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.
Site Section: Global Heritage
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
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.
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.
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.
- adze, Ard, Bronze Age, Causewayed enclusure, Chambered tombs, Cross Cut ploughing, cross ploughing, Early Neolithic, Europe’s oldest plough furrows, Flintbek LA, Guldager-Nygård, Iron Age, Les Arsenaux, Long Barrow, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Oppida, Oppidum, palaeolithic, Planig‑Friedberg ware culture, Pleistocene glaciers, ploughing, polished adze, Pottery, Quern, Rhône Valley, Roman, Seduni, Sedunum, South Street Long Barrow, Stone Tools, Torsted-Langagergård, Vasi a Bocca Quadrata culture, Vasi a Bocca Quadrata ware, VBQ
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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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Articles
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- Archaeology Guide
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- Guide – Critical Thinking: The Simple Assumption
- Guide – Applying critical thinking to historic and archaeological research
- Guide – Empathic Archaeology Introduction
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- Guide – Introduction to Glacial Archaeology
- Guide – The Flora and Fauna of Prehistoric Britain
- Guide – Landscape Archaeology: Post-Ice Age Landscape of Thornborough
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- The Border Reivers
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- The growth of Christianity 50AD – 1100AD
- The Kingdom of Venutius
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- The walled gardens of Brigantia
- Yorkshire’s “Sacred Vale” – The Dawn of Brigantia
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- Biefing – The Myth of Breogán and the Tower of Heracles
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- Briefing – Geography and Geology of Galicia
- Briefing – Design of Galician Hillforts
- Briefing – Roman Interaction with Galicia and the Iberian Peninsula
- Church of Santa María de Cambre, Cambre near A Coruña
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Heritage Gateway
Announcing: The Brigantian News!
- Roman Road to the West uncovered under Manchester Street 16 July 2025
- What might Stonehenge Mean? Dartmoor and Carnac add to the Picture 3 July 2025
- Megalithic Stone Monuments in France May Be Europe’s Oldest 1 July 2025
- Drumanagh Promontory Fort – First Ever Intact Roman Pot Found in Ireland 5 June 2025
Portable Antiquities News
Incomplete post-medieval copper alloy spoon, with most of the round-sectioned stem and the distal end of the bowl missing (non-recent breaks). The bowl is oval with a rat tail on the underside. Weight 3.51g. Extant length 34.1mm. [...]
Post-medieval copper alloy button consisting of a solid plano-convex head with a central nipple and an integral non-drilled loop. Cf. Read 2010 no. 228. Weight 1.66g. Diameter 9.6mm. Length 12.4mm. 16th century.Finder's no. HK6F45 [...]
Fragment of a probably kidney-shaped medieval copper alloy buckle consisting of part of the widened and angled outside edge, one side and one end of an iron bar within the rolled over end of the [...]
Rim sherd of a medieval to post-medieval cast copper alloy cooking vessel with old breaks. A copper alloy sheet repair patch is folded over the top and secured with one rolled sheet rivet. Only a [...]
A copper alloy fragment of a Roman hair pin dating to the Roman period (c. AD 100-200). The remains of the object consist of the head and partial shaft. The head is dome-shaped with a flat [...]
Post-medieval copper alloy finger ring with the D-sectioned hoop complete but quite recently broken and distorted. The bezel is in the form of a circular buckle frame, the pin of which is missing. Rather obscure [...]
A Gallo Belgic import broad-flan gold stater (22.23mm, 7.24g), left type, attributed to the Bellovaci (from the region of Oise, Picardy). Obverse: flamboyant wreathed bust, left. Reverse: horse, left, with charioteer. As ABC 4. [...]
Just over half of a post-medieval copper alloy double-looped buckle frame, both loops oval, with a pin groove on a pronounced knop on the extant edge. There are traces of white-metal coating. The breaks are [...]
A complete lead alloy musket shot dating to the Post Medieval period (c. AD 1600-1800). The object is sub-spherical in shape with a pitted surface. The shot has a light grey patina and does not appear to have impacted. As stated by [...]
Post-medieval iron spherical object, probably shot, with a heavily pitted surface. Very close in dimensions and weight to LVPL-FFB98B and NMS-02C1E8. Diameter 22 - 23mm, weight 38.15g. 17th - 19th century.Rather than being a martial [...]
Complete early post-medieval hooked tag of Read’s (2008) class E, type 8. The plate is scallop-shaped and the loop is square. The hook projects from the plate opposite the loop and tapers in width to [...]
Basal sherd with foot-ring of Oxfordshire-type red-slipped pottery bowl. Not a mortarium: although the central part of the interior surface is highly abraded and has lost all its slip, the upper and outer parts are [...]
Incomplete early post-medieval copper-alloy hooked strap or belt fitting. It consists of a relatively long plate, flat on both faces, with an incomplete circular or oval loop at one end and a narrowed strip, folded [...]
A complete copper alloy strap loop, of Medieval dating (AD 1200 to AD 1400).The strap loop is square in shape, with an attachment spike located centrally at the base. The top edge is slightly rounded, [...]
An incomplete copper alloy belt or strap mount dating to the Post Medieval period (c. AD 1500-1700). The object is formed of a flat octofoil plate: four wide lobes interspersed with four narrow lobes. One [...]
Two copper alloy Roman nummi of uncertain emperors (c. AD 300-402). The reverses of each are fused together with only the bust of each coin facing outwards. mints uncertain. Coins are bent out of shape. Overall [...]
An incomplete copper alloy Roman sestertius or as of an uncertain emperor (c. AD 43-260). [...] Reverse type depicting figure standing to right with cornucopia and second figure standing to left. Mint uncertain. The edge is heavily [...]
A Roman copper alloy probable radiate of an uncertain emperor (c. AD 260-296). [...] Reverse type and mint uncertain. Coin is extremely worn.Overall dimensions: 20.7mm in diameter, 1.6mm in thickness and 2.26g in weight. [...]
An incomplete copper alloy Roman nummus of an uncertain emperor (c. AD 296-402). [...] Reverse type depicting figure standing left. Mint uncertain. Coin is heavily chipped around the edge. Overall dimensions: 18.6mm in diameter, 2.6mm in [...]
An incomplete copper alloy Roman sestertius or as of an uncertain emperor (c. AD 43-260). [...] Reverse type depicting figure standing. Mint uncertain. The edge is heavily chipped. Overall dimensions: 31.2mm in diameter, 3.7mm in thickness [...]
Recent Articles and Site Pages
- The Story of Boltby Scar
- Swaledale
- Guide: Parliamentary-walls and the Northern Enclosures
- County Durham
- The hero archetype and Lugh
- Head One – St Michaels Church, Kirklington
- Long Meg and her Daughters standing stone and stone circle
- Cana Barn Henge
- Anciens Arsenaux Neolithic Settlement, Sion – Switzerland
- Gnaeus Julius Agricola
- Snake Iconography in the British Isles
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