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The Neolithic Pottery of Yorkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2014

Nancy Newbigin
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Extract

Mr Piggott's survey of British neolithic pottery in 1932 revealed the dense concentration of Windmill Hill pottery in and near the Yorkshire Wolds, while in a later note Mr Sheppard drew attention to further neolithic fragments in the Mortimer collection, and published one of the Hanging Grimston bowls, newly reconstructed from fragments. But much of the Yorkshire pottery could not be traced; its existence was merely inferred from Greenwell's and Mortimer's descriptions. Recently, however, through the kindness of the authorities of the British Museum and the Mortimer Museum at Hull the writer has been able to go through the entire reserves of both the Greenwell and the Mortimer Collections, with the result that almost all the missing pottery has been traced, bowls only known from fragments have been completed, stratigraphical details have been recovered, and a large number of entirely new sites has come to light. In view of this mass of new material the time seemed ripe to attempt a complete account of the neolithic pottery of Yorkshire, including both the old and the new material, and to see what light its distribution, associations and affinities throw both on the complex interrelationships of the neolithic folk throughout the country, and on the prehistory of its own area.

Of the two main divisions of neolithic pottery, by far the greatest quantity is of the ‘A’ type; the pure ‘B’ is nowhere represented, but some half dozen sites, whose significance is discussed later, have produced sherds which show indirect ‘B’ influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 3 , Issue 1-2 , 1937 , pp. 189 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1937

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References

page 189 note 1 E. Riding Ant. Soc. Trans., XXVII, part ii, pp. 167–72Google Scholar.

page 190 note 1 But it is worth pointing out that the three bowls ‘at Pickering’ mentioned by Mortimer (p. LXIV) in his discussion of the type are not neolithic at all. Thanks to information kindly furnished by Dr Kirk they can be identified with three Anglo-Saxon bowls now in the Yorkshire Museum.

page 192 note 1 P.P.S.E.A. VII, pt. III, 379.

page 193 note 1 Mull Hill Circle, Isle of Man, Piggott, , Ant. J., 1932, p. 150, fig. 2Google Scholar; Glenluce, Callander, , P.S.A.S. LXIII, 1929, p. 67, fig. 2Google Scholar; Dundrum, Piggott, ibid., p. 154; and in all the recently excavated Irish horned cairns.

page 197 note 1 Arch. J. LXXXVIII, p. 100 Google Scholar.

page 197 note 2 Evidence of contemporaneity which is confirmed by that from Garton Slack 80, to which Miss Kitson Clark draws my attention, where a cremation trench of neolithic type overlies the primary beaker burial.

page 198 note 1 List of ‘Corky’ beakers from Yorkshire.

page 199 note 1 Man, July 1933, 117 Google Scholar.

page 199 note 2 Ibid., 1934, III.

page 199 note 3 Sherds in the Belfast Museum and in possession of Mr Estyn Evans.

page 199 noet 4 Sherds in the Belfast Museum and in possession of Mr Estyn Evans.

page 199 note 5 Forssander, Gropornerad Megalithkeramik. K. Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundets i Lund. Arsberattelse 1931, IV, pp. 20–22.

page 199 note 6 Philippe, Abbé, Cinq Années de Fouilles au Fort-Harouard, pl. XXV, no. 15 and p. 140 Google Scholar.

page 200 note 1 Buick, G.R., Fresh Facts about Prehistoric Pottery. J.R.S.A.I. XXI (1891), pl. III, fig. 6Google Scholar.

page 200 note 2 P.P.S.E.A. VII, pt. 1, pl. VI, no. 8.

page 200 note 3 Antiquity, 1934, p. 36 Google Scholar.

page 200 note 4 Arch. 1931, LXXXVIII, p. 52 Google Scholar.

page 200 note 5 Cinq Années de Fouilles, 60, 95, and pl. XVIII.

page 201 note 1 Megalithic Culture of Northern Europe, p. 105; vessel from Ormshöj, Aarby, Zealand.

page 201 note 2 J.R.S.A.I., XXXIV, fig. 3, p. 273.

page 201 note 3 Nordman, ibid, pp. 98–101.

page 201 note 4 This translation into cord seems to take place chiefly in Ireland (cf. Larne); and a find made in the Dundrum sandhills by Messrs. E. E. Evans and O. Davies bears out the idea of contact between the Peterborough people and the Beacharra group of Windmill Hill folk. A heavy bevelled rim with chevron ornament, appreciably of real Peterborough type, was found in the debris at the foot of a sand bank in whose section were stratified layers producing Neolithic A fragments with step shoulder, a type common on either side of the Irish Sea, and often found with ‘Beacharra’ decoration.

page 201 note 5 Whelan, Blake, Studies in the Significance of the Irish Stone Age, P.R.I.A. XLII (1934), pp. 121–143 Google Scholar.

page 201 note 6 cf. Elgee, , Early Man in N.E. Yorks, p. 68 Google Scholar.

page 202 note 1

The two food-vessels from Goodmanham are Abercromby, 229 and 230, from BB XCVIII.

page 202 note 2 The lugged bowl from the Ballyalton horned cairn (Ant. J., XV, pl. XXI) is a beautiful example of the evolution of a form of food-vessel from the Beacharra type, with its Portuguese affinities, while the Rathlin Island Goodmanham type stands midway between another type of food-vessel and a Peterborough–Windmill Hill hybrid.

page 202 note 3 It would be worth while to trace the spread of the Unstan stab-and-drag ornament in the Bronze Age. It is well represented in this West Yorkshire group, and occurred on a food vessel of Type B found in 1936 at Roddam, Northumberland. (In private hands).

page 204 note * Arch. LII, p. 41.

page 209 note * E. Riding Ant. Soc. Trans., XXVII, pt. II, 167–172 Google Scholar.

page 212 note * Prof. Childe has recently suggested a Yorkshire derivation for the Hedderwick pottery. See Prehistor of Scotland, p. 79.

page 216 note 1 Published by courtesy of the excavator of the Cave, Dr A. Raistrick.

page 216 note 2 P.P.S.E.A., VII, (1932), pp. 62–66 Google Scholar.

page 216 note 3 Ibid.

page 216 note 4 Rosenberg, Kulturströmungen, figs. 318–21.

page 216 note 5 Ibid., figs. 161 and 163.