Excavations to the southwest of Methley on a site to the north of the River Calder recorded an Iron Age settlement with possible Bronze Age origins, where a small community inhabited at least three phases of roundhouse within a large polygonal enclosure on the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding landscape. This was followed by Romano-British occupation during the mid to late second century AD and the mid third to early fifth century AD further to the south on the hill slope.

This is the published report on the excavation of an extensive site on the eastern edge of York earmarked for the expansion of the University of York campus. More specifically, as the preface empha...

Over the past half century knowledge of the archaeology of Roman, Viking and Medieval York has advanced significantly, yet information on preceding prehistoric periods remains scanty. To all intents and purposes the prehistory of the York area is as invisible in literature as it is on the ground. This paper will briefly review the background to the prehistory of York, attempt a characterisation of the archaeology, and propose an outline strategy to advance understanding of the prehistory of what is probably the least well known sub-region of Yorkshire. An initial version of this paper was presented at a conference on the archaeology of York, held in the city in November 2011.

Jan Harding, Cult, Religion and Pilgrimage: Archaeological Investigations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age Monument Complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire, with contributions by Lindsay Allason-Jones, Arnold Aspinall, Alan Biggins, Ed Dennison, Sarah Groves, Benjamin Johnson, Robert Johnston, Eva Laurie, Peter Makey, Simon Mays, Roger Martlew, Joshua Pollard, Armin Schmidt, Kristian Strutt and Blaise Vyner

This report presents the first evidence for structures associated with salt-working in Yorkshire. The report concerns an Iron Age settlement at Street House that commences in the Later Iron Age and continues into the second century ad. One interesting feature is how the site evolved to incorporate saltworking at an altitude of 170 metres. The parallels for saltworking in Fenland and the Dorset coast are discussed in terms of materials, methods and technology. One consequence of this is the question of how widely was the product distributed if briquetage is found up to 60 km inland from the Yorkshire coast at Rock Castle, Gilling.

This paper reviews the evidence for archaeological activity in north-east Yorkshire and Cleveland during the nineteenth century. Three groups of participants are identified - churchmen, the self-styled 'Cleveland Bards', and representatives of the new industrial town of Middlesbrough - although none is likely to have called himself an archaeologist. Their interests found particular focus in the excavation of Bronze Age burial mounds and were for the most part focused on the identification of a pagan, barbaric and uncivilised past which could be contrasted with a civilized present. The particular interest in the archaeological monuments may have been a reflection of the tensions caused by the rapid development of the new iron and steel industry along the lower Tees, formerly the scene of rural agriculture.

After fire swept across 2.5 km 2 of heather moorland the detail of a wide range of archaeological features was revealed. Among these was a so-far unique small circular monument, the principal component of which was a circle of near-upright slabs set in a shallow trench. The stones included one with a complex pecked geometric design reminiscent of some Grooved Ware ceramic decoration, and another with more commonly found cup-mark and linear motifs. Limited excavation was undertaken in response to disturbance of the monument and it was discovered that the stone with complex decoration had been reshaped for its monumental setting, having perhaps previously been a free-standing decorated monolith. In its altered form the stone formed part of a small circular arena, the interior face of which may have included alternating decorated and undecorated stones. The open arena had later been filled with rubble creating a small cairn, its material including a small block detached from the main stone as well as a number of cup- and other marked stones. Apart from the decorated stones there were no diagnostic artefacts and no direct dating information was present. It is suggested that the decorated stones originate in the later Neolithic period and that the monument containing them was constructed in the Early Bronze Age.

The chance find of a discrete pit containing an Early Bronze Age funerary deposit was made at Stanbury, West Yorkshire, during the spring of 2007. A large Collared Urn, which was inverted, contained the cremated remains of a young male, together with a stone battle-axe, a bone belt-hook and pin, a pair of copper alloy earrings, and an accessory vessel. The burial was accompanied by two further Collared Urns, one of which was near complete. The two radiocarbon dates obtained have allowed a fairly tight date range of 1960–1780 cal BC to be proposed. This combination of pyre and grave goods is apparently unique, while a number of the items are exotic to Pennine Yorkshire.

"A Place by the Sea: Excavations at Sewerby Cottage Farm, Bridlington. By Chris Fenton-Thomas." Archaeological Journal, 168(1), p. 410

(2010). Newport (Illus 38–39) Archaeological Journal: Vol. 167, South-West Wales: Pembrokeshire and Western Carmarthenshire, pp. 76-77.

'Many are the Yorkshire chiefs and their families who must have journeyed down the Jurassic Way ... on a pilgrimage to Stonehenge' (Thomas 1955, 436). The Jurassic Way has long been dismissed as a prehistoric route (Taylor 1979), but it is suggested here that there is evidence in the Vale of York monuments for a long-distance route southwards and northwards through the vale which brought the Neolithic people of eastern Yorkshire, and perhaps beyond, to ritual complexes along the River Ure. It was here, as Bradley and Edmonds (2003) and Harding (2000) have shown, that communities gathered for rituals which included the exchange of axes and ideas.

"The Archaeology of Rock Art. Edited by Christopher Chippindale and Peter S. C. Taçon." Archaeological Journal, 158(1), p. 385

BRITISH PREHISTORIC ROCK ART. By STAN BECKENSALL. Pp. I6o, Illus. I59· Tempus Publishing, I999· Price: £I8.99. ISBN o 7524 I47I 2. It would be hard to find two more contrasting volumes on the topic of rock art: one a collection of papers ranging wide in space and time, the other a rather dogged discussion of British rock art which is principally concerned with the detail of the evidence from northern England. The Archaeology of Rock Art contains nineteen papers concerned with the archaeology of rock art around the world, inevitably of widely differing date and function. Although the editors insist that this volume is concerned with the archaeology of rock artthe systematic study of past human lives as they can be discerned through a knowledge of their material traces it has to be said that the range of archaeological techniques on display is for the most part limited to the interpretation of imagery. In volumes of collected papers, geographical and chronological range is more often a weakness than a strength, and the omission of the four papers concerned with European rock art (Clottes on recent palaeolithic discoveries, Walderhaug and Sognnes on Norwegian images, and Bradley on the depiction of bronze age weapons) might have allowed a more cohesive presentation ofNew World rock art and its interpretation. As it is, The Archaeology of Rock Art is somewhat disparate a collection of papers which begs such questions as the extent to which rock art in the numerous forms considered here is actually public or private art in terms of location or language. While the papers here are useful in demonstrating the range of images which have been made on, or cut into, rock, they largely fail to live up to the ambitions of the introduction which includes illustrations of an Eric Gill carving and spray paint graffitiand which states with apparently unconscious irony, 'Some of this book's authors can say little or nothing by informed methods'. British Prehistoric Rock Art is a contrast in ambition and range; Beckensall is well known for the enthusiasm with which he has conducted his research into cup-and-ring and other marked rocks in Northumberland and County Durham, and here he offers a more extensive review. A first chapter offers a vocabulary of rock art, identifying some of the individual elements of designs, but without the explanatory illustration which is accorded spirals. A section describing panels of engravings on earth-fast rocks would have been much improved with some editing and direct references to a fine section of colour photographs which, since there is no list of illustrations, appear as something of a surprise in the volume. The lengthy chapter on rock art in the landscape tends to be a rather breathless account of discoveries and observations in rough gazetteer format. It has to be said that detail, and accuracy, diminishes with distance from the author's usual stamping ground, incidences of cupmarked stones and other rock art in Wales, for example, are mostly not marked on the map (Fig. 68 lacks even a caption or figure number), are incomplete, and mostly unreferenced. A discussion of rock art in context, although lengthy and detailed, would have benefited from a shorter discussion with more focused consideration of the relationship of cup-marked stones to monument structure, and the implications for chronology and symbolism. As it is, the absence of detailed plans showing the position of decorated stones within monuments, and the relatively few text references provided, underline the benefits which might have been obtained from more careful (indeed, any) editing. In conclusion, while Beckensall's enthusiasm for his subject is to be admired, this book is less about British prehistoric rock art as about that of Northumberland and Durham. Nor has the author been well served by his publisher, whose superficially attractive production is so diminished by poor editing and referencing that its acquisition for academic purposes has to be seriously considered.

SUMMARYThe presence of Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian settlements at Cottam, East Yorkshire, was first indicated in 1987 by numerous finds of copper alloy coins, dress pins and strap ends by metal detector users. This report presents the results of fieldwork carried out on behalf of the Department of Archaeology, University of York, between 1993–95, including fieldwalking, geophysical survey, and excavation. This revealed an enclosure of the eighth to ninth centuries, containing traces of a small number of post-built halls. In the late ninth century this settlement was abandoned. A new enclosed settlement was laid out nearby, which was occupied briefly in the early tenth century. It is argued that the Anglian settlement may have been part of a royal multiple estate but that, as a result of estate reorganization after the Scandinavian setdement, it developed into an independent manor. Cottam is the first so-called ‘productive’ site in the environs of York to be the subject of archaeological investigations. The results suggest that it was a prosperous, but not exceptional site, and that the primary activity was farming, with limited evidence for trade or manufacture. This work prompts a reassessment of the typology of cropmark enclosures and the re-examination of the large number of undated enclosures in the area.