Welbury Holgate and the Hare Hill Burial Mound
Posted: 13 Nov 2015, 19:55
Archaeologist Dr Keith Boughey has written a book about the excavation of the bronze age ring cairn on Thornton Moor by Welbury Holgate and his sisters in the 1930's. The Holgates spent years on this project and their many finds eventually went to the Craven Museum but no report was ever written. Dr Boughey has studied the finds, applying modern techniques such as radio carbon dating to them and this book, about to be published by the YAS, is the result of his research. We have ordered a copy for the EDLHS, but I thought it worth posting on here in case anyone else is interested.
Life and Death in Prehistoric Craven
Welbury Wilkinson Holgate and the Excavation of the Hare Hill Ring Cairn
Keith Boughey
Between 1932 and 1950, a Bronze Age ring cairn on Hare Hill, Thornton Moor, near Thornton-in-Craven, North Yorkshire (NGR: SD 92957 47686), was excavated by an amateur archaeologist, Welbury Wilkinson Holgate, assisted by his three sisters. Their excavation exposed the full structure of the cairn. The site has rising ground to the south, but commands extensive views of the broad valley of Earby and Thornton Becks below to the west and the hills of Airedale to the north. Conspicuous both on the ground and from aerial photography, it survives today as a circular flat-topped mound of stone and earth up to 0.7m in height and 28m in diameter, surrounded by a bank, with faint indications of a ditch between the bank and the mound.
Flint finds and radiocarbon dating of charcoal and cremated bone have revealed a long and complex history for the site, beginning in the Mesolithic. A shallow pit beneath the cairn containing ash, charcoal, worked flint and a ground Neolithic axehead revealed a date of 3957-3797 cal BC. The cairn contained the cremated remains of between 15-21 individuals, mostly children and adolescents, associated with Beakers, Food Vessels and Collared Urns, and returned radiocarbon dates spanning the Beaker-Early Bronze Age period from 2026-1895 cal BC to 1746-1620 cal BC. Finds also included a fine jet ear stud, a jet ‘napkin’ ring and two bone points or needles.
Sadly, nothing was ever published. But what the author has now produced for Hare Hill is a comprehensive account backed up by a suite of secure radiocarbon dates. We also have clear evidence of trade in key materials such as flint and jet. The ring cairn occupies a key location straddling the Aire-Ribble gap, to the east providing access into and across the Pennines and beyond, and to the north and west to Cumbria and the Irish Sea coastline. The people who built and used the cairn on Hare Hill undoubtedly belong to this wider economic and cultural narrative. The final publication of the excavation will ensure that the hitherto unheralded work of the Holgates will at last make its long overdue contribution to our understanding of this story.
“…a cracking piece of work…(the author) deserves a medal for bringing it fully into the public domain.” Clive Waddington (Archaeological Research Services Ltd.)
114+xii pp. + Appendices CD. Fully illustrated in colour and black-and-white. ISBN 978-0-9932383-3-8
Yorkshire Archaeological Society. £17.50 + £2.50 UK p&p (less £2.50 without Appendices CD, £2.50 discount to YAS/PRS members or if ordered pre-publication) Expected date of publication: December 2015
All inquires/orders to:
Dr. K. Boughey, c/o YAS, ‘Church Bank’, Church Hill, Hall Cliffe, Baildon, W. Yorks.BD17 6NE.
Tel.: 01274-580737. keith_boughey@hotmail.com
Life and Death in Prehistoric Craven
Welbury Wilkinson Holgate and the Excavation of the Hare Hill Ring Cairn
Keith Boughey
Between 1932 and 1950, a Bronze Age ring cairn on Hare Hill, Thornton Moor, near Thornton-in-Craven, North Yorkshire (NGR: SD 92957 47686), was excavated by an amateur archaeologist, Welbury Wilkinson Holgate, assisted by his three sisters. Their excavation exposed the full structure of the cairn. The site has rising ground to the south, but commands extensive views of the broad valley of Earby and Thornton Becks below to the west and the hills of Airedale to the north. Conspicuous both on the ground and from aerial photography, it survives today as a circular flat-topped mound of stone and earth up to 0.7m in height and 28m in diameter, surrounded by a bank, with faint indications of a ditch between the bank and the mound.
Flint finds and radiocarbon dating of charcoal and cremated bone have revealed a long and complex history for the site, beginning in the Mesolithic. A shallow pit beneath the cairn containing ash, charcoal, worked flint and a ground Neolithic axehead revealed a date of 3957-3797 cal BC. The cairn contained the cremated remains of between 15-21 individuals, mostly children and adolescents, associated with Beakers, Food Vessels and Collared Urns, and returned radiocarbon dates spanning the Beaker-Early Bronze Age period from 2026-1895 cal BC to 1746-1620 cal BC. Finds also included a fine jet ear stud, a jet ‘napkin’ ring and two bone points or needles.
Sadly, nothing was ever published. But what the author has now produced for Hare Hill is a comprehensive account backed up by a suite of secure radiocarbon dates. We also have clear evidence of trade in key materials such as flint and jet. The ring cairn occupies a key location straddling the Aire-Ribble gap, to the east providing access into and across the Pennines and beyond, and to the north and west to Cumbria and the Irish Sea coastline. The people who built and used the cairn on Hare Hill undoubtedly belong to this wider economic and cultural narrative. The final publication of the excavation will ensure that the hitherto unheralded work of the Holgates will at last make its long overdue contribution to our understanding of this story.
“…a cracking piece of work…(the author) deserves a medal for bringing it fully into the public domain.” Clive Waddington (Archaeological Research Services Ltd.)
114+xii pp. + Appendices CD. Fully illustrated in colour and black-and-white. ISBN 978-0-9932383-3-8
Yorkshire Archaeological Society. £17.50 + £2.50 UK p&p (less £2.50 without Appendices CD, £2.50 discount to YAS/PRS members or if ordered pre-publication) Expected date of publication: December 2015
All inquires/orders to:
Dr. K. Boughey, c/o YAS, ‘Church Bank’, Church Hill, Hall Cliffe, Baildon, W. Yorks.BD17 6NE.
Tel.: 01274-580737. keith_boughey@hotmail.com