Category: New Sites

Swaledale

2015 Swaledale from Kisdon Hill

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.

Cana Barn Henge

Cana Barn henge

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.

Anciens Arsenaux Neolithic Settlement, Sion – Switzerland

Upper Rhone Valley

Sion lies midway along the upper Rhône Valley, an east‑west trench gouged by repeated Pleistocene glaciers and now flanked by the Pennine and Bernese Alps. The settlement area sits on the alluvial fan of the Sionne torrent, a cone of well‑sorted sands and gravels that projects onto the wider Rhône flood‑plain. 

South Street Long Barrow, Avebury

South Street Long Barrow - Stukely plate including South Street Long Barrow

South Street long  barrow once lay 1 km south‑west of Avebury village, midway between the Kennet spring‑line and the Windmill Hill plateau (OS grid SU 090 678; 165 m OD). From its crest the ground falls gently north‑east toward the henge and west toward Beckhampton, so the mound would have been visible from all Early‑Neolithic foci in the area yet lay on good grazing that could be tilled by the first farming groups.

Mamucium Roman Fort, Manchester

Roman Gatehouse at Mamucium

Mamucium occupies a low sandstone promontory at the junction of the Rivers Medlock and Irwell. The bedrock is the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Group, a firm, well‑drained red sandstone that gave Roman engineers a stable platform for earthworks and timber palisades, while nearby river gravels supplied road‑making aggregate.

Bubeneč Neolithic Farm, Prague

Bubenec excavations - Institute of Archeology of Academy of Sciences

Quite recently, initial excavation evidence from Bubenec, close to Prague was first announced to the public, pending full publication. As part of that media activity, the head archaeologist for the dig, Petra  Maříková  Vlčková explained that the excavation; below the future Canadian Embassy, in Prague’s Bubeneč district, cut through almost two metres of undisturbed deposits – a rarity in Central Europe.

Castro de Trona fort – Pontevedra, Spain

Petroglifo castro Troña

Castro de Trona is an oval enclosure with significant terracing to the west and a large ditch to the east. This castro (a hillfort settlement) has an accepted date of around 600 BCE. Like many others in Galicia, this castro reached its peak during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. It measures approximately 200 metres east to west by 150 metres north to south.

Wellhill, Dunning Early Neolithic Farm – Perthshire

Dunning Perthshire - Satellite view of Wellhill prehistoric settlement

The village of Dunning in Perthshire, Scotland,  has been revealed through excavation as having traces of human activity dating back 10,000 years. This included evidence of what could be the earliest farming activity recorded in Scotland so far, and also remains of hunter-gathering activity dating back to the Mesolithic period.

Doncaster Roman Fort (Danum)

Dunum Roman Fort artistic impression

← 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 …

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Adwick-le-Street Roman Fort (Derventio)

Adwick-le-Street Roman Auxilliary Fort - Artistic Impression

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).

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