Category: Britain

Nov 23

The Story of Boltby Scar

Filed under Brigantes, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Bronze Age, Celtic Tribes, Defensive Dike, Defensive Walls, Dike, Europe, Fort, Hair Braid - Ring, Hill Fort, Iron Age, Landscape Archaeology, Linear Earthworks, Mining Landscape, Promontory fort, Stories of Brigantia

Boltby is a very important ancient site IMO. A gold “hair braid”, was found there, linking it to the Amesbury Archer, buried with two similar hair braids. This also provides a link to the founding of Stonehenge, which helps set a potential scene for a possible “zeitgeist”, of the day.

Amesbury Archer, boltby, Brigantia, Bronze Age, Dykes, Enclosure, Hair Braid, Roulston, Scar, Stonehenge, Stories of Brigantia, Yorkshire Moors
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Swaledale

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Cairn, Europe, Flint Scatters, Geology, Geomorphology, Hill Fort, Iron-Age, Megalithic, New Sites, Promontory fort, Ring Cairn, Rock Art, Univallet Hillfort

Swaledale occupies the long, sinuous valley carved by the River Swale on its 45-kilometre descent from Nine Standards Rigg (662 m) on the Pennine watershed to Richmond in lower Teesdale. The dale narrows between rough gritstone scarps near Keld, broadens to a patchwork of hay-meadows around Muker and Gunnerside, then opens into a tree-fringed flood-plain west of Reeth before the river cuts through the Carboniferous escarpment to meet the Vale of Mowbray.

Arkengarthdale, Bainbridge, Barns, Benedictine, Blakethwaite Smelt Mine, Brigante, Brigantes, Brigantia, Bunton, Buttertubs, cairn, Cateractonium, Catterick, Cistercian, Corpse-way, Crackpot, Craclpot, Cup-mark, Deer Park Wood, Downholme, Dyke, Dykes, East Gill Force, Ellerton Abbey, Enclosure Acts, field-barns, Fort, Fountains Abbey, Franciscan, Fremington Edge, Fremmington, Friary, Gangs Flats, Gill, Great Pinseat, Great Scar, Great Scar Limestone, Great Shunner, Greyfriars, Grinton, Grinton Moor, Gunnerside, Gunnerside Gill, Harkerside Moor, Hay-meadow, hay-meadows, Healaugh, Herkersdie Moor, Hill Fort, Hind Rake, How Hill, Humber-Flanders export route, Hunter Gatherer, Hush, Hushes, Iron Age, Ivelet Bridge, Keld, Keldside, Kisdon Force, Kisdon Hill, Lead Mining, Lead-veins, Lower Teasdale, Lower Teesdale, Maiden Castle, market, Marrick Priory, Marske, Marske Deer Park, Marske Hall, Meadow, Mine, Mining, monk, Monks, Muker, Norse, North Yorkshire, nun, Nuns, Old Gang, Packhorse Bridge, Parliamentary Walls, Penine Watershed, Pennine watershed, Reeth, Richmond, Rievaulx Abbey, Ring Cairn, River Swale, Rock, rock-art, Roman, Sheep, Shunner Fell, Skeb Skeugh, Smelt, smelting, St Martin's Priory, Stainmore, Standards Rigg, stone, Swale, Swaledale, Tan Hill, Tan Hill Pub, terraces, Thwaite, Trajanic Lead Pig, vale of Mowbray, Walburn, White Rigg, Wool, Yorkshire Dales
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Aug 04

Guide: Parliamentary-walls and the Northern Enclosures

Filed under Britain, Enclosure Acts, Europe, Landscape Archaeology, Landscape Legislation

Between the mid-18th and late-19th centuries the British Parliament passed almost 5,000 local “Inclosure Acts.” Each Act authorised a team of appointed commissioners to survey one specific township or parish, divide its open-field strips, common pastures, and “wastes” into new, privately owned parcels, and lay out straight roads and boundary walls or hedges. The commissioners issued a legal award map and schedule that became the new title deeds.

Enclosure Act, Enclosure Acts, Inclosure, Parliamentary Wall, Reeth, Riot, Swale, Swaledale
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County Durham

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Europe

County Durham’s landscape is often described as a “three-belt county.” To the west rise the high, windswept Pennines; in the middle lies a sheltered coal-bearing vale that funnels every main road and railway; and to the east stands the pale Magnesian-Limestone escarpment ending in low cliffs above the North Sea.

Barnard Castle, Brigantia, Bronze Age, County Durham, Durham, Earley Medieval, England, Iron Age, Landscape, Medieval, Mesolithic, Natural Beauty, River Tees, River Wear, Roman
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Aug 02

The hero archetype and Lugh

Filed under Breogans, Britain, Bronze Age, Castro Hillfort, Celtic Gods, Celtic Life, Celtic Tribes, Dark Ages, Dragons, Early Christian, Early Medieval, France, Giants, Ireland, Iron Age, Lugh, Medieval, Mercury, Mesolithic, Myth and Legend, Neolithic, Palaeolithic, Portugal, Roman, Roman Culture, Roman Gods, Spain, The Devil, Viking, Wales

At its core the “hero” is the figure who steps out of ordinary society, confronts chaos or a monster, and returns (or dies) having secured order for the group. In Jungian and comparative-myth terms it sits in the “warrior-champion” slot of the collective story-board; evolutionists would say it crystallises the survival value of decisive coalition leadership in small bands.

!Kung, Ache, Achiles, Arjuna, Arthur, Balor's Eye, Bee, Bees, Bhagavad Gita, britain, Buffalo, Castro, Catalhoyuk, Cattle, Cúchulainn, Deity, Divinity, Egypt, Embodiment, France, Galicia, gaul, Geryon, Gilgamesh, Giraffe, Gobeki Tepe, god, Greogans, Haasi, Hadza, Hector, Heel, Heracles, Hercules, Hero, Hero Archetype, Hoan, Hunter Gatherer, Hydra, Integration, Inuit, ireland, Iron Age, Ivory, Kalahari Desert, Kudu, la tene, Lagash, Legend, Lion-Man, Lugh, mammoth, Mercury, MeriamTurtle, Mesopotamia, Monotheistic, myth, Narmer, Naro, Nuliajuk, pagan, Paraguay, Pharoh, Poigs, Proto-Hero, Raven, religion, Roman, Salish, Salmon, San Culture, Seal, Sedna, Serpent, Snake, Sockeye, Sorcerer, Spain, spear, St Michael, Sumer, Synchronicity, T-Pillars, Ulster, Zebra
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Cana Barn Henge

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Class IIa, Europe, Henge, Liminal Spaces, Neolithic, New Sites

The stats for this Neolithic monument are astounding: 200m across, once a great circle of earthen banks and deep ditches. Today, almost lost: 5,000 years of plough and neglect have flattened the banks and filled the ditches, and Cana Henge is now nothing but a smoothly undulating grassy field on the moor overlooking Ripon.

Millbarrow long barrow (Winterbourne Monkton)

Filed under Animal Remains, Antler Pick, Barrow, Britain, Early Neolithic, Europe, Flint Scatters, Grooved ware, Human Remains, Landscape feature, Long Barrow, Mortlake ware, Neolithic, Peterborough ware

Millbarrow once stood on a low chalk spur 2 km north‑west of Avebury, just above the spring‑line where the Kennet valley opens onto the Marlborough Downs (NGR SU 0943 7221). From its east–west‑aligned crest the ground falls gently south to Windmill Hill and east into the Kennet valley, giving the mound clear sight of the Avebury monument complex, and easy access to water and pasture.

Horslip (Windmill Hill) Long Barrow, Avebury

Filed under Barrow, Britain, Early Neolithic, Europe, Flint Scatters, Long Barrow, Neolithic

Sitting on the south‑east shoulder of Windmill Hill (grid ref. SU 086 070), 140 ft (43 m) above the Kennet valley, the Horslip long barrow commands the same chalk ridge that carries the famous Early‑Neolithic causewayed enclosure 400 m upslope.

Doncaster Roman Fort (Danum)

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Defensive Structures, Europe, Fort, New Sites, Roman, Roman army

← South Yorkshire Roman Rig Defensive Works The Roman Rig is a defensive dyke built to defend against attack from the south. It runs from Sheffield, past Read more Templeborough Roman Fort – Rotherham Templeborough Roman Fort occupies a commanding position on the north bank of the River Don at Rotherham (OS grid SK Read …

Brigantia, Cohors, Danum, Doncaster, Doncaster Roman Fort, Gallorum Equita, Garrison, Gauls, Roman, South Yorkshire, The River Don, Tungrian cavalry, Vicus
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Adwick-le-Street Roman Fort (Derventio)

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Europe, Fort, New Sites, Roman, Roman army

Derventio was an auxiliary fort, it probably housed a mounted ala or an infantry cohort. It is located immediately west of modern Adwick le Street (OS SE 553 008), astride Ermine Street (the Roman Ridge).