Archaeologist & writer. Senior Lecturer
@UniOfYork
. Prehistory. Books: The Story of Silbury Hill. The Remembered Land. New book
#Footmarks
. Agent: J.P. Marshall
Announcement 📣:
This is very exciting!
#Footmarks
will be out this June! It is a book about tracks and trackways, holloways and roads. A book about feet and shoes, wheels and boats. A book about putting one foot in front of the other, about crossing seas, pilgrims and migrants.
I want to tell you a story about last night and kindness, so settle in or move on depending on your inclination. A little while ago I wrote a book called
#Footmarks
and was invited last night to the
@Hatchards
‘Authors of the Year’ reception. Invited - I assume - by mistake.
Completely obsessed with these ‘trods’ of the North York Moors. Paved routeways made of flagstones - some medieval. There’s a network of them across the moors. Spent weeks searching out as many as I can.
I pass this house on my walk almost every day, and each time my heart skips - Nutholme Cottage, home if William Scoresby - 18th c Arctic explorer, navigator, whaler and inventor of the crows’ nest. Love it.
Waiting until the cows come home. Twitter’s a miserable little place right now and I seem to have lost my community, so here’s a pleasing image from yesterday’s foot travels.
On a little trip to the southwest and had to see this - the interior of the huge 14th c tithe barn at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.
Open up the photo to fully revel in the cruck forest.
Thank you for stopping to talk to me
@Tracy_Chevalier
Thank you for your kindness. And thank you for stopping me from walking away. I had a fabulous evening after all!
I’ve been trying to find an image to give a sense of the landscape around 5000BCE for a lecture. Couldn’t find anything suitable so created my own using AI. Put in all the details from my lecture notes, and this is the image.
I think we can all agree - it’s a thing of beauty!
This tiny but heart-stoppingly gorgeous Saxon stone church in Bradford-on-Avon.
I particularly love the arcading on the walls of the chancel, and the simple cave-like interior.
The glorious medieval wall paintings of St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Pickering. Dating to around 1470, they give an idea of how church interiors would’ve looked.
Here we can see the beheading of St. John the Baptist on the left and the Martyrdom of St. Edmond on the right.
The extraordinary beauty of this Late Neolithic long-tailed, ripple-flaked oblique arrowhead from Marden henge, Wiltshire!
On display in the
@WiltshireMuseum
@Tracy_Chevalier
And had I not stayed, I wouldn’t have met other lovely people like the sartorially excellent Duncan Mackay, or Sarah Tarlow, or Chris Hadley. Authors of enviable ability. I chatted with Mary Beard and Mark Ellison who wore the most magnificent jacket. It was a wonderful evening!
Amazing night at Hatchards Authors of the Year last night. Fantastic to finally meet
@sarah_tarlow
,
@Jim_Leary
&
@hadleywrites
! Who knew there’d be such an amazing archaeological presence?! And got to meet
@wmarybeard
!
And there were party bags.
Yesterday, I took a ferry to the island of Westray, and then chugged in a little ferry to the tiny northern island of Papa Westray to see the Knap of Howar - two shockingly well-preserved early examples of inter connecting Orcadian stone houses, dating from between 3600-3100 BCE.
Skipsea Withow Mere on the Holderness coast looking very fine.
The accumulated sediments of an 10,000 year old lake. Here it contains the remains of a beaver dam - with preserved beaver hair!
As thin as a slice of light. This Early Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead was made between 6000 and 5000 years ago. The flint so delicately pressure-flaked that it is translucent.
#FindsFriday
The Norman crypt underneath the church of St Mary, Lastingham, on the edge of the North York Moors, is an exceptional space. Supposedly the oldest Norman crypt in the world and the only one with a nave, aisles and an apsidal chancel.
Footpaths to the past: ‘We must keep our ancient tracks alive by walking them’
My article in
@guardian
today. An extract from
#Footmarks
which is out today.
‘Fascinating’ she said. ‘Stay for a while. You might enjoy it’. She left to talk to others.
‘And you’ I said before she left. ‘Are you an author?’
‘Yes’ she replied.
‘What is the name of your book? Maybe I’ve heard of it’
‘I’ve written a few, but Girl with Pearl Earring is one’.
Today is St George’s Day, the patron saint of England, so here is a magnificent wall painting of George fighting the dragon. From Pickering Church depicting, North Yorkshire, dating to around 1470. I shall nod to the bluebells today.
Angry walked today. Furious with things going on around me. And then I came across this beauty of a holloway and it had a transformative effect on my mood. I re-emerged changed.
Increasingly Twitter feels like speaking to an empty room. Has everyone gone?
In case there’s still someone out there (and still interested!) here’s a photo from a
#walk
that I’m calling: ‘Woodlines’.
The glorious medieval wall paintings of Pickering church.
Covered over during the Protestant Reformation, rediscovered in 1852 and promptly whitewashed again. Now dazzlingly restored.
‘You have every right to be here’ she told me and asked me kind questions about my book. ‘It’s about our restless past’ I told her. ‘The way people moved. Footprints, paths, pilgrimages, journeys, migrations’.
What better way to start
#FindsFriday
and
#FlintFriday
than with this exquisitely tiny leaf-shaped arrowhead. Made from a rich honey coloured flint and found within peat at
#Skipsea2023
I actually managed to get out and see some archaeology today!
Here are the Devil’s Arrows in North Yorkshire. The second tallest prehistoric monoliths in the British Isles after Rudston.
And then, at the bottom of our peat, at the end of our excavation, the glint of a 10,000 year old gem.
The bright blue green wing of a … damselfly? A beautiful demoiselle perhaps? We’ll find out in the fullness of time. It shines again for 1 more day.
#FindsFriday
#Skipsea2023
I’m a dirt archaeologist by trade and this really isn’t my usual circle. But I was told by both my agent and my wife that I absolutely must give it a go. Through huge imposter syndrome - I did!
The damp breath of prehistory. A carpet of tree-dropped leaves that, one autumn 10,000 years ago, danced and drifted then sunk to the depths of a Mesolithic lake.
A throwback to digging at Skipsea last month for
#FindsFriday
A flint for
#FlintFriday
and
#FindsFriday
Early Mesolithic(?). Found by my father 50 years ago in Ashdown Forest, in mud pushed up by a horses hoof. It sat on a shelf throughout my childhood gently beckoning me to a life of archaeology.
My favourite tree, in my favourite field, on my favourite walk doing its gentle thing and making me happy.
I hope this brings a little light into your timeline.
Almost immediately I realised that this wasn’t the sort of thing people like me should be at. Over there was Howard Jacobson, Simon Schama, and Mary Beard. And then in walked Ian Hislop! In between were huddles of authors and celebs I recognised but couldn’t tell you their names.
Some very disappointing news this week, we have heard that
@UoYArchaeology
is being unceremoniously booted out of
#KingsManor
. How many of us have called this place home? How many students have learnt about the past while immersed in it?
Stupid, crass and financially driven.
Strangled by embarrassment, I hid in an empty side room and pretended to look at books, plotting my escape. Turning to leave I was stopped by a friendly woman. I apologised and told her this isn’t my sort of thing. Her name was Tracy.
I was introduced to the extraordinary Kingsteignton Figure last night. Carved from oak, he dates to between 426 and 352BCE. Found in 1867 in waterlogged ground near a river to the south of Exeter.
#FindsFriday
“With this diamond I cut this glass, with this face I kissed a lass.”
A wonderful piece of graffiti carved into window glass at King’s Manor, York.
I’m told it *might* be by Anne Lister who was a schoolgirl here.
Yeah the prehistoric gold is ok, but the best part of the World of Stonehenge exhibition is easily these flint arrowheads. Especially the top one we excavated in Marden henge, Wiltshire.
#FlintFriday
#FindsFriday
The extraordinary beauty of this Late Neolithic long-tailed, ripple-flaked oblique arrowhead from Marden henge, Wiltshire!
On display in the
@WiltshireMuseum
I’ll carry on posting on this site while there’s still interest. When that stops, I’ll stop. And I’ll continue to keep it positive. So here’s a path from yesterday’s travels. Spot the hound in the fernery.
#HollowayWednesday
#Holloways
#Paths
Some paths are just more pathier than others. And some paths manage to wrap themselves around you so completely that they exist for real in your dreams.
#HollowayWednesday
How pathetically senseless. What would drive a young lad to do this? Hopelessness? A desire to be famous/infamous? A lack of pride and respect in the world around them.
For all you hunters of the Neolithic and lovers of the megalithic - the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney! One of the very finest Neolithic stone circles, and one of the earliest.
#StandingStoneSunday
The Rudston monolith, a prehistoric menhir, standing alongside the much later All Saints church.
Undated but most likely Neolithic, and almost 8m high.
Of all the wonders of Orkney (and there are many) the one that surprises me the most, digging deep to my bones, is the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm. Built from two end-to-end Nissen huts by Italian POWs captured in North Africa and led by the talented artist Domenico Chiocchetti.
It was a huge privilege to visit the excavation of a series of Neolithic buildings, dating to between 3300 and 3000 BCE, on the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney. I’ve waited many years to see this site in person and I wasn’t going to miss its last week.
I might be alone on this, but I love a good archaeological store! This is EH’s northern store.
No Ark of the Covenant, but here are some treasures I spotted, or was lucky enough to be shown.
Let me introduce you to Midhowe stalled tomb in Rousay. Built in the Early Neolithic around 5,400 BCE, it is the largest tomb in Orkney. The monument is divided up into 12 compartments using stone slabs to form ‘stalls’, some with stone benches.
Few monuments are as easily recognisable, as immediately iconic, and as elegantly impossible as the Stones of Stenness in Orkney. Thin, dark, jagged slashes of stone slicing the sky wide open.
The wonderful Kirby Bank Trod on the North York Moors. A ‘trod’ is a paved routeway made of flagstones. This one is medieval and used to transport fish and salt linking Rievaulx Abbey to the River Tees.
It is one of the very few paths designated as a Scheduled Monument.
Calling non-fiction books ‘non-fiction’ always strikes me as negative. Who’s up for a campaign to re-name them ‘factual’ and fiction books ‘non factual’? Anyone?
Welcome to the dark side of the year!
I will be enjoying
#Samhain
with the Rudston monolith. At nearly 8m tall it’s the largest standing stone in the UK. A magnus lapis. A menhir and one Obelix’s finest. The greatest of all prehistoric monuments.
Ok, I tried the Early Neolithic arriving in boats image again, and this is what it gave me. I think the men have been breading with the sheep during the journey.
Here’s Bryn Celli Ddu - The Mound in the Dark Grove - a Neolithic passage tomb for
#TombTuesday
. An iconic monument on Anglesey with a solstitial alignment.
I’m absolutely delighted to find that
#Footmarks
is one of
@Waterstones
History books of the year!
In celebration, here’s my current, colourful autumnal walk.
They were used to move commodities across the moors, from markets and the big producers, such as monasteries, or by panniermen to carry fish inland.
Some, like this one, are followed by later roads.
Already highlighted by many archaeologists so this is for my non-archaeologist friends. Professional Archaeology / Development-led Archaeology (whatever you want to call it) is NOT the poorer cousin of academic archaeology, but a vastly superior one.
Digging daub. Remarkably we’ve found a collapsed 5th/6th century wattle and daub wall at Skipsea. The grooves along it are wattle impressions. An early medieval crafting workshop perhaps. The later Skipsea castle visible in the background. Behold the joy of digging!
#Skipsea2024