The Arras Culture of Eastern Yorkshire – Celebrating the Iron Age: Proceedings of “Arras 200 – celebrating the Iron Age.” Royal Archaeological Institute Annual Conference.

In 1817 a group of East Yorkshire gentry opened barrows in a large Iron Age cemetery on the Yorkshire Wolds at Arras, near Market Weighton, including a remarkable burial accompanied by a chariot with two horses, which became known as the King’s Barrow. This was the third season of excavation undertaken there, producing spectacular finds including a further chariot burial and the so-called Queen’s barrow, which contained a gold ring, many glass beads and other items. These and later discoveries would lead to the naming of the Arras Culture, and the suggestion of connections with the near European continent. Since then further remarkable finds have been made in the East Yorkshire region, including 23 chariot burials, most recently at Pocklington in 2017 and 2018, where both graves contained horses, and were featured on BBC 4’s Digging for Britain series.

This volume bring together papers presented by leading experts at the Royal Archaeological Institute Annual Conference, held at the Yorkshire Museum, York, in November 2017, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Arras discoveries. The remarkable Iron Age archaeology of eastern Yorkshire is set into wider context by views from Scotland, the south of England and Iron Age Western Europe. The book covers a wide variety of topics including migration, settlement and landscape, burials, experimental chariot building, finds of various kinds and reports on the major sites such as Wetwang/Garton Slack and Pocklington.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Feb 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781789252590

Book preview

Introduction

This volume presents papers delivered at the conference, ‘Arras 200 – Celebrating the Iron Age’, held in the Hospitium of the Yorkshire Museum, York, in November 2017, organised under the auspices of the Royal Archaeological Institute. The choice of York as a venue was deliberate, as it was here, in July 1846, that the then Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland held its annual meeting, at which the Rev. E.W. Stillingfleet communicated the discoveries at Arras, with finds from the excavations displayed at the former St Peter’s School in the Minster Yard (Archaeological Institute 1848). Many of the finds listed are now housed in the Yorkshire Museum.

Many of those in attendance at the 2017 conference requested that the proceedings should be published. Both the conference and this book include contributions from those who have been researching the Iron Age of eastern Yorkshire for decades and has also provided an opportunity for recent PhD graduates to publish their work.

The main inspiration was the bicentenary of the excavations at Arras Farm near Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, referred to above, undertaken between 1815 and 1817, on a site previously identified by Abraham de la Pryme in 1699. Discoveries included a spectacular chariot burial with two horses, which became known as the King’s Barrow (Stillingfleet 1848). By remarkable happenstance, a chariot burial, also containing two horses, was discovered in 2017, unexpectedly during excavations prior to a housing development at Burnby Lane, Pocklington, as the conference was being planned. This burial was part of a much larger cemetery of over a hundred burials in square and small round barrows. A further chariot burial was excavated at the Mile, at the opposite end of Pocklington to Burnby Lane in 2018. Unique so far in Britain, this contained the skeletons of two horses in an upright position as if pulling the vehicle, which had been interred intact. The human occupant, a male in later middle age, lay above a highly decorated shield on the floor of the vehicle. An interim account of these excavations has been provided for this volume by Mark Stephens and Paula Ware of MAP Archaeological Practice Ltd. At the time of writing, steps are being taken to undertake careful scientific investigation of the Pocklington burials including isotope and DNA analysis. It is, therefore, appropriate that an introduction to the use and limitations of isotope analysis on animal and human remains has been provided for this volume by Janet Montgomery and Mandy Jay.

The largest concentration of chariot burials found so far in Britain is at Wetwang and Garton Slack on the Yorkshire Wolds. John Dent has written an overview of these remarkable excavations, looking not only at the extensive cemetery, but also at its wider context, including the development of the site from a carefully organised open ‘village’ of roundhouses to an enclosed settlement.

It is clear that the landscape itself was important in the siting of both settlements and cemeteries in Iron Age eastern Yorkshire. The editor of this volume has provided an account of the landscape setting of the Arras cemetery, and reviews recent fieldwork, including the first complete geophysical survey of the Arras cemetery. This chapter also considers the relationship between settlement type and the environment and the effects of sea level change in this period.

Burials are the best-known aspect of the Arras culture and the sheer quantity and the quality of excavation has enabled insights to be gained concerning the structure of society. The so-called Queen’s barrow excavated at Arras, which was accompanied by a range of high status grave goods, suggests that some women possessed considerable social status. It is also noticeable, for example, that the female chariot burial excavated at Wetwang in 1984 had more elaborate decoration on the harness fittings than the two male burials in the same cemetery group. Melanie Giles reflects on these and other burials, providing important insights into the life and death of women in the Iron Age of the region.

In contrast, Yvonne Inall’s chapter is based on her recent doctoral research on predominantly male burials, in particular those buried with weapons. As well as chariot burials, inhumations with swords and shields were recovered from both Pocklington cemeteries. Amongst these were two of the type so characteristic of the Arras Culture, known as speared corpse burials (Stead 1991).

Chariots clearly play a large part in the story of the Arras Culture, but how were they made and how effective were they? Valuable insights are provided by Robert Hurford, the preeminent builder of most carefully researched, fully functional replica chariots, bringing to bear knowledge gained over three decades working as a wheelwright.

An integral component of any chariot are terrets or rein rings, and linch pins which prevent the wheels from becoming detached. Many of these are highly decorated in the so called La Tène style. Anna Lewis presents her ideas based on PhD research. The contrast between highly decorated and skilfully made metal items, such as the above, and the hand thrown coarse and shapeless pottery jars found on middle Iron Age sites in East Yorkshire, has always seemed problematic. This apparent dichotomy is discussed by Helen Chittock who also considers the contrast between ‘pattern and plainness’.

The final three chapters consider the Iron Age archaeology of eastern Yorkshire from a wider perspective. Until 2018, with the discovery of a chariot burial in Pembrokeshire, the only other example outside Yorkshire was from Newbridge, near Edinburgh. It is, therefore, most appropriate that Fraser Hunter should provide a perspective of eastern Yorkshire’s Iron Age from a Scottish point of view. Tim Champion then follows with a view from the south of England thus providing a useful comparison.

Ever since the term ‘Arras Culture’ was coined by Vere Gordon Childe (1940) following the German Culture-historical model, there has been considerable debate about the origins of the Iron Age people of East Yorkshire and the possible reasons for similarities between certain characteristics such as the chariot burials themselves and those of the European near Continent. One of the explanations for this has been migration, and Manuel Fernández-Götz reviews the archaeological and historical evidence for migrations during the Iron Age elsewhere in Europe.

Finally, no book on the Arras Culture would be complete without acknowledging the major contribution of Ian Stead. His research and publications including The La Tène Cultures of Eastern Yorkshire, The Arras Culture, Iron Age cemeteries in East Yorkshire and Iron Age and Roman burials in Champagne, have laid the foundation for the research presented in this volume. Ian and Sheelagh Stead were present as guests of honour at the 2017 ‘Arras 200 – Celebrating the Iron Age’ conference in York. It is to Ian and Sheelagh that this book is, therefore, dedicated.

References

Archaeological Institute 1848. Memoirs Illustrative of the History and Antiquities of the County and City of York, Communicated to the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Held at York July 1846, with a general report of the proceedings of the meeting and catalogue of the museum formed on that occasion. London: Archaeological Institute.

Childe, V.G. 1940. Prehistoric Communities of the British Isles. London: Chambers.

Stead, I.M. 1965. The La Tène Cultures of Eastern Yorkshire. York: Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

Stead, I.M. 1979. The Arras Culture. York: Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

Stead, I.M. 1991. Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire. London: English Heritage.

Stead, I.M. Flouest, J.L. and Rigby, V. 2006. Iron Age and Roman Burials in Champagne. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Stillingfleet, E.W. 1848. Account of the opening of some barrows on the Wolds of Yorkshire. In a letter from the Rev. Edward William Stillingfleet, B.D., Vicar of South Cave … to Charles Newton, Esq. Memoirs illustrative of the History and Antiquities of the County and City of York, communicated to the Annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, held at York July 1846, with a general report of the proceedings of the meeting and catalogue of the museum formed on that occasion. London: Archaeological Institute, 26–32.

1

Setting the scene – landscape and settlement in Iron Age eastern Yorkshire

Peter Halkon

Introduction – The Iron Age cemetery at Arras

I saw in my journey to York many hundreds of tumuli, which I take to be Roman, at a place called Arras, on this side Wighton, not mentioned in any author, which I intend next summer to digg into and take a whole account and descriptions thereof and of all other Roman stations monuments, streets, places of battle, coins, or whatever is observable whereever I come.

January 1699 a letter to Dr Gale Dean of York by

Abraham De la Pryme (Jackson 1869, 200).

There is no record that De la Pryme, curate of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, and antiquarian, actually carried out his intention to excavate the Arras burial mounds. His observation, however, shows that the barrows were upstanding at the end of the 17th century and had presumably escaped the ploughs of the now deserted medieval villages of Arras and Hessleskew. The first account of excavations at Arras is provided by George Oliver in his history of Beverley (Oliver 1829). This includes a letter from Dr Thomas Hull of Beverley to the noted antiquarian Thomas Hinderwell, describing discoveries made by the Rev. Edward Stillingfleet, the vicar of South Cave and Barnard Clarkson, a Gentleman landowner, banker and prominent Methodist of Holme-on-Spalding Moor, in May 1817. Stillingfleet’s own account is presented in another letter to Charles Newton, read at the February meeting of the Archaeological Institute (now the RAI) in London. Objects from the excavations had appeared in the ‘Museum’ formed for the institute’s annual meeting held in York in July 1846 (Stillingfleet 1848; Stead 1979). The discoveries made in 1815, 1816 and 1817 were indeed spectacular. These included a chariot burial complete with horses, which became known as the King’s barrow, a further chariot burial in what was known as the Charioteer’s barrow, and the grave of a richly furnished female containing a mirror, glass beads and a gold ring, which was named the Queen’s barrow. Fortunately, the Arras cemetery was mapped by William Watson, a leading cartographer in the region. The map itself was only rediscovered in the 1970s by Stephen Briggs, misplaced within the British Museum archives. It was subsequently realised that finds from the 1815 to 1817 excavations, which had been marked with a letter W, and a number, corresponded with the barrows mapped and numbered by Watson (Stead 1979) (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. William Watson’s map of the Arras Cemetery dated August 5th 1816. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

No further work was done at Arras until the Yorkshire Antiquarian Club undertook excavations there in 1850, followed by Canon William Greenwell in 1876, who recorded a further chariot burial, discovered during the digging of a chalk pit (Greenwell 1906). In 1959, Ian Stead excavated here, accompanied by Martin Aitken of Oxford University, who conducted one of the first magnetometer surveys on an Iron Age site in Britain (Stead 1979).

A number of aerial photographic campaigns revealed what became known as square barrows, as the site was gradually flattened by agricultural activity and crop marks were subsequently mapped as part of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) National Mapping Programme (Stoertz 1997). This survey provided the opportunity for the first time to look at the Prehistoric and Roman landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds as a whole. As well as revealing the extent of the Arras cemetery, a settlement comprising rectilinear enclosures flanking a central drove way, thus resembling a ladder (hence ‘ladder settlement’) was recorded, which stretched northwards for well over a kilometre. This site was systematically field walked in the 1990s by the present author (Halkon 2008) and its ditches sectioned during the construction of the Teesside to Saltend Ethylene Pipeline (Parry 2000), an excavation that also provided evidence for both Iron Age and Roman activity there at least into the third century AD.

The square barrows also showed up clearly in Google Earth’s 2007 imagery to the north of the A1079, the main road between Hull and York, and in aerial photography undertaken by the author (Figure 1.2) and by the English Heritage (now Historic England) aerial survey team.

In autumn 2017, the first large-scale geophysical survey since Aitken’s was carried out by James Lyall and members of the East Riding Archaeological Society at the instigation of the writer (Halkon et al. 2019). The results of this survey closely matched the Google Earth imagery in some respects, but other features were invisible, including the large Bronze Age round barrows, the only Scheduled Ancient Monuments on the site. The magnetometer survey also detected parallel linear features running roughly north to south across the site, which are almost certainly geological in origin, making interpretation of the results somewhat difficult. In April and May 2018, Tony Hunt of Yorkshire Archaeological Aerial Mapping flew a drone over the cemetery, using a new technique by which the UAV is pre-programmed to fly at regular intervals, taking overlapping photographs (Figure 1.3). These are then transmitted to USA based DroneDeploy, who process the results, providing an output in various forms. As the northern field had been freshly ploughed, many barrows showed up clearly as soil marks, however the elevation view showed that no features were now standing above the general level of the ground surface. Having provided a brief summary of past and present research on the Arras type-site itself, what follows sets the cemetery into its wider landscape context.

Figure 1.2. An aerial view of the eastern end of the Arras cemetery. Note that the majority of the square barrows have no central grave visible. (P. Halkon, 2005).

Landscape

In the letter referred to above, Stillingfleet provides a description of the setting of the Arras cemetery:

…the ground is very elevated on a kind of table land after a gradual rise of 2 miles; above the plain, which stretches from Humber to the Hambleton Hills and across the Vale of York to the Highlands of the West Riding, that vast plain it commands westerly. On the North, it looks over an extensive range of the Wolds; and towards the east and south-east nearly on the map of Holderness… Few situations could have been better chosen for observation or for security from surprises, or for advantages of pasturage, or for the pursuit of the chase (Stillingfleet 1848, 26).

Views to and from this plateau in the chalk Wolds are clearly significant. The cemetery also lies at the head of Sancton Dale, a sinuous dry valley, which provided a route between the low-lying terrain around the Humber estuary and the relative uplands of the Wolds. The Market Weighton Wold long barrow (Greenwell and Rolleston 1877), a Bronze Age round barrow cemetery (Halkon et al. 2009) and the Sancton Anglo-Saxon cremation cemetery (Timby 1993) at its southern entrance, demonstrate the continuing relevance of this location.

Figure 1.3. Photograph from a UAV of the Arras cemetery soon after ploughing in April 2018. The square barrows show clearly. The round barrows are also visible. The larger dark patches with a white ‘halo’ effect are recent chalk pits. (Tony Hunt, Yorkshire Archaeological Aerial Mapping).

Research has shown that during the Iron Age, the Humber lowlands had experienced radical changes, as a tidal surge and rising sea levels sometime between 800–300 BC created an inlet extending northwards for almost 12 km from the present Humber coastline, over 3 km across at its widest point, which eventually became Walling Fen (Halkon and Innes 2005). Although coring by Coles (2010, 35) suggested that rather than being continuous, it was constrained within creeks in its upper reaches, the penetration of this watercourse far inland opened up the hinterland of the Yorkshire Wolds to the Humber estuary and beyond.

The social implications of such climate and sea level change in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age across Europe and the Mediterranean are a matter of much debate (Van Geel et al. 1996; Berglund 2003; Kaniewski et al. 2013; Tipping et al. 2008; Armit et al. 2014). Most scholars would now argue that such instabilities were multi-causal, including anthropogenic factors, however the tidal surges of 1953 and December 2013 (Spencer et al. 2015) demonstrate the catastrophe wrought by such natural disasters, with the potential to render arable land unusable for some time.

Linear earthworks

Most authorities would agree that the network of linear earthworks which runs across the Yorkshire Wolds has its origins in the later Bronze Age (Stoertz 1997; Fenton-Thomas 2003; Manby et al. 2003). Broadly paralleled in Wessex (Palmer 1984; Cunliffe 2005) and other parts of Britain, considerable effort would have been needed for their construction, for example the Great Wold Dyke that runs for over 15 km following the southern edge of the Great Wold Valley (Stoertz 1997, 77). Although their purpose is much debated, they may be partly the result of increasing competition for landscape control. The relationship of some stretches of linear earthworks with earlier round barrows and indeed pit alignments from earlier in the Bronze Age may represent the formalisation of pre-existing boundaries. In some places, the linear earthworks form considerable barriers; in others, they provide route ways through the landscape, some of which may be of some antiquity (Fenton-Thomas 2003). Analysis of linear earthworks within the wider region of Foulness Valley (Halkon 2008; 2013) provides good evidence that some systems are closely related to control of water supplies which are scarce on the Wolds, important for sustaining larger livestock such as cattle and horses. A good example of this is Huggate Dykes (Mortimer 1905; Fioccoprile 2015). Here a single linear earthwork runs southwards along the edge of the appropriately named Horse Dale, arriving at the narrowest point of a roughly figure of eight shaped plateau, where it joins a complex of five banks separated by six partially filled ditches. To the southeast is Frendal Dale, which leads down into Millington Dale and Millington Springs. In effect, this linear earthwork system controls access from the East to the many springs that feed Millington Beck. Fioccoprile (2015) identified three phases of construction, and three entrances, confirmed by geophysical survey, which resemble the monumental gateways of Wessex hillforts such as Maiden Castle in Dorset (Wheeler 1943; Sharples 1991).

Hillforts and other Wold top sites

Opinions differ as to who was responsible for the construction of the linear earthworks, with explanations ranging from the functional to the post-processual. Giles (2007) has viewed them as communal enterprises, others suggest construction carried out at the direction of some kind of authority or power base (Halkon 2008; 2013). Is it a coincidence that the hillfort at Grimthorpe overlooks a concentration of springs of which Huggate Dykes forms the eastern boundary (Halkon 2013)? The ring fort at Thwing (Manby 2007) lies close to the Great Wold Dyke and the valley of the Gypsy Race, a relationship mirrored elsewhere, both in eastern Yorkshire (Stoertz 1997) and beyond in the environs of Danebury (Palmer 1984). Due to centuries of ploughing, none of the larger eastern Yorkshire hillforts survive as well as those from Wessex and consequently have been rather overlooked. Only a few of the twenty or so examples have been fully excavated, the most important of these being Thwing (Manby 2007), Grimthorpe (Stead 1968), the promontory fort at Scarborough Castle (Smith 1928; Challis and Harding 1975; Pacitto 2004), and more recently Roulston Scar and Boltby (Powlesland 2011). Much smaller in scale, but also related to linear earthworks, are the ovoid hilltop enclosures of Staple Howe (Brewster 1963) and Devil’s Hill (Powlesland 1988) which lie on the northern edge of the Yorkshire Wolds overlooking the Vale of Pickering. Very similar ovoid enclosures have been found further south at Londesborough Moor (Halkon 2008) and Market Weighton Common (Ramm 1979; Halkon 2008) although these are yet to be investigated beyond aerial photography and, therefore, dating is problematic. The radiocarbon dates from Grimthorpe, Thwing, Staple Howe and Boltby Scar range from the fifteenth to the fourth century BC (Halkon 2013, 63).

In April 2017, a geophysical survey by James Lyall, accompanied by the writer, of a concentric enclosure 150 m in diameter near Kiplingcotes, plotted by Stoertz (1997), revealed unexpected and spectacular results. In the centre of the enclosure was a roundhouse 22 m in diameter. This was ‘ground-proved’ in an excavation directed by the writer, with James Lyall, in September 2019. This large structure had a concentric inner ring of posts, and within the outer ring ditch, slightly off-centre to the east, a circle of post holes with a porch comprising further large post settings. The entrance was aligned almost exactly with the eastern entrances of the inner and outer enclosures. Excavation in autumn 2018 across the concentric ditches in the southern portion of the monument, revealed evidence for at least two phases of construction. The outer ditch was around 4 m wide and in the westernmost ditch were the tumbled remains of what must have been a substantial chalk-rubble inner bank. With all-round views, this monument would have dominated the landscape. The closest parallels are Paddock Hill, Thwing (Manby 2007) and the late Bronze Age ring forts of Springfield Lyons (Brown and Medlycott 2013) and Mucking (Clark 1993; Evans, Appleby and Lucy 2015) in Essex.

So far, the curvilinear enclosures listed above have all been presumed to be fortifications. It is clear, however, that many of them overlay or were in the proximity of earlier prehistoric activity and their hilltop locations had been significant landscape features for some time. At Market Weighton Wold (Halkon and Woodhouse 2010) for example a linear earthwork feature was aligned on several round barrows (Stoertz 1997). Possibly at the same time a pair of ovoid enclosures were constructed, each around 30 m across at their widest point. Trial trenching on one of these resulted in the discovery of pottery identified as being of later Bronze Age to early Iron Age date and animal bone bearing the signs of butchery and cooking. At some stage the two ovoid enclosures were themselves surrounded by a much larger rectilinear enclosure, with an east facing entrance aligned on the linear earthwork feature associated with the round barrows. On typological grounds, the pottery from the ditch of this enclosure was of middle Iron Age date, characteristic of Arras Culture burials. The location of this enclosure with expansive views over the Vale of York and situated between two shallow dry valleys may have been deliberate.

Landscape setting may also have been significant at Nunburnholme Wold, a roughly figure of eight shaped plateau surrounded by five valleys (Halkon, Lyall and Lillie 2014; 2015; Halkon and Lyall 2016). With extensive views across the Vale of York, this hilltop is visible from a considerable distance away. The earliest features here are the parallel ditches of a possible Neolithic mortuary enclosure. This was followed by a large round barrow or hengiform monument, likely to be of early Bronze Age date and several ring ditches, almost certainly the last remnants of round barrows from the middle Bronze Age, based on a collared urn sherd found in the ditch of one of these. Running across the narrowest point of the plateau between two valleys was a double linear feature with a pronounced kink towards its eastern end, reminiscent of the linear dyke that runs close to the ring fort at Paddock Hill, Thwing. It may not be coincidental that at both sites a geological fault line has been identified (Myerscough pers. comm.) clearly visible as a cropmark during the 2018 summer drought. Although precise dating is yet to be obtained, it is possible that at the same time, two of the ditches of a triple linear earthwork were deliberately cut across the hengiform monument, which, unlike those observed elsewhere on the Wolds, (Mortimer 1905) slighted rather than respected the earlier feature. Aligned on the triple linear feature was a square enclosure approximately the same size as the circular feature and it is tempting to see this as some kind of deliberate replacement. Just over 20 m across, it had all the appearance of a large square barrow and on excavation was found to contain a highly disturbed burial at its centre. Although the square enclosure is almost certainly Iron Age, the burial was somewhat surprisingly C14 dated to 718–914 Cal