"Those trusty chords could pull me through..."

Today I took a ride out to visit the St Giles church Skelton, York. The church is stunning and been so well preserved, it has had a great deal of restoration most notably in the 19th century and is a great example of early English architecture. The south door is much restored too, a finely decorated original Medieval door.

It’s thought by many that the stonework was done by the same masons that worked on certain areas of the York minster, for example the south transept constructed in 1225-1230 and other parts during the mid-13th century. When observing the decoration and detailed craftsmanship it seems hard to dispute this.

One of a great deal of flints that have been found on the site. Some of which were found in the backfill of Wilmotts trenches. This could have a couple of reasons. Firstly it shows he wasn’t interested in what the flint could tell us (“Call me if it’s shiny”), showing he was purely interested in grave goods buried in the Barrows therefore chucked the flints, or he was that intent on getting the trenches emptied and down to the gravegoods he never even noticed them. Flints have come in a range of forms, arrows, spear points, scrapers, blades among many others and also a lot of debitage has been found as a result of the knapping process. The flint has been shown to have travelled to the site from the Yorkshire Wolds roughly 8miles away. In the other direction it has come from a considerable distance away at Flambrough.

Quick overview of my experience at Boltby Scar 2012

The site at Boltby Scar is situation amongst the North Yorkshire Moors, one of many other Iron Age Hillforts such as Rudston Scar, Roulston Scar (discovered in 2001), Live Moor and Eston Nab. It’s located along a route described as a “prehistoric motorway” named the Cleveland way. This route covers the high ground of the area of the moors allowing people in the past and present great visibility of below and importantly of the surrounding areas. The trackway through the Moors also has earlier Bronze Age and Neolithic monuments dotted along the route. Some of these Burials are within the later Hillforts. Boltby, like others has a Barrow burial mound within it, showing how the location displays continuity through time as a position of benefit and advantage because of it’s visibility and commanding position within the landscape.

The location of the Hillfort has also raised many questions for the archaeologists. One main dispute is arguments surrounding the function. Views in support of domestic use, would become stronger if postholes of structures such as Round houses within the Hillfort could be found, but because of bulldozing and levelling work on the site in the 1960s (Agricultural improvement? - My Arse), post holes may have become truncated and lost under the weight and impact of this rather baffling decision to be taken out on a scheduled monument. Domestic and longer term use of the site may also be argued to produce more in terms of pottery and finds of a domestic nature. So far we have 3000 years of flint before the Hillfort, but then only pottery and features. It could be taken into consideration that the acidic ground could have deprived us of some, but yet more should, would and could be still present. Comparisons could be drawn on the other Hillforts such as Eston Nab where post holes interpreted as a round house were found.

The other interpretation is tied in with the Cleveland way and that this site was a temporary or seasonally used site. Firstly (As we learned very quickly) the hostile weather, wind, rain and hail (sometimes all at once) quickly makes you think living there would become a bit tiresome, water sources are also down in the valley. However in a time where currency and wealth was represented by live stock and resources one would want to protect these. This could be overnight or whilst walking them to market, could this “fortification” be to protect wealth.

When looking at Hillforts it’s important to take into consideration that many of the people labelling these sites were often ex military men, retiring from the army and dabbling in some Archaeology, therefore a ditch, bank and enclosure upon a hill overlooking the Vale of York would be quickly interpreted from a military mindset such as a fortification.

Despite that, this is only a quick overview (I could waffle on for longer) I could write a lot more about it. Next week post-excavation starts which shall be great. Me and a group are also in the process of preparing a presentation for the exhibition on the Hillforts of the North Yorkshire Moors (a lot more research into the function and material remains of the surrounding forts shall be done). The North Yorkshire Moors has a fascinating story that is yet to be heard and I feel pleased to have played a small part in uncovering some of that, in the future i’m sure I will be involved in more.

I will upload some more pictures and short bits and bobs from my time. If anyone would like to read last years site report http://www.landscaperesearchcentre.org/

This Iron Age potsherd was found under a section of the rampart. We could see from the carbon that it was fired upside down and preservation has allowed us to see seeds indented markings around the pot. Great potential for dating evidence of the rampart and also can be used in conjunction with other evidence to establish the function of the site, seasonal, domestic, temporary, fortification, protection of livestock etc…

This trench became pretty much my second home over the course of the excavations. G F Willmot had become a name that every student on the site was a lot more familiar with, if they weren’t already. He previously excavated the site in 1938/39 and it was a half hearted effort to say the least. Cowboy archaeologists is an accurate term for this, but also shows a clear picture of the discipline and it’s priorities at that time. Very little is known about his excavations and it had become established that there was a good chance Willmot was probably on site for a very little amount of time, leaving his men to do it for him (“call me if there’s something shiny”). We were told this is shown in the fact that he never acknowledged the first phase stone ring of the barrow in his excavations and importantly never recorded it properly. It has become more and more clear as the excavations have developed this season that his plans show a good chance he was attempting to li about some parts of the excavation in what can only be an attempt to gather grave goods for himself at a later date (then WWII kicked off, and he never got a chance to return - Just a theory, but likely).

Some of the team (myself and 2 others) spent the last day of the week digging out and sectioning one of his former trenches from the excavations in 1938 and 1939. In this trench a feature described as a hearth is thought to be present. The hearth, if identified correctly by Willmot could provide potential dating evidence, so many a day of mattocking, shovelling and trowelling was upon us. The location of Willmots trench was only established through aerial photography (yes, no record was taken) so a lot of time was spent mattocking back our trench to the edge of Willmots. This tedious as it may sound gave us a great opportunity to further understand the different soils, colours and textures between features such as the backfill, ditch and naturals whilst trowelling back the trench walls. Once cleaned and looking pretty, we were quickly told Willmots trench floor was actually around another half a meter down (We faked a smile and cracked on).

Once at the bottom sure enough a lot of charcoal was scattered about and samples were taken however to describe it as a hearth at this time was innacurate. A range of possibilities and risks from dating this charcoal were to be taken into consideration. 1. Crop burning around the time of Wilmotts excavations may have resulted in carbon becoming mixed into the backfill and deposited in his backfill 2. The Hearth was excavated and mixed into the backfill 3. Residents at the Hillfort were burning vegetation along the ditch bank 4. A rampart post was burnt and became deposited along the ditch as well as spread by Wilmotts men. Many other possibilities can also be cooked up but yet a sample was taken and possibly a date of some use may be gathered, how reliable? Questionable.

In this picture the Palisade enclosure has been exposed and is clearly visible. This picture was taken before further excavation of the palisade sections. The palisade was excavated in the hope of finding dating evidence to establish the chronology of the site and understand the relationship between the palisades construction and the construction of the ditch and rampart.

atsoukalidis:

Pieces of pottery from one of the most important Neolithic settlements in Greece, in Sesklo, Thessaly. Amazing to understand the interaction of civilisations 9.000 years ago.

jesstintimberlake:

& if all was well and your heart could find the words
Would we be for better, baby, would we be for worse?
& if there was a way to navigate your seas…
If tonight my true love did belong to me 

(via jscherp)