• Editorial Review
• Lecture Reminder | How to get to Stockton Library
• Activities & Events | Winter-Spring local and regional conferences, day schools, lectures and exhibitions | Activities for later in 2013
• Site Notes | Star Carr team February newsletter | Anglo-Saxons in York | Escrick Ring mystery
• Action Stations | NE Yorkshire Mesolithic Project | Elwick Village Atlas Project
• Browser | This month's recommended Browsing, Listening and Reading items
• About TAS | How to join | eNews Archive

Welcome to your February eNewsletter and

A number of flyers and documents in this eNewsletter are downloadable in PDF format.
You will need (free) Adobe Acrobat reader installed on your computer.
 

TAS Lecture Reminder A paper copy of the programme has been sent to each TAS member by post and is also available to view on the TAS website. All lectures take place in Stockton Central Library at 7.30pm unless stated otherwise. Directions to Stockton are provided below. Tue 5 Mar 2013 | Archaeological Landscapes of Swaledale | Tim Laurie Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Archaeology Group Tim’s lecture will present archaeological landscapes in Swaledale and adjacent areas of the Swale-Tees/Greta interfluve. These landscapes include Mesolithic and Neolithic occupation sites, rock art, ring cairns, burnt mounds and the unenclosed settlements of the Bronze Age which have interesting associations with wide ranging coaxial field systems on the open heather moorland. The recently completed surveys of the wide ranging coaxial field systems of Swaledale will be detailed and the evidence for their origins, development and relative chronology will be described. Finally, the horizon of Later, Iron Age and Native Settlements of the Roman Period on the lower dale slopes will be introduced together with the Grinton-Fremington Linear Earthworks, all of which are currently the subject of survey and recent excavations by The Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Archaeology Group. For interim reports on this work in progress see www.swaag.org. Image | Harkermires ring cairn | Tim Laurie. How to get to Stockton Library Stockton Central Library is located off Church Road, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 1TU. By Rail | Stockton railway station is located at Bishopton Lane, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 2AJ, approximately 400m from the library. Stockton is served by trains between Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, Newcastle (via Sunderland), Hexham and Carlisle with connections required for Darlington mainline and TransPennine services via York and Middlesbrough. By Bus | For local and regional bus services, visit the journey planner at Connect Tees Valley. Student shuttle between Durham and Queen's Campus via Stockton Town Centre | In term-time a University campus shuttle bus runs between Harvard Avenue (outside Queen's Campus) to Stockton town centre, then to Durham, calling at the Maiden Castle sports centre, the Science Site, New Elvet and the bus station. Daytime services are half-hourly, evening is hourly | More info on services By Car | Free evening parking is at the rear of the library—turn into the street named The Square towards the river, entering the car park through barriers on the right. When you arrive | The lecture room is located to the east of the ground floor library area through two sets of double doors. You can also enter from the rear car park (opposite the Police Station) and turn right once inside. Please sign the visitor's book. Guests are welcome for £3 each on the door—please pay a Committee member. Refreshments are available afterwards. The refurbished library has a cafe upstairs and offers free wifi access.

The Northallerton and District Local History Society invites you to a public presentation with contributions from Brian Forbes of Thornton le Moor and Oliver Cooper, Project Manager of Northern Archaeological Associates.

Conflict in Cleveland—and Beyond : Day School | Sat 9 Mar 2013 | Middlesbrough

This Spring sees the 16th day school organised jointly by the Centre for Regional and Local Historical Research and the Cleveland and Teesside Local History Society. The day is intended for the general public, who are especially welcome, as well as members of the University and the Society. There will be six invited speakers, who will be talking about military, religious and social conflict in North Yorkshire and South Durham. You can park free of charge immediately outside the Europa Building if you are attending the day school. The entrance to the car park is on Woodlands Road in Middlesbrough, near its junction with Southfield Road.

You can bring your own packed lunch to eat in the Europa Building or go out to an eating place in the neighbourhood. Alternatively you can order a buffet lunch from the University at a cost of £4.50, provided that you order when you are booking your place at the day school.

• 9.30am Registration
• 9.45am How dangerous is desperation’: The Battle of the Standard, Northallerton 1138 | Geoff Braddy
• 11.00am The dog that did not bark and the one that did: Cleveland men in the 1405 rebellion | Dr Melanie Devine
• 11.45am Religious rebellions | Dr Diana Newton
• 1.30pm Sedition, riot and rebellion in 18th century North Yorkshire | Prof Peter Rushton
• 2.15pm How Stockton faced the fear of French invasion | Dr Win Stokes
• 3.30pm ‘Demonstration Days’: class conflict in Victorian Cleveland | Dr Tony Nicholson
• 4.15 to 4.30pm Conclusions

• Registration and tea/coffee at 10.00 for a 10.30 start
• Myths, fairy tales and historical facts | Stuart Miller (Sunderland WEA)
•  Robin Hood | Prof Tony Pollard (Teesside University)
• Richard III | Prof Tony Pollard (Teesside University
• George Hudson: Friend of the Poor | Stuart Miller
• Crusading, passionate and troublesome: Francis Haydn Williams, Whitby's Unitarian Minister | Rev Margaret Kirk (Unitarian Minister)
• Bram Stoker’s holiday in Whitby | David Pybus, Lynn Tye, Holly Hyams (Whitby Lit & Phil Soc)
• RNLI Whitby Lifeboat Coxswain, Lifeboats: at the sharp end | Peter Thomson, MBE

A guided tour around historic Hartlepool by Robin Daniels of Tees Archaeology. Please meet at 10am at St. Hilda's Church.

• 09.30 Registration & coffee
• 10.00 Welcome
• 10.05 Retrospective - looking back over 150 years of Roman Yorkshire | Emeritus Professor Jenny Price
• 10.35 Stanwick and the coming of Rome | Professor Colin Haselgrove
• 11.05 Roman York | Dr Patrick Ottaway
• 11.35 The Roman Army in Yorkshire | Dr Pete Wilson
• 12.05 Rome and the Parisi | Dr Peter Halkon
• 12.30 Lunch (not provided but available locally)
• 14.00 The PAS and Roman Yorkshire | Dr Sally Worrell
• 14.30 Human remains from York and Roman Yorkshire | Malin Holst MSc and Dr Anwen Caffell
• 15.00 How green was my Villa? The contribution of environmental studies to Yorkshire's Roman heritage | Dr Allan Hall
• 15.30 Coffee
• 16.00 Overview: Roman Yorkshire today | Professor Martin Millett
• 16.30 General Discussion
• 17.00 Close

Site Notes
 

Star Carr | February 2013 newsletter

The Star Carr team members have been writing up the results from the last season of excavation and have put together this newsletter about how things are going. They are still hoping to do some more work this summer, but are still in the planning stages. More news will follow. You can register on their website.

More Info | Feb 2013 Newsletter | Website: www.starcarr.com


Anglo-Saxon York | Tiny finds in tiny trench

"The recent excavation of a pair of Viking feet and a tiny silver Anglo-Saxon coin may lack the glamour of the discovery of the last Plantagenet, but it has shone a light on one of the least known periods in the long history of York Minister: the centuries between the fall of Roman empire and the coming of the Vikings, in AD866. The coin, no bigger than a 5 pence piece, is a sceat, minted in York."

Read more |  Guardian UK


Escrick Ring | Sapphire ring baffles

"A sapphire ring found in North Yorkshire has sparked a meeting of experts to determine exactly when it was made.

The ring has baffled archaeologists because it is unlike any other according to the Yorkshire Museum. The intricate ring, presumably made by a highly skilled craftsman, is on show at the Museum in York."

Read more | BBC News

The Post Hole is an archaeology journal run by students at the University of York. It publishes articles on a wide range of archaeological topics, from prehistory to the present day, giving readers the latest news, research and events in the world of archaeology, heritage and archaeological science.

Issues are released via our website at the start of each month and are available to anyone. If you are interested in writing for The Post Hole, please read the information for contributors, or contact us.

The Post Hole was established in 2008 and since then has become the premier student-run archaeology journal in the UK. The journal has a diverse audience which continues to grow with the recent redevelopment of its website and new social media presence.

Follow The Post Hole
Facebook http://goo.gl/ZELcI | Twitter http://goo.gl/mwAV8 | Google+ http://goo.gl/sE5cT

Erik Bloodaxe and Egil Skallagrimsson came to the fore, both for their narrative possibilities and examples of how events of the Viking period have come to be distorted and misunderstood. The eventual result is this book. The life of Erik begins with his background and career in Norway followed by his overseas adventures. After seizing power in northern England, he met a violent death there. Also covered is much of the life of the Icelander Egil Skallagrimsson, who tried his best to be a thorn in the side of Erik and his wife Gunnhild. After Erik fell, his kin fought desperately to maintain eminence. The western Viking movement was due to revive in a more organised form, but after sporadic outbursts of warfare eventually subsided to emerge as modern nations, whose folks were still to be culturally productive like their Viking forebears, but without their collective tendency to violence.

To obtain a complete account, the sources were ransacked. Certain anomalies showed up, involving the identities of some of the characters and the places where events are said to or are believed to have taken place. Attention was directed to solving these problems. Discrepancies in the relationship between three English kings in the mid-tenth century and Scandinavians are particularly serious, but can be resolved with certain adjustments. For instance, students of these times have long disputed the location of the important Battle of Brunanburh. Yet another site is proposed, this being not so very far from York.

1. The Yorkshire Dales, by Tony Waltham and David Lowe
2. Geology of the limestones, by Colin Waters and David Lowe
3. Glaciation and Quaternary evolution, by Wishart Mitchell
4. Karst geomorphology, by Tony Waltham
5. Limestone pavements, by Simon Webb
6. Travertine and tufa, by Allan Pentecost
7. Cave geomorphology, by Tony Waltham and Phil Murphy
8. Geological infuences on the caves, by David Lowe
9. Hydrogology of the karst, by John Gunn and Simon Bottrell
10. Chronology of the caves, by Alf Latham and Derek Ford
11. Speleothems and palaeoclimates, by Tim Atkinson and Phil Hopley
12. Holocene environments, by Margaret Atherden
13. Cave biology, by Graham Proudlove
14. Bats in the caves, by John Altringham and Anita Glover
15. Cave palaeontology, by Terry O'Connor and Tom Lord
16. Cave archaeology, by Tom Lord and John Howard