Category: Archaeological Periods

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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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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Head One – St Michaels Church, Kirklington

Filed under Celtic Head, Celtic Head, Church, Gothic

This head is one of thirteen “Celtic”, or archaic heads that are located within the interior of the church. Twelve of those heads, including this one, are located in four rows of three, which run down either side of the churches arched columns. The thirteenth head is located in the bell tower.

Long Meg and her Daughters standing stone and stone circle

Filed under Agriculture, Archaeology, Medieval, Neolithic, ploughing, Stone Circle

Long Meg and her Daughters is a remarkable Neolithic monument located near Penrith in Cumbria, England.

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.

Anciens Arsenaux Neolithic Settlement, Sion – Switzerland

Filed under Animal Remains, Augustus Caesar, Civil Structure, Dragons, Early Neolithic, Enclosure, Europe, Field Systems, Hamlet, Hoof marks, Julius Caesar, Myth and Legend, Neolithic, New Sites, Planig‑Friedberg ware, Polished Stone Adze, Pottery, Quern Stones, Roman army, Roman baths, Roman City, Roman Culture, Roman Villa, Switzerland, The Devil, Vasi a Bocca Quadrata ware, Witches

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. 

Jul 21

Gnaeus Julius Agricola

Filed under Agricola, Articles, Leaders, Roman, Roman army, Roman navy

In a series of annual military campaigns Agricola put down revolts in north Wales, subdued the Brigantes tribe in the north, extended Roman control over the Scottish lowlands, where he established a string of forts between the Forth and the Clyde, sent troops into Galloway, and made inroads into the eastern Highlands. During the latter campaign his vessels were the first to circumnavigate the islands.

Agricola, Antoninus Pius, Barochan, Barwick in Elment, Brigantia, britain, Camelon, Carlisle, Cartimandua, Clyde, Fifeshire, Forth, Gask Ridge, ireland, Iron Age, Lake District, Lancaster, Legion XX, Littlechester, Lune, Maryport, Mersey, Mollins, Ribble, Roman, scotland, Stainmore, Stanegate, Tay, Venutius, Wilderspool, Wrotexeter
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Jul 21

Snake Iconography in the British Isles

Filed under Archaeology, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Mace Head, Neolithic, Passage Tomb, S-curved, Snake Mound

Syncretism through the ages Syncretism, the amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought, has its roots in the ancient world. Thoughts on Celtic Religion – Raimund, Karl To begin with, lets first look at the sources available to us: There are quite numerous sources available, contrary to Read more Hillforts: Defence or Ritual? …

Bronze Age, Coiled Torcs, Iconography, Iron Age, Knowth, la tene, Loch Nell, Neolithic, Passage Tomb, Pennanular Ring, Pictish, Prehistory, Serpent, Serpent Mound, serpentiform, Snake, Snaked Headed
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Liverpool Street Roman Road, Manchester

Filed under Roman, Roman army, Roman Culture, Roman pottery, Roman Roads, Samian ware, Samian ware

Archaeologists have exposed a well-preserved cambered Roman road surface in Manchester’s Castlefield area (Liverpool Road/Liverpool Street reporting), astonishingly only c. 15 inches (≈38–40 cm) below modern tarmac, with an assemblage of Romano-British pottery and other small finds broadly dating its active use to the 1st–3rd centuries AD.

Lancashire, Mamucium, Manchester, road, Roman, Roman Army, Samian ware, Street
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Mamucium Roman Fort, Manchester

Filed under Altar, Defensive Structures, Fort, New Sites, Roman, Roman army, Roman Road

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.