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. Oxford.Google Scholar
Burgess, C., 1976. ‘Meldon Bridge: a Neolithic defended promontory complex near Peebles’, in Burgess, and Miket, , 1976, 151–79.Google Scholar
Burgess, C. and Miket, R. 1976. Settlement and Economy in the Third and Second Millennia B.C. British Archaeological Reports 33.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. L., 1970. Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. 2 vols, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Coombs, D., 1976. ‘Beakers from Callis Wold, Barrow 275, Humberside (an interim report)’, in Burgess, and Miket, , 1976, 143–50.Google Scholar
Davies, G. and Turner, J., 1979. ‘Pollen diagrams from Northumberland’, New Phytol., 82, 783–804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, A., 1978. Bronze Age Pottery in the North-East of England. British Archaeological Reports 56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godwin, H., 1975. History of the British Flora. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Green, H. S., 1976. ‘The excavation of a late Neolithic settlement at Stacey Bushes, Milton Keynes, and its significance’, in Burgess, and Miket, , 1976, 11–27.Google Scholar
Heathcote, J. P., 1939. ‘Excavations at Doll Tor Stone Circles, Stanton Moor’, J. Derbys. Archaeol. & Nat. Hist. Soc., 60, NS 13, 113–25.Google Scholar
Hope-Taylor, B., 1977. Yeavering, an Anglo-British centre of early Northumbria. London.Google Scholar
McCord, N. and Jobey, G., 1971. ‘Notes on air reconnaissance in Northumberland and Durham—II’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series, 49, 119–30.Google Scholar
MacLaughlan, H., 1867. Notes not included in the memoirs already published on Roman Roads in Northumberland. London.Google Scholar
Manby, T. G., 1974. Grooved Ware Sites in the North of England. British Archaeological Reports 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miket, R., 1976. ‘The evidence for Neolithic activity in the Milfield Basin, Northumberland’, in Burgess, and Miket, , 1976, 113–142.Google Scholar
St Joseph, J. K., 1977. ‘Air reconnaissance: recent results, 43’, Antiquity, 51, 143–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
St Joseph, J. K., 1978. ‘Air reconnaissance: recent results, 44’, Antiquity, 52, 47–50.Google Scholar
Simpson, D. D. A., 1965. ‘Food Vessels in South-West Scotland’, Trans. Dumfries & Galloway Nat. Hist. & Antiq. Soc., 42, 25–50.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. J., 1969. ‘A review of henge monuments in the light of recent research’, PPS, 35, 112–33.Google Scholar