Posted on 03/10/2005 8:55:45 PM PST by nickcarraway
The centuries-long tussle for prestige between England and Scotland may be about to end in victory for the clans, with new archaeological evidence suggesting that the first national leader of the British Isles was a Scot.
The remains of a mysterious figure found in an Iron Age chariot burial under the A1M motorway was of "exceptional significance" according to academics, who have also unearthed the leftovers of one of Britain's biggest feasts at his funeral site in Yorkshire.
Decorated with jewellery and finely wrought harness and chariot gear, the 2,400-year-old grave is thought to have been a rallying-point for Britain's tribes 500 years later when the Romans moved north. Some 300 young cattle from all over the country were brought to Ferrybridge to feed an assembly running into thousands not far from where a Little Chef now stands.
"We have much more to find out, but this is an excavation full of surprises," said Angela Boyle of Oxford Archaeology, whose specialists rescued the remains from the £245m upgrading of the junction between the A1M and the trans-Pennine M62. The slender man, who was in his 30s or 40s, 5ft 9in tall with excellent teeth, was initially thought to be a local warrior, and the cattle remains traces of a ceremony to mark his burial.
"But high strontium in his bones shows that he was not from Yorkshire, but almost certainly from the Scottish highlands," said Ms Boyle. "And the cattle remains date from the first century AD when the Romans were establishing themselves here.
"The evidence suggests that the site of the burial may have been venerated for all those years after his death - and then became a place for the tribes to rally and perhaps remember a great national leader of the past."
Other finds, including ceremonial sites and a drovers' road, have pointed to more centralised organisation than had previously been thought. Road excavations, encouraged by the Highways Agency, have been influential because of the age of routes such as the A1 Great North Road from London to Edinburgh.
David Jamieson, junior minister for roads, said: "The quality of the Iron Age remains found during this dig is quite outstanding and is attracting attention from around the world."
Ms Boyle said that the delicate iron wheels, jewellery and bones were in "an unparalleled state of preservation" and more discoveries could be expected.
Chariot burials are unique to the middle Iron Age (500-100BC) and only 19 others have been found in Britain - all of them in Yorkshire apart from one near Edinburgh. The only comparable feast was held near Northampton in the Bronze Age (2,500-750BC) where the discovery of mounds of pips pointed to a pudding course absent at Ferrybridge.
ping
'The only comparable feast was held near Northampton in the Bronze Age (2,500-750BC) where the discovery of mounds of pips pointed to a pudding course absent at Ferrybridge.'
"pips". are pips, "pits"?
a pudding with some sort of fruit with seeds? or cherry pits?
I don't want to think about a mound of 'pips", tho...
good catch.
Ping.
No, just proves he WASN'T English.
BTTT
Certainly not one of Specter's ancestors.
Interesting article. Thanks for posting.
There you go !
Bond. James Bond.
BUAIDH NO BAS
I wonder if this was King Arthur?
-ccm
That is what I was thinking.
"I wonder if this was King Arthur? "
Most experts accept a death date of around 540AD for King Arthur. (Many say the legends of King Arthur are a composite of many leaders of that period)
The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined?
"It was a time when European civilisation stagnated - even that term is a generous description of the living standards and social setting of the next few centuries."
the 2,400-year-old grave is thought to have been a rallying-point
How does this lessen English prestige? The English didn't arive for another 1000 years.
Thanks Blam.DalriadaThere are two Dalriadas: that of northwest Ireland, and that of western Scotland... Dalridia is the Gaelic kingdom that, at least from the 5th century AD, extended on both sides of the North Channel and composed the northern part of the present County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and part of the Inner Hebrides and Argyll, in Scotland. In earlier times, Argyll had received extensive immigration from the Irish of Northern Ireland (known as "Scoti"), and had become an Irish (i.e., "Scottish") area. In the latter half of the 5th century, the ruling family of Irish Dalriada crossed into Scottish Dalriada and made Dunadd and Dunolly its chief strongholds. Irish Dalriada gradually declined; and after the Viking invasions early in the 9th century, it lost all political identity.
Lyberty.com
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