Easington Barrow
The Easington Barrow is a round burial mound in the south of the Holderness peninsula , near the Humber estuary on the English east coast in East Riding of Yorkshire , which was excavated in 1996 and 1997 ( location ).
The place was excavated in the 1890s by Henry Bendelack Hewetson (1850-1899) and in the 1960s by Rod Mackey. It is right by the sea, so the excavation utensils had to be carried over more than 800 meters using wheelbarrows . Round hills are rare on Holderness . The Easington Hills are part of an isolated group, parts of which have already been lost to coastal erosion. In 1996 he was lying on the beach and was in immediate danger.
The excavation of the 1890s
A series of parallel slits cut in the clay layer below the middle of the hill were mistakenly interpreted in the 1960s as the remains of a wooden structure. In 1996 it became clear that these were the results of the first excavation in the 1890s. HB Hewetson had cut a four-foot-wide trench through the center of the mound in which nine parallel slits were dug in search of a burial. He had dug two shorter trenches on either side, one of which just missed the grave found in the 1960s. John Robert Mortimer (1825–1911) refers in "Forty Years of Research" to the probing technique using parallel trenches and may have been present at this excavation.
The Round Barrow 1960
The shallow grave found in the 1960s was not in the middle of the hill. Due to the acidic clay , no trace of a skeleton was found, but a black turned and polished disk about 6 cm in diameter. It may be the earliest example of the UK filming process .
A bare long-necked mug that had been lying on the side of the grave had been shattered when the mound was thrown up. Parts of a finely crafted arrowhead of flint were found of the 19th century in the overburden excavation. Shards of a Yorkshire mug were discovered below the hill. The burial mound was at the end of a slight natural rise. Charred sticks covered the sealed area and penetrated the mound material in many places, which indicates that the area was slash and burned . After the burial, charred oak trunks and heavy branches formed a circle 14 m in diameter, which predefined the area of the burial mound. The hill, which originally had a diameter of around 16 m, appears to have been built in two layers. The core consists of sand and clay, the surface material of the environment. Clays from deeper layers were found in the hill mantle. No trace of a trench was found, although an area approximately 8.0 m wide was examined around the mound. Oak , alder , hazel , poplar and willow have been identified in the charcoal and radiocarbon samples have placed the barrow in the early Bronze Age , calibrated around 2000 BC. BC, dated.
Charred grains of cereal dated between the middle of the 3rd and the end of the 4th centuries AD indicate that the barrow was near or within Roman fields at that time.
Neolithic finds
Early Neolithic finds under the mound were recognized in the 1960s. Recent excavations have found multiple hearths, pits, post holes, and a dense scattering of pottery (over 650 shards) and worked flint (over 750 pieces) from this stage around the natural rise. Other post holes are likely part of a rectangular building that stood on the southeast side behind the hill. Weathered pottery lay on the surface long before the mound covered it. A large number of different vessels from the Middle Neolithic tradition, decorated with grooves, string or fingernail impressions, were represented. Much of the flint was waste from tool making. Narrow blades dominated, but there was also the part of a large polished dechel , an arrowhead (triangular with a barb), and knives and scrapers . A scraper and knife had a perfectly ground edge. The residents mainly used the best quality black flint from the local boulder clay, which could have been collected in river beds or on the banks of the Humber.
Fragments of several grinding and rubbing stones were found in a pit, and a loom made of baked clay lay in one of the post holes. This may be the earliest weaving weight in the UK.
Time position
Charcoal samples from a fireplace and various post holes show that Neolithic people occupied the place from the early 4th to the middle or late phase of the 3rd millennium BC. BC, i.e. more than 1000 years. 5000 years ago the sea was maybe ten kilometers to the east, but the Humber shore was almost as close as it is today. The settlement was on Kilnsea Fleet, a wide north-east running valley. A henge and other round barrows lie in the same valley, which with the rise in the sea became a tidal creek .
The importance of the Early Bronze Age was confirmed in 1996 when the fragment of a sewn plank boat was found on Kilnsea Beach. It was calibrated to 1870–1670 BC. And is the earliest example of its kind in Britain. Sewn boats are considered seaworthy.
Discoveries at Easington Beach
In June 1998 it became known that a long stretch of the tide had washed away a long stretch of the beach at Easington, which occurs at regular intervals on this part of the coast. Two round structures, about 50 m apart, became visible. Small cuts were made between ebb and flow. Skeletal material was excavated along with the contents of a pit filled with charcoal and calcined bones. They were given to the University of Hull's Wetland Archeology Center.
The Henge (TA 4097 1828)
The larger Henge monument consisted of concentric rings of gravel, clay and black earth coloring with a diameter of 25 to 30 m ( layer ). In the better preserved northeastern quadrant it was evident that there were two concentric trenches. The inner one encompassed an area about 12 m in diameter. It had a small inner and possibly an outer wall. A pit in the filling layer of the inner trench contained charcoal and calcined bones. The analysis showed that it was burned human and animal bones. The cremation came from a young man who lived between 2500 and 2000 BC. BC died. Black organically rich material from the 1st millennium BC BC had accumulated over the primary soil profile in the inner ring.
The black ground was covered with gravel. The new surface may have been created when the outer trench was being dug. It encloses an area about 20 m in diameter. The second trench had a sizeable outer wall with a possible passage to the northwest. The opposite side has been destroyed by flooding. This event, perhaps not long after its construction, at least at a time when the monument was still intact, washed river clay into the outer trench. A single shard from the Iron Age, from the surface of the trench backfill, supports the assumption of a flood in the first millennium BC. All evidence shows that the Easington barrow was also built in the first phase of this monument.
Barrow 2 (TA 4098 1822)
50 m south of the Henges, directly on the seashore, was a second burial mound with a diameter of 17 m, which was washed away in the 1960s ( Lage ). A trench with an outer wall enclosed a gravel area of over 9 m in diameter with the bones of the stool burial of an adult in the middle. The skeleton on the right side, with the head in the southwest, may have been in a very shallow grave or belong to a burial laid on the surface. Fragments of a Bronze Age collar urn were found on the surface. Like the henge, hill 2 may have been flooded at the same time. External ramparts were previously unknown at East Yorkshire barrows, but plowing over will likely have destroyed much of it.
Like the Easington Barrow, this burial mound contained evidence of Neolithic activity. Shards of Peterborough ware and the remains of a fireplace have been found under the central area.
literature
- Dave H. Evans (Ed.): East Riding Archaeologist. Vol. 10, 2001, pp. 69–73 (interim summaries)
- Kate Dennett: Henry Bendelack Hewetson 1850-1899, a Renaissance Man of the Victorian Era. In: Leeds Museums & Galleries Review, No. 3, 2000, pp. 17-23
- Robert Van de Noort, Richard Middleton, Andrew Foxon, Aand Bayliss: The Kilnsea-boat. In: Antiquity 73, 1999, pp. 131-135
- N. Faulkner (Ed.): A tale in three parts concerning a barrow, a long house and a henge. In: Current Archeology No. 202, 2006, pp. 526-531
Web links
- Description and pictures (English)
Map with all coordinates: