Archaeological study unearths Roman Villas and clues to Iron Age Yorks

[Melvadius]

As part of English Heritages ongoing National Mapping Programme Culture 24 reports on the publication of a book detailing the results in South and West Yorkshire. The NMP survey's generally covers all periods from prehistory through to the twentieth century so will include information on several Roman sites*.

 

The combined results of a five-year aerial archaeological study which uncovered Iron Age and Roman forts in West Yorkshire have been revealed today in a new book.

 

Aerial photo mapping undertaken as part of English Heritage's National Mapping Programme was combined with older aerial photographs, the results of field walking and geophysics together with data from archaeological digs to produce the study, which covers the 65-kilometre Magnesian Limestone Ridge, running from Wetherby in the north to Dinnington in the south.

 

Most of the cropmarks belonged to the Iron Age (600BC to 50AD) and Roman period (43AD to 410AD). The potential site of a Roman villa near Aberford in West Yorkshire has also been revealed for the first time, along with a possible new Roman fort on the south bank of the River Don at Long Sandall, near Doncaster, adding weight to a long held belief that such a fort once existed locally.

 

Evidence of what are supposedly pre-Roman defensive works are also found on the north side of the River Don.

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*English Heritage's report on the yorkshire Dales survey state that

 

the information recorded as part of the NMP covers all periods from prehistory through to the twentieth century with the extensive field systems and related settlements being the most striking features, along with major remains of the lead industry. Most of the features were recorded as earthworks, stoneworks or ruined buildings; only those structures that had clearly gone out of use (eg ruined barns, grassed over quarries) were recorded. An unpublished two-volume illustrated report summarizes the data resulting from the air photo interpretation and forms part of the project archive.

 

The NMPs use a combination of aerial photographs taken over the last few decades as well as some field archaeological results and even in some instances maps for sites which have been quarried away before they could be photographed top build up a composite picture of archaeological features, buildings and structures in each area surveyed.

 

The publication seems to be the combined results of three different NMP surveys including the older Yorkshire Dales survey already mentioned as well as the more recent Lower Wharfdale NMP and the Vale of York NMP Both pages on the main English Heritage site have aerial photogrpahs showing Roman sites which were mapped as part of the surveys.