Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-kl2l2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-09T04:04:53.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Roxby Iron Age Settlement and the Iron Age in North-EastYorkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

R. Inman ,
D. R. Brown ,
R. E. Goddard  and
D. A. Spratt
R. Inman
Affiliation:
32 Spring Field, Stokesley, Cleveland TS9 5EU
D. R. Brown
Affiliation:
26 Lingfield Drive, Eaglescliffe, Cleveland TS16 0NX
R. E. Goddard
Affiliation:
664 Yarm Road, Eaglescliffe, Cleveland TS16 0DP
D. A. Spratt
Affiliation:
13 The Vale, Skelton, York YO3 6YH
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Round houses and an enclosure, surviving parts of a nucleated settlement onboulder clay terrain at Roxby (near Staithes, north-east Yorkshire),discovered from the air in 1972, were excavated 1973–81. Most were dated tothe immediately pre-Roman Iron Age, but one round house, standing in an areaof marks of former cross-ploughing, had native Romano-British pottery, andin the last phase of ditch silting, sherds of sixth century AD Anglo-Saxonstamped ware. The economy was based on mixed farming, but two of the IronAge houses also contained iron working comprising both smelting andsmithing. These houses also yielded fragments of jet and glass and wereinterpreted as a repair workshop, rather than a production unit. Greatstructural detail had been preserved and was recorded. The houses werearchitecturally different and represent a significant addition to theprehistoric round house data. They lie in that part of the township of Roxbywhich escaped medieval ploughing, and probably represent a fraction of thetotal original settlement. This and other data in north-east Yorkshire showthat an economy based on settled mixed farming, not on semi-nomadicpastoralism, was widespread across the boulder clay encircling the NorthYork Moors.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 181 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Atherden, M. A., 1976. ‘The impact of late prehistoric cultures on the vegetation of the North York Moors’, Trans. Inst. Brit. Geogr. NS 1 (3), 284–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, J. C., 1864. Gentleman's Magazine Part 1, 162–67.Google Scholar
Bartley, D. D., Chambers, C. and Hart-Jones, B., 1976. ‘The vegetational history of parts of south and east Durham’, New Phytologist 77, 437–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewster, T. C. M., 1963. The Excavation of Staple Howe. East Riding Archaeological Research Committee.Google Scholar
Briscoe, T., 1981. ‘Anglo-Saxon Pot Stamps’, in Brown, D., Campbell, J. and Hawkes, S. C. (eds), Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 2, 1–36. British Archaeological Report 92, Oxford.Google Scholar
Challis, A. J. and Harding, D. W., 1975. Later Prehistory from the Trent to the Tyne. British Archaeological Report 20.Google Scholar
Close, R. S., 1972. ‘Excavation of Iron Age Hut Circles at Percy Rigg, Kildale’, Yorkshire Archaeol. J. 44, 23–31.Google Scholar
Close, R. S., Hayes, R. H. and Spratt, D. A., 1975. ‘Romano-British settlements at Crag Bank and Lounsdale, near Kildale, North Riding’, Yorkshire Archaeol. J. 47, 61–68.Google Scholar
Dimbleby, G. W., 1961. The development of British heath-lands and their soils. Oxford Forestry Memoir 23.Google Scholar
Elgee, F., 1930. Early Man in North East Yorkshire. Gloucester, Bellows.Google Scholar
Graves, J., 1808. The history of Cleveland. Republished 1972. Stockton-on-Tees, Patrick and Shotton.Google Scholar
Guilbert, G., 1981. ‘Double ring roundhouses, probable and possible, in prehistoric Britain’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 47, 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guilbert, G., 1983. ‘Post ring symmetry in roundhouses at Moel y Gaer and some other sites in prehistoric Britain’, in Drury, P. J. (ed.), Structural Reconstruction, 67–86. British Archaeological Report 110.Google Scholar
Guido, M., 1978. The glass heads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods in Britain and Ireland. London, Society of Antiquaries, Research Report 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, R. H. 1964. Yorkshire Archaeol. J. 41, 172.Google Scholar
Hayes, R. H., 1966. ‘A Romano-British site at Pale End, Kildale’, Yorkshire Archaeol. J. 41, 687–700.Google Scholar
Hayes, R. H., 1983. Levisham Moor Archaeological Investigations, 1952. North York Moors National Park Committee and Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society.Google Scholar
Hayes, R. H., Hemingway, J. E. and Spratt, D. A., 1980. ‘The distribution and lithology of beehive querns in North-east Yorkshire’, J. Archaeol. Sci. 7, 297–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heslop, D. H., 1983. ’The Excavation of an Iron Age Settlement at Thorpe Thewles’, in Recent Excavations in Cleveland, 17–26. Cleveland County Council Archaeology Section.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. J., 1972. ‘A technical study of opaque red glass of the Iron age in Britain’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 38, 98–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jobey, G., 1962. ‘An Iron Age homestead at West Brandon, Durham’, Archaeologia Aeliana 40, 1–34.Google Scholar
Jobey, G., 1966. ‘A field survey in Northumberland’, in Rivet, A.L.F. (ed.), The Iron Age in Northern Britain, 89–109. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Jobey, G., 1967. ‘Excavation at Tynemouth Priory and Castle’, Archaeologia Aeliana 45, 33–105.Google Scholar
Jobey, G., 1970. ‘An Iron Age settlement and homestead at Burradon, Northumberland’, Archaeologia Aeliana 48, 51–96.Google Scholar
Jobey, G., 1973. ‘A native settlement at Hartburn and the Devils Causeway, Northumberland’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5 th Series, 1, 11–55.Google Scholar
Jones, R. L., 1978. ‘Late Quaternary vegetational history of the North York Moors VI. The Cleveland Moors’, J. Biogeogr. 5, 81–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mc Donnell, G., 1983. ‘Tap slags and hearth bottoms’, Current Archaeol. 86, 81–83.Google Scholar
Musson, C., 1970. ‘House plans and prehistory’, Current Archaeol. 2, 267–75.Google Scholar
Myres, J. N. L., 1977. A Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Pottery of the Pagan Period. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, P. J., 1983. ‘Substructure to Superstructure’, in Drury, P. J. (ed.), Structural Reconstruction, 173–98. British Archaeological Report 110.Google Scholar
Roberts, W. I., 1982. Romano-Saxon Pottery. British Archaeological Report 106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spratt, D. A., 1982. The Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology of Northeast Yorkshire. British Archaeological Report 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spratt, D. A. and Simmons, I. G., 1976. ‘Prehistoric activity and environment on the North York Moors’, J. Archaeol. Sci. 3, 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Startin, W., 1978. ‘Linear Pottery Culture houses; reconstruction and manpower’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 44, 143–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinkler, B. N. and Spratt, D. A., 1978. ‘An Iron Age enclosure on Great Ayton Moor, North Yorkshire’, Yorkshire Archaeol. J. 50, 49–56.Google Scholar
Toomey, J. P., 1976. An Iron Age enclosure at Oldfield Hill, Meltham. Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. and Smith, K., 1980. ‘The Shaugh Moor project; second report – the enclosure’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 46, 65–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M., 1954. The Stanwick Fortification. London, Society of Antiquaries, Research Report 17.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Inman et al.

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 51, 1985, 181-213

Download Inman et al.(PDF)
PDF 1.2 MB