grob kobiecy.pdf

A Burial of a Viking Woman

at Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire

By GREG SPEED and PENELOPE WALTON ROGERS

with contributions from PAUL BUDD, PHIL CLOGG, JOY LANGSTON

and ERICA PATERSON

IN JANUARY 2001 , an archaeological watching brief was carried out during the construction

of a sewer pipeline at Adwick-le-Street near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. During excavation of a

Romano-British trackway ditch, a plough-truncated grave was identiﬁed which produced

fragmentary skeletal remains and an assemblage of copper-alloy and iron grave goods typical of a

female Scandinavian burial of the Viking Period. The grave goods included a plough-damaged

copper-alloy bowl, a non-matching pair of oval ‘tortoise’ brooches and fragments of an iron knife

and a key or latch-lifter. Other objects might previously have been removed by ploughing. The oval

brooches are typologically the earliest of the four pairs to have been recovered in England from a

grave and the ﬁrst to be excavated under archaeological conditions. The design and condition of the

brooches suggest a date for the burial at the end of the 9 th century. Isotope analysis of teeth from

the skeleton indicates an origin for the woman in either Norway or possibly north-eastern Scotland.

Investigation of the grave goods has provided information on manufacturing techniques and

costume. No evidence was recovered to suggest why the woman was buried in this location,

although a previous discovery of Roman or post-Roman inhumations and cremations nearby and

the results of geophysical survey suggest that the excavated grave might form part of a more widely

dispersed group of burials.

INTRODUCTION

By greg speed

Archaeological monitoring and excavation was undertaken during topsoil

stripping for a works compound and pipeline construction corridor for a new sewer

to the north of Adwick-le-Street near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, associated with

the nearby Red House Park development scheme. The work was carried out

during late January 2001 by Northern Archaeological Associates for Earth Tech-

Morrison on behalf of Yorkshire Water Services Ltd. The excavation and post-

excavation programme was funded by Redhouse Projects Ltd.

An initial environmental screening report for the sewer development area

identiﬁed archaeology as an environmental issue likely to be a

ﬀ

ected by the

DOI:

10.1179/007660904225022807

scheme. 1 The area of open ﬁelds to the north of Adwick-le-Street was considered

likely to contain substantial archaeological remains related to the Roman Ridge

Roman road from Doncaster to Castleford which passed 500 m to the west of the

sewer development. A programme of mitigation for the sewer pipeline was agreed

with the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service, consisting of geophysical survey

and archaeological monitoring of construction of the sewer pipeline. 2 All of the

archaeological features identiﬁed within the construction corridor were ditches

comprising parts of an extensive ‘brickwork’ ﬁeld system of probable Romano-

British date enclosing wide areas in the vicinity of Doncaster. 3 This report

principally details the results of the excavation of the grave of a Viking woman

identiﬁed within the works compound area.

greg speed and penelope walton rogers

site location

The site of the development was located some 1 km west of the historic core of

Adwick-le-Street village within a ﬁeld lying immediately to the north of the modern

suburbs of the village (Fig. 1). The burial was located at SE 5302 0870. The ﬁeld

was bounded to the west by the A638, the main road running northwards from

Doncaster, and to the south by Lutterworth Drive. The areas to the south and west

have been developed for housing estates during the 20th century, with continuing

development to the west. The site lay at 27 m OD on a gentle, east-facing

escarpment near to the northern end of a ridge of higher ground extending

northwards from the River Don at Sprotborough, to the west of Doncaster, and

terminating at Red House. This is formed by a linear outcropping of Upper

Magnesian Limestone. 4 To the east the site overlooks a wide area of low-lying

poorly-drained land forming the former ﬂood plain of the River Don at a level of 5

m OD. Immediately to the west of the site the land rises to 51 m OD, then drops

slightly before rising on to the Westphalian Coal Measures. The soils in the area of

the site are mapped as brown calcareous earths of the Aberford series, well drained

and easily worked. 5 The contractor’s site compound area lay within a distinct level

area at the SW. corner of the ﬁeld.

archaeological and historical background

The Roman Ridge (Margary road 28b) forms the boundary between the

historic parishes of Adwick-le-Street to the east and Brodsworth to the west, and

may have formed the boundary between Roman and subsequent Anglo-Saxon

estates. 6 It has been suggested, on the basis of surface ﬁnds, place-name and burial

1 Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Co Ltd, Redhouse Park, Adwick-le-Street, Doncaster: Initial Environmental

Screening Report (unpubl. rep., 2000).

2 G. Speed, Red House Park, Adwick-le-Street, Doncaster, South Yorkshire: Foul Water Sewer Archaeological

Monitoring Methods Statement (Northern Archaeol. Assoc. Rep., 01/10, 2001).

3 G. Speed, Red House Park, Adwick-le-Street, Doncaster, South Yorkshire: Archaeological Post-Excavation

Assessment. (Northern Archaeol. Assoc. Rep., 01/64 2001).

Institute of Geological Sciences, 1 : 250000 Map Sheet 53 N 02 W: Solid Geology (Southampton, 1983).

: Northern England

(Southampton, 1983); R. A. Jarvis, V. C. Bendelow, R. I. Bradley, D. M. Carroll, R. R. Furness, I. N. L. Kilgour

and S. J. King, Soils and Their Use in Northern England (Soil Survey of England and Wales Bulletin, 10, Harpenden,

1984).

Soil Survey of England and Wales, Soils of England and Wales

250 000

Map Sheet

I. D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain (London, 1967), 415.

burial of a viking woman at adwick-le-street

fig. 1

The location of the site at Adwick-le-Street, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Drawing: Damien

Ronan, NAA.

evidence, that there was a small Romano-British settlement adjacent to the Roman

road at Adwick somewhere near the site of the present village. 7 It is also suggested

that the activities of the settlement could have been concentrated on the eastern

side of the road due to the physical diculty of crossing the road other than by

foot, the substantial agger surviving even today up to a height of 3.5 m. If so, any

remains of the settlement will now be covered by the extensive 20th-century

suburban development along the A638. Recent extensive excavation and recording

in advance of development to the west of the Roman road and to the south of Red

House has revealed an Iron-age and Romano-British agricultural landscape with a

ﬁeld system interspersed with enclosures but no concentrated settlement. 8

greg speed and penelope walton rogers

evidence was recovered for post-Roman activity or settlement.

During 1968, workmen engaged in digging foundations and service trenches

at Lutterworth Drive, Woodlands (some 75 m to the south-east of the southern end

of the sewer development) reported the presence of human remains. Subsequent

investigation identiﬁed four inhumation burials (of which only one was partially

archaeologically excavated), one or two probable cremation burials, a pit and a

short length of ditch. 9 Many of these features were associated with sherds of Roman

pottery. The pottery, and a single coin of Victorinus, all probably dated from the

3rd or 4th centuries, but could have been residual. The two cremation urns had

been removed by the workmen and were not available for examination. A

magnetometer survey undertaken to the north of Lutterworth Drive identiﬁed

further features including possible graves. However, when this area was sub-

sequently developed for housing in

1981–2

no archaeological investigation was

carried out. 10

The arrival of Vikings in northern England is well documented. Record of

Viking raids on the NE. coast began in 793 and in 865–6 a large invading force

wintered in East Anglia then drove north and captured York. During the course of

the later 9th century, Scandinavians gained control over Northumbria, Mercia

and East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recording for 876: ‘And that year

Healfdene shared out the lands of the Northumbrians, and they proceeded to

plough and to support themselves’. In addition to taking over agricultural land

they established trading centres at towns such as York and Lincoln. 11 The new

arrivals may have become partially anglicised but contacts were maintained with

Norway and the Norse colony at Dublin during the turbulent years of the 10th

century, until the last Norse king, Erik Bloodaxe, was expelled from York in 954.

There is, however, little archaeological evidence to document the occupation of

the South Yorkshire area between the end of the Romano-British period and the

Norman Conquest. The Anglian and later Scandinavian invaders presumably used

the Humber estuary and navigable rivers to penetrate deep into the countryside

7 M. Newman, ‘Archaeology’, 66–85 in Clive Brook Associates Consultants Limited, Red House Park Doncaster:

Environmental Statement Main Report (1995).

D. Johnston, pers. comm.

P. C. Buckland and J. R. Magilton, The Archaeology of Doncaster

: The Roman Civil Settlement (BAR Brit. Ser., 148,

Oxford, 1986), 214–20.

10 Ibid., 217.

11 E. Roesdahl, J. Graham-Campbell, P. Connor and K. Pearson (eds.), The Vikings in England and in their Danish

Homeland (London, 1981), esp. 19–38, 55–68, 69–77 and 78–82.

burial of a viking woman at adwick-le-street 55

around Doncaster. Place-name evidence suggests that many of the small towns and

settlements in the area owe their origins to Scandinavian settlers. Scandinavian

and Scandinavianised place-names are comparatively rare on the better agricul-

tural land of the Magnesian Limestone belt to the west of Doncaster, with Old

English village names generally lying along the edge of the limestone to take

advantage of the spring-line, as at Adwick-le-Street. On the poorer (until drained)

agricultural land of the marshy low-lying areas to the east, however, Scandinavian

names predominate, suggesting a secondary phase of occupation with newer name

forms being used for the new settlements. 12 On place-name evidence it can be

suggested that the site at Adwick-le-Street lay within the area of primary English

settlement rather than within the area of secondary, perhaps Scandinavian,

settlement immediately to the east.

Other than place-name evidence, Scandinavian settlers in the Doncaster area

have remained elusive in the archaeological record. Very few ﬁnds from the Early-

medieval Period have been recorded nearby, and these are almost exclusively

isolated ﬁnds of brooches, pins and strap ﬁttings. Two of these are broadly

contemporary with the Viking Period. A Trewhiddle-style strap-terminal dating

from the 9th century has been found at Skelbrooke some 2.5 km to the north of

Adwick-le-Street, and a gold, garnet and glass brooch of 10th- or 11th-century

date has been found near Bawtry, some 20 km to the south-east. 13 The only Viking-

style object previously recorded from the area is a small iron axehead found near

Bawtry. 14

Adwick is recorded in Domesday (1086)asAdeuuic, translating from the Old

English as ‘dwelling or (dairy) farm of a man called Adda’, the sux ‘-le-Street’

deriving from its location on a Roman road. 15 However, the centre of the medieval

and post-medieval village lay some 1.5 km to the east of the Roman road, and can

hardly be described as being ‘on’ it, there being no evidence for settlement nearer

to the Roman Ridge. It seems likely, on the place-name evidence, that the pre-

Conquest settlement probably lay further up-slope to the west, nearer (‘on’) the

Roman road and the excavation site, and that the focus subsequently migrated

eastwards nearer to the stream running at the foot of the limestone escarpment.

the geophysical survey and excavation results

A gradiometer survey of the pipeline route and compound area was

undertaken by Archaeological Services WYAS in January 2001 (Fig. 2). 16 A

number of anomalies were identiﬁed including evidence for ridge and furrow

agriculture aligned at right angles to the A638. Other linear anomalies identiﬁed

within the southern block were interpreted as in-ﬁlled ditches forming the N. and

E. sides of a ﬁeld or enclosure. Two parallel anomalies extending to the north were

P. C. Buckland, J. R. Magilton and C. Hayﬁeld, The Archaeology of Doncaster

: The Medieval and Later Town (BAR

Brit. Ser., 202i, Oxford, 1989), 24–9.

Yorkshire Museum Portable Antiquities Scheme record nos. yorym656 and yorym469.

Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, Proceedings, 3rd Ser., I (1905), 273.

A. H. Smith, The Place Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Part

: Lower and Upper Stra

orth and Staincross Wapentakes

(English Place-Name Society, XXX, Cambridge, 1961), 68–9.

16 West Yorkshire Archaeological Services, Red House Park Foul Water Sewer, Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire:

Gradiometer Survey. WYAS Report 858 (2001).

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: