Category: Brigantia England

Roman Rig Defensive Works

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Dark Ages, Dark Ages Brigantia, Defensive Dike, Defensive Structures, Dike, Europe, Iron Age, Late Iron Age, Linear Earthworks, Medieval, Petilius Cerialis

The Roman Rig is a defensive dyke built to defend against attack from the south. It runs from Sheffield, past Templeborough and carries on almost to Doncaster. If this is a Brigantian dyke it would certainly add weight to Websters definition of the Roman border in the period.

Dryburn Henge, Cumbria

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Bronze Age, Class I, Enclosure, Henge, Late Bronze Age, Neolithic, Ritual Landscape

Dryburn Henge lies on Alston Moor in Cumbria, within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It occupies a strategic nodal point on the high moor, roughly at NY 760 430, where routes across the Pennine watershed converge. The surrounding terrain is underlain by Carboniferous Great Scar Limestone and interbedded Yoredale shales, with scattered fluvioglacial gravels in valley bottoms.

Kirkhaugh Cairns – Cumbria

Filed under Barrow, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Bronze Age, Cairn, Europe, Finds, Funerary Urns, Hair Braid - Ring, Megalithic, Mining, New Sites, Rock Art

This mound is 22ft. in diam. and about 3ft high. It has been built upon a natural knoll which makes the barrow look larger than it is. Excavation showed that the mound has an earthy core with a rubble capping.

Amesbury Archer, barrow, Basket, britain, Bronze Age, cairn, Cumbria, Earliest Gold, Early Bronze Age, Gold, Hair Braid, Kirkhaugh, Metalworker
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Oval Barrow east of Ulshaw Bridge

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Burial Mound, Landscape feature, Long Barrow

This unexcavated and undated barrow matches many of other Late Neolithic / Early Bronze-Age round barrows (c. 2400–1500 BC) dotted along the flanks of the Yorkshire Dales.

barrow, Brone Age, Coverdale, coverham, Lonf Cairne, Long Mound, middleham, Mound, Neolithic, North Yorkshire, Oval Mound, Ulshaw Bridge, Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales
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Cleave Dyke Defensive System

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Defensive Structures, Dike, Iron Age, Landscape feature

The Cleave dyke system is several Dykes which combine to create a boundary of between 9 and 18 kilometres running north south to the west of Thirsk.

Black Dike – Coverdale

Filed under Boundary Marker, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Dark Ages, Dark Ages Brigantia, Dike, Iron Age, Landscape feature, New Sites

Black Dike is the diminutive counterpart to the great Tor Dike, rising from its western arm and climbing to the watershed between Great and Little Whernside. Beginning at roughly SD 988 756—where Tor Dike cleaves the limestone scarp—the Black Dike pursues a steep, sinuous course uphill for nearly 0.6 km, finally spilling onto the ridge crest at about 675 m above sea level

Jun 27

Prehistoric mounds, cairns and boundary earthworks in Coverdale

Filed under Archaeology, Barrow, Boundary Marker, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Bronze Age, Burial Mound, Dark Ages, Dark Ages Brigantia, Early Christian, Early Medieval, Guide, Iron Age, Landscape Archaeology, Landscape feature, Motte and Bailey, Mound, New Sites, Roman, Terraces, Visible Remains

A gazetteer of probable prehistoric mounds, cairns and boundary earthworks in Coverdale. It is not complete and is still being researched.

Barrows, Boundary Markers, Bronze Age, Cairns, Coverdale, Ditches, Dykes, Earthworks, Iron Age, Medieval, Mounds, North Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales
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Jun 16

Hillforts: Defence or Ritual? – Part 1

Filed under Archaeology, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Critical Thinking, Defensive Structures, Earthworks, Guide, Hill Fort, Univallet Hillfort, Vitrified Fort

Over the last five years Iron-Age specialists have been re-examining what British hillforts were really for. The question is no longer just “fortress or farm?” but whether many of them were built first and foremost as places of gathering, display and ritual.

Ad Gefrin, Barry Cunliffe, battle, Bowden, Castle Dykes, Ceremony, Debate, Defence, Hill Fort, Hill of Tara, hillfort, Iron Age, Julius Caesar, Maiden Castle, McOmish, Mortimer Wheeler, Northumberland, Paulinus, Ringforts, ritual, Ritual First, tacitus, Thornborough Henges, vitrified, Yeavering Bell
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Castle Dykes Henge, Thoralby – North Yorkshire

Filed under Archaeology, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Class I, Earthworks, Henge, Iron Age, Landscape feature, New Sites, Ritual Landscape

Castle dykes it is a small class one henge, 90m across, perched on the high ground up in the North Yorkshire dales. The bank survives up to 1.5 m high in places, and the ditch up to 3 m deep. Early 20th-century reports (1908) noted its intact form, and recent LiDAR-based surveys have confirmed its classic henge profile with minimal later disturbance.

Moulton Henge

Filed under Archaeology, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Bronze Age, Earthworks, Europe, Henge, Medieval, Medieval Brigantia, Neolithic, New Sites, Ritual Landscape, Undated

Archaeologists now recognise a true Neolithic henge lying immediately south-west of Moulton village, roughly midway between the Swale and Dere Street. The monument is almost 200 m across, with a low earthen bank encircling an inner ditch and a central platform about 110 m wide; the ditch lies inside the bank—the classic “Class II” henge arrangement.