The Arras Culture Of Eastern Yorkshire Celebrating The Iron Age

In 1817 a group of East Yorkshire gentry opened barrows in a large Iron Age cemetery on the Yorkshire Wolds at Arras, near Market Weighton, including a remarkable burial accompanied by a chariot with two horses, which became known as the King’s Barrow. This was the third season of excavation undertaken there, producing spectacular finds including a further chariot burial and the so-called Queen’s barrow, which contained a gold ring, many glass beads and other items. These and later discoveries would lead to the naming of the Arras Culture, and the suggestion of connections with the near European continent. Since then further remarkable finds have been made in the East Yorkshire region, including 23 chariot burials, most recently at Pocklington in 2017 and 2018, where both graves contained horses, and were featured on BBC 4’s Digging for Britain series. This volume bring together papers presented by leading experts at the Royal Archaeological Institute Annual Conference, held at the Yorkshire Museum, York, in November 2017, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Arras discoveries. The remarkable Iron Age archaeology of eastern Yorkshire is set into wider context by views from Scotland, the south of England and Iron Age Western Europe. The book covers a wide variety of topics including migration, settlement and landscape, burials, experimental chariot building, finds of various kinds and reports on the major sites such as Wetwang/Garton Slack and Pocklington.

This volume brings together recent excavations at two sites in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. The main focus of the Volume will be examining Iron Age burials, which included chariots, sword and spears and will also include earlier Prehistoric and later Roman activity. The excavations have enabled further scientific evidence for migration and mobility in the Iron Age population and secure chronologies for artefacts. New evidence from osteological analysis gives support for Warrior Graves and burial rites. The Pocklington shield has been described as one of the most significant pieces of Iron Age art. The exceptional Finds including a dismantled chariot with horses and an upright chariot also with horses captured the worlds media and the public imagination. The excavations at Pocklington in 2017& 2018 were featured on BBC 4’s Digging for Britain series and was voted Current Archaeology Rescue Project of the Year 2018. The Anglian elements will be included in an additional volume.

This book was written at a time when the older conventional diffusionist view of prehistory, largely associated with the work of V. Gordon Childe, was under rigorous scrutiny from British prehistorians, who still nevertheless regarded the ‘Arras’ culture of eastern Yorkshire and the ‘Belgic’ cemeteries of south-eastern Britain as the product of immigrants from continental Europe. Sympathetic to the idea of population mobility as one mechanism for cultural innovation, as widely recognized historically, it nevertheless attempted a critical re-appraisal of the southern British Iron Age in its continental context. Subsequent fashion in later prehistoric studies has favoured economic, social and cognitive approaches, and the cultural-historical framework has largely been superseded. Routine use of radiocarbon dating and other science-based applications, and new field data resulting from developer-led archaeology have revolutionized understanding of the British Iron Age, and once again raised issues of its relationship to continental Europe.

The La Tene 'Arras Culture' in East Yorkshire is best known for its burials, including cart-burials, most of which were in barrows defined by square-plan ditches. Many of these were excavated in the nineteenth century, and it was not until the record was augmented by air photography in the 1960s that more cemeteries became known and available for excavation. This book records the excavation of 267 burials, including two cart-burials.Two different types of burial are distinguished: crouched, orientated north-south, and extended, orientated east-west. The range of grave-goods with the different types of burial varied also: brooches and sheep bones were common with the crouched burials, while swords, spearheads, tools, and pig bones characterised the extended burials. Several of the corpses had been speared as part of the burial ritual.The two cart-burials included a more varied range of artefacts, including decorated metalwork and the most complete example of a mail tunic from the entire Celtic world. They also provided a great deal of information about Iron Age carts and provoked a reconsideration of their reconstruction. Descriptions and catalogues of the grave-goods are augmented by full environmental reports on the human and animal bones, the textiles, the molluscan, pollen, and soil evidence, and the geophysical prospecting. Scientific and dating evidence is included, together with a preliminary statistical survey of the human bones.

This book was written at a time when the older conventional diffusionist view of prehistory, largely associated with the work of V. Gordon Childe, was under rigorous scrutiny from British prehistorians, who still nevertheless regarded the ‘Arras’ culture of eastern Yorkshire and the ‘Belgic’ cemeteries of south-eastern Britain as the product of immigrants from continental Europe. Sympathetic to the idea of population mobility as one mechanism for cultural innovation, as widely recognized historically, it nevertheless attempted a critical re-appraisal of the southern British Iron Age in its continental context. Subsequent fashion in later prehistoric studies has favoured economic, social and cognitive approaches, and the cultural-historical framework has largely been superseded. Routine use of radiocarbon dating and other science-based applications, and new field data resulting from developer-led archaeology have revolutionized understanding of the British Iron Age, and once again raised issues of its relationship to continental Europe.

Warfare was a crucial aspect of Celtic society, deeply linked to the spreading of their culture through all Europe. Between the fifth century BC, when La Tène Culture Celts developed in Europe, and the first century AD, when they faced the complete subjugation or annihilation of most of their communities, their approach to warfare was subject to constant evolution, driven both by contact with Mediterranean cultures and different requirements closely related to social issues that were in constant flux. Gioal Canestrelli offers an interdisciplinary approach, combining archaeological and literary sources and examining Celtic warfare from both a practical perspective, linked to weapons structure and military tactics, and a social perspective, analysing the cultural implications of Celtic military development. Furthermore, the book analyses the different areas of the Keltiké, from Britain to Gaul, from Spain to the Alpine region, with more than 120 black & white drawings of the archaeological finds and a number of original color artworks of Celtic warriors.

The horse was the essential animal for the medieval world: means of transport, a vehicle of social status and a cherished companion. This volume explores the ways in which horses shaped medieval societies.