Archaeological finds have shown that Yorkshire was occupied at a time when early hunters from continental Europe were not supposed to have ventured so far north. Growing populations on the European mainland made Yorkshire’s fertile land and receding woodland a prime landscape for these first European farmers, and over time they would be followed by waves of invaders intent on pillage and land grabbing.

From the north and west came the Picts and the Scots, while the Romans, Angles and Vikings arrived via the River Humber. The Normans would be the last to invade and seek to dominate everything they saw. Each invasion would leave its stamp on Yorkshire’s culture and life, while battles would later be fought on Yorkshire soil during both the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil Wars.

We have taken an extract from the book Yorkshire - A Story of Invasion, Uprising and Conflict by Yorkshireman Paul C Levitt to share with you. This is a story about Yorkshire and its people, from the earliest period up to recent times.

For anyone wanting to read the whole book it can be found directly from the publishers Pen & Sword books here.

Extract:

Chapter 1

Prehistoric Cultures

Our story begins long before the boundaries of England’s historic counties were drawn or even contemplated. Developments took place thousands of years ago that would leave the varied landscape that became Yorkshire. Pollen evidence suggests that the county was once a densely forested region, but repeated encroachment by ice sheets replaced forest with tundra, and it was only during interglacial periods that vegetation would flourish and attract life. About thirteen long and cold periods have been identified over the past 1 million years, the earliest occurring some 450,00 years ago and the latest 18,000 to 13,000 years ago (Penny et al. 1969, Beckett 1981). Ice from this latter period came from the Lake District and southwest Scotland, crossing the Pennines between the Vale of Eden and Teesdale. It also flowed from the northeast, passing either side of the Cleveland Hills and reached a depth of at least 60 metres at the coast, where the North Sea was 160 metres below its present level (Catt 1990). A huge volume of water, known as Lake Humber, occupied the Vale of York and was partially covered by a glacier extending southwards as far as Doncaster and the Isle of Axholm (Gaunt 1976). Deposits visible in the Vale of York and the Wolds escarpment show that the lake reached a depth of 30 metres at one stage. When it had completely drained, we were left with the same river system that today feeds into the Vale of York. Together with the River Trent outfall, this river system flows into the River Humber, which drains one fifth of England’s landscape.

If we travel far enough back in time, the climate, flora and fauna were very different from today. Fossilised animal bones found in a cave at a limestone quarry near Kirkbymoorside in 1821 turned out to be no ordinary bones. They were those of long-extinct types of hippopotamus, elephant, bison and hyena, and all were clearly much larger than any of today’s species. Kirkdale Cave in the Vale of Pickering is still the most northerly point at which the remains of such species have ever been found and at the time the discovery was nothing short of astounding. Scientific analysis eventually confirmed beyond a doubt that the finds from Kirkdale were between 117,000 and 225,000 years old. In 1837, a similar discovery at Victoria Cave (Fig. 1) in the limestone cliffs near Settle revealed animal bones that were 130,000 years old.

Once again these included hippopotamus, woolly rhino, elephant and hyena. Crucially, an 11,000-year-old harpoon point made from reindeer antler turned up during these latter excavations, thus providing the earliest evidence of humans occupying the Yorkshire Dales. Hunters were not supposed to have ventured so far north during the Old Stone Age, even during the warm intervals of the Ice Age (Hawkes 1986).

These and other discoveries pointed towards an ancient climate that oscillated between extremes of temperature. The last ice age peaked some 18,000 years ago when the River Humber was dammed with ice and it would be several thousand years before rising temperatures would enable man to venture further north. During the warm intervals when the ice retreated, the sea level rose to a level where the Yorkshire coastline was much further inland than it is today. Roughly following the perimeter of the Wolds, the chalk cliffs would have stretched inland from Flamborough, through Driffield and Beverley down to North Ferriby on the north bank of the River Humber. In fact, the ancient cliff line crosses the Humber where the Humber Bridge stands today. So, the mouth of the Humber was once 45km further west of Spurn Point (Pethick 1987). This was confirmed when the buried cliff was revealed by road works on the northern approach road to the bridge (Catt 1990). Moreover, the extension of the Humber’s length can only have occurred since the present sea level was established 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. A crucial clue to this was obtained from a wood sample found beneath a Bronze Age boat that was discovered in the mud of the Humber estuary (Gaunt and Tooley 1974).

When the ice began to retreat about 15,000 years ago, it created vast lakes, one of which virtually filled the Vale of Pickering, between the Wolds, the Howardian Hills and the North York Moors. Twice as long and many times broader than Lake Windermere, Lake Pickering was first suggested in 1887 and would have easily been England’s largest freshwater lake. A clue to the lake’s existence lies in the pattern of villages around the vale. What is now the North York Moors once had up to twenty temporary lakes, one of which was home to a community of early hunters who lived on its edge. This was brought to light when, in 1947, an amateur archaeologist found flint artefacts on farmland just to the south of Scarborough and it led to the discovery of a site known as Starr Carr – once a small settlement of around twenty people. Fragile deposits recovered from layers of waterlogged peat proved to be almost 11,000 years old, while further excavations revealed a landing stage for canoes that proved to be the oldest manmade structure in Britain. This platform had stood on birch trees that were cut using stone axes and thus became the earliest known example of trees cut by man. Other highly prized finds were the remains of Britain’s earliest house, as well as barbed harpoon points made from antler bone. Perhaps the most astounding find was a decorated shale pendant that is widely regarded as the earliest piece of art ever to be found in Britain.

Warmer temperatures and the disappearance of the ice had enabled trees to grow again, which attracted animals such as deer and wild boar that were hunted by Yorkshire’s earliest inhabitants. Food resources were particularly abundant in low-lying areas, which accounts for the richness in sites dating from 7,500 to 4,300 bc in The Vales of York and Pickering, as well as the River Hull valley in Holderness. Evidence of human activity dating back to the early Mesolithic period has been found in the North Riding at Seamer Carr and Flixton, and in the East Riding close to the villages of Kelk, Gransmoor and Barmston. A concentration of finds such as barbed harpoon points made from bone have been discovered around glacial meltwater gravels at Brandesburton and at Gransmoor, while flint implements and flintworking debris have been found in the Vale of York, Holderness and the Hull valley (van der Noort 1996). But another period of glacial activity intervened and the next evidence of woodland clearance occurs in the Yorkshire Wolds area between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago.

It wasn’t until the arrival of the first farmers from the continental mainland around 5,000 years ago that major deforestation began. Or so it was thought. New evidence is emerging that has thrown doubt on these earlier assumptions. Recent core samples have shown that dense woodland was cleared by burning down trees 10,000 years ago at up to twenty moorland sites. The evidence suggests that the fires were lit deliberately and the theory goes that the vegetation, which then grew in the absence of trees, attracted grazing animals and thus made them easier to hunt. Manipulating the environment in this way is a foretaste of farming that took place 6,000 years earlier than previously thought. Evidence of sudden and dramatic climate change has been found in the Yorkshire Dales at White Scar Caves near Ingleton, where 11,000 year old stalagmites formed since the last Ice Age suggest that trees would have struggled to survive in the conditions that prevailed 8,200 years ago. The sudden cooling lasted for more than a hundred years and was followed fifty years later by a violent event, thought to have been a tsunami, that flooded Doggerland and made Britain an island. Neolithic farmers arrived from France 6,000 years ago and had a preference for chalky soils, as found on the Yorkshire Wolds. One thousand years later the area was completely devoid of trees. Evidence of tree felling and differences in land usage comes from fossil pollen grains. In Holderness, the first tree felling took place around 3,900 bc and was being carried out on a large scale by 1,000 bc when arable rather than pastoral farming became the norm. It is argued that the switch from hunting and gathering to farming probably occurred over several centuries, with pioneering farming communities from the continent and hunter-gatherers living side by side. Interestingly, DNA analysis of skeletons has revealed that as little as one in ten of our ancestors belonged to the early continental farming communities, while the vast majority were hunter gatherers (van der Noort 1996). Indeed, the latest research suggests that there may have been quite some resistance to farming and that hunter-gatherers were not as convinced of the need for agriculture as was previously thought. Another interesting theory I heard recently was that warfare only became prevalent after the establishment of agriculture. It was argued that post-agrarian societies, which have existed in various parts of the world for at least 10,000 years, only had reason to fight in defence of their territory when it became an important source of food and therefore wealth.

As more and more land was cleared, Britain’s first monuments associated with Neolithic ritual and burial sites started appearing on the landscape. Known as long barrows, these are mainly located on higher ground, such as the Wolds and North York Moors, where two dozen or so have been identified. The largest of these is at Allerston, near Pickering. Built using limestone boulders, it contained cremated human remains and is between 4,500 and 5,000 years old. A long barrow excavated near Scarborough has also produced flint axes, knives and arrowheads. Other examples exist near the villages of Kilham on the Wolds and West Heslerton in the Vale of Pickering where a huge long barrow existed on the wold top. Ploughing and quarrying have taken their toll, but part of the barrow still survives and what started out as a chance discovery during sand and gravel reclamation led to what became one of the largest archaeological excavations in the country. Excavations carried out at Heslerton have revealed evidence of human activity spanning 7,000 years.

Round barrows later appeared on the landscape and would be built until the early and middle Bronze Age. These would become the most common of Yorkshire’s prehistoric monuments and often represented burials of high-status individuals. Associated with Beaker Folk who crossed over from the continent about 500 years after the appearance of the first henges, round barrows are more numerous on the Wolds than anywhere else. The Beaker Folk who settled in Yorkshire are thought to have come from the Rhineland area of Germany and were nomadic warriors who were taller and more strongly built than the native population (Hawkes 1986). In 1834, a human skeleton was discovered in a round barrow at Gristhorpe near Filey on the Yorkshire coast. Dating from the Bronze Age, the skeleton was wrapped in a skin cloak and buried in a coffin that was made from a hollowed out oak tree. Grave goods included flint tools and a bronze dagger. When he lived, Gristhorpe Man would have been 6ft tall, an unprecedented height for the Bronze Age. Several healed fractures support the theory that he may have been a warrior as well as a tribal chief. Britain’s best-preserved early Bronze Age skeleton is displayed at the Rotunda Museum in Scarborough.

A large round-barrow site exists on arable farmland at Arras Farm on the Wolds escarpment just to the east of Market Weighton. Centuries of weathering and ploughing has eroded the soil so that little remains visible above the ground today, but the cemetery once contained between 100 and 200 small mounds. Dating from the first millennium bc, the burials included three chariots that had been previously disassembled. No weapons or pottery were found, but the discovery gave birth to what is called the Arras culture, which relates to the Celtic Parisi tribe of pre-Roman Britain. The first Celts are believed to have arrived in Britain from mainland Europe (Gaul and the Low Countries) in the fifth century bc, and by the third century bc they controlled a vast area of Europe. Although they were warriors who greatly influenced the culture and social structure of Britain, there is some dispute as to whether their influence was due to invasion or merely trade, as they arrived in small numbers at various times and in different regions. However, by the end of the third century their influence was in decline and their civilisation came to a definitive end during the course of the Roman occupation.

Round-barrow sites exist at Danes Graves on the Wolds near Great Driffield and at the villages of Thwing, and Duggleby. It is estimated that Duggleby Howe (Fig. 2), contains 5,000 tons of chalk and excavation of the graves there have revealed not only human skeletons, together with bone and flint objects, but also fifty cremations from the Beaker period. Perhaps the finest monument to the Arras culture and one of the best-preserved barrow cemeteries in Britain can be found at the tiny village of Scorborough near Leconfield in East Yorkshire. Were it not for the ground in this quiet backwater never having been under the plough, a cemetery comprising over one hundred barrows would probably have gone unrecognised. I recall many years ago fishing for brown trout in the crystal clear waters of Scorborough Beck, little realising the significance of the land there in ancient times. Another village on the western fringe of the Yorkshire Wolds that has a long barrow surrounded by a number of round barrows is Hanging Grimston. Excavations there have yielded beakers, urns, human and many animal bones. Barrows also exist in West Yorkshire on the moors between the Rivers Aire and Wharfe.

Chariot burials are also associated with the Arras culture and in 2001, three such burials were discovered in a valley to the north of the village of Wetwang near Great Driffield in East Yorkshire. All of the burials dated from the Iron Age and were of young adults, one of which was female. Grave finds included a polished bronze mirror and a sword and scabbard with bronze decoration. Another exciting grave find close to a chariot burial from the same period was recovered from an Iron Age cemetery at the small village of Kirkburn, which is not far from Wetwang. Excavations in 1987 at the grave of a man in his early twenties to late thirties produced an elaborate sword complete with scabbard dating from 300 to 200 bc. The Kirkburn Sword was described by the British Museum as probably being Europe’s finest Iron Age sword.

Henges are mysterious monuments that appear to have no direct connection with burials, but are thought to have been built by ancient Britons to serve as ritualistic landscapes where local groups or tribes met to perform various rites (Hawkes 1986). A fine example can be found on the Yorkshire Wolds and is centred on a 26-tonne monolith dominating the churchyard of All Saints Church in the quiet village of Rudston. At 8 metres in height, Rudston Monolith (Fig. 3) is the tallest prehistoric standing stone in the country. Reputed to be of a similar length underground, the 26-tonne monolith was hauled a distance of 10 miles from Cayton Bay to its current resting place around 4,000 years ago. Forming part of the landscape are four cursuses, or processional avenues, as well as two further henges and four great barrows that lie in or close to the Great Wold Valley carrying the Gypsey Race stream to the sea at Bridlington. Other henge sites can be found near Aysgarth in Wensleydale, near Ripon, and on Sleights Moor near Grosmont, to the southwest of Whitby. Perhaps the most renowned of Yorkshire’s standing stones are the 4,000 year old Devil’s Arrows (Figs. 4a and 4b), which can be seen from the A1 trunk road just to the west of Boroughbridge.

The three huge stones (originally there were at least four and possibly five) were quarried 10 miles away and are arranged roughly in a straight line. Their name is derived from a legend that they were hurled at the church from a nearby hill by the Devil himself. Ilkley Moor also has a series of stone monuments and engravings on flat rock outcrops that are thought to date from the Bronze Age.

Hill forts generally appeared at the beginning of the Iron Age with the gradual spread of the Celtic iron-using culture from Europe. Yorkshire has several hill-fort sites, including those at Almondbury near Huddersfield, Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales, and at Danby Rigg on the North York Moors. Others exist at Wincobank in Sheffield, and Carl Wark on the nearby moors. Dating from the end of the Bronze Age, Castle Hill at Almondbury is one of the oldest and largest hill forts in the region. A striking natural landmark that dominates the surrounding countryside, the site was occupied for over 4,000 years and offers spectacular views. Excavations showed that it was burnt down in 430 bc, but became occupied again 1,700 years later by the Normans, who built a motte and bailey castle there. A Victorian tower now stands on the summit. Ingleborough, together with Whernside and Pen-y-ghent, form the famed ‘Three Peaks’ of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The summit of Ingleborough is reinforced by a wall built from blocks of millstone grit and is believed to have once been a formidable Brigantian stronghold. Another hill fort associated with the Brigantian tribe is the huge Romano-British Stanwick Camp, near Richmond in North Yorkshire. The latter is featured in the chapter dealing with the Roman period.

The Yorkshire Wolds area is unusually rich in prehistoric earthworks. A network of dykes constructed for protective or defensive purposes may also have been used as cattle drovers’ ways. The most formidable example of these is the so-called ‘Danes’ Dyke’ near Bridlington, which was not actually built by the Danes. It stretches the entire width of the Flamborough Head peninsula from coast to coast, effectively cutting it off from the mainland to the west. The dyke is thought to date from the Iron Age, although Bronze Age arrowheads were found there during excavations in 1879.

To the south of Flamborough Head lies Holderness, the relatively flat but rich stretch of agricultural land between the Yorkshire Wolds and the North Sea. Holderness owes its existence to debris, or ‘glacial till’ that accumulated thousands of years ago along the chalk cliffs of the original coast. Now far inland, the old coast forms the foot of the Wolds area. Once a landscape of lakes and marshes, the entire area now comprises boulder clay, gravel and sand carried from as far away as Scandinavia. The North Sea ice flowed into the area via two different routes and reached inland almost as far as Brough. At Sewerby on the southern side of Flamborough Head, fossils found in the beach shingle at the foot of the cliff indicate that the deposits date from a warm period between 128,000 and 116,000 years ago during the last interglacial (Cat 1990).

Today, coastal erosion is reclaiming the soft deposits of glacial till at a high rate and a strip of land 30 miles long and 7ft wide disappears into the sea each year. I recall the alarming losses from a few acres owned by my father between the cliff-top and the road at Rowlston each winter and was not surprised to read that an estimated 115 square miles of Holderness has disappeared since the Romans invaded Britain (Sheppard 1912). Not far away from Rowlston, melting ice created Hornsea Mere, Yorkshire’s largest freshwater lake and the last surviving mere of many that once existed in Holderness. Topographic and place-name evidence suggests that there were upwards of seventy meres that were either drained during the nineteenth century or now lie far out to sea. Peat footprints of those closest to the seashore have occasionally been revealed on the beach following storms, some even with traces of lake dwellings, artificial islands or wooden platforms. One such discovery was made near Withernsea, close to the site of its ‘lost’ mere. In 1898 the antiquarian, Thomas Sheppard, described how the traces of two dwellings had been exposed on the beach at low water. ‘The trunks of trees laid horizontally, showing cuts of the rude axe and the piles with sharpened points binding them together,’ he noted. As the relatively soft material of the Holderness cliffs gives way and falls into the sea, other interesting archaeological finds can suddenly turn up on the beach, such as a Neolithic polished flint axe that was found washed from the cliffs. Sheppard also mentions finds from barrows on the shoreline in the Kilnsea area of the Spurn peninsula, which were under continuous threat from the sea in his day.

But the sea did not reclaim all of the Holderness meres. Natural silt deposition and artificial land drainage accounted for some. At Ulrome in 1888, a drainage commissioner who was carrying out work on a major land drain in the area discovered a human skull, oak piles and other wooden structures. It turned out to be evidence of a lake dwelling, the first of its kind to be found in the country. Sheppard left a useful account. ‘Mr. Boynton found a large platform measuring 90 x 60ft, held in position within the margin of the lake by oak piles. The lower ones were roughly pointed, principally by burning, and relics of the Stone Age were found.’ He went on to describe how a later series of dwellings was built on top of the first during the Bronze Age and how relics, such as a jet bracelet, bronze spearhead and tools made from the sharpened leg bones of oxen, had been found.

In the neighbouring village of Skipsea, lake margin deposits at a former mere have not only revealed man-made wooden platforms, but also evidence of ‘heel-coppicing’ or deliberate management of a tree to produce timber ideally suited for building or construction. Radiocarbon dating found the samples to be almost 5,000 years old. These finds are among the earliest Neolithic structures found in the British Isles (Gilbertson 1984). Skipsea is even more renowned for a series of earthworks that have been described as the finest of their kind. Dating from the Iron Age, Skipsea Brough comprises a crescent-shaped series of defences that protect the immediate west and southwest of a huge mound that was surrounded by water in earlier times. Stone and bronze implements have been found on the site, including an axe head. Excavations carried out in 2016 confirmed that the earthworks are 2,500 years old and were perhaps built initially as a burial mound. Almost 1,000 years ago the site was chosen again for settlement, this time by the ruling Norman Lord of Holderness, who found it to be the ideal location to build a motte and bailey castle (Fig. 5a and 5b). Despite having once developed a massive stone keep, this has long since disappeared.

Forming the southern boundary of East Yorkshire is the mighty River Humber, which is still today a major transport artery, as it has been through the ages. The ongoing process of silt deposition is gradually reducing the river’s width and it has been calculated that over 3 million tonnes of sediment is suspended in its waters at any one time (Pethick 1987). It is this silting that has preserved many artefacts that throw light on the region’s past. A most interesting and unexpected archaeological find in this respect was made at Roos Carrs near Withernsea in 1836 when workmen were digging out a ditch; 6ft below the surface they found what appeared to be a model of a boat with a group of human figures. It turned out that the ditch was once a creek feeding the River Humber and it was thought that the model might be the work of early settlers from Scandinavia. The shields carried by some of the figures suggested an earlier period and further analysis showed the carving to be almost 2,500 years old.

One of the most significant marine archaeological discoveries in the country came in 1937 with the finding of an ancient plank boat on the Humber foreshore at North Ferriby. This was followed by the later discovery of a second boat and fragment of a third boat, all of which were dated to between 3,500 and 4,000 years old. More than 16 metres in length and large enough to hold up to eighteen people, the boats had been abandoned on the mudflats of a shallow creek, in what was a well-wooded area at the time. In 1984, what appeared to be a buried tree was found during drain-laying work in a field near Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor, some 13km from the River Humber. It turned out to be an ancient oak tree that had been hollowed out to form a log boat over 12 metres in length. The tree was estimated to have weighed some 28 tonnes and been 800 years old when it was felled approximately 2,300 years ago. The Hasholme boat was found in what was once a tidal creek that joined the Humber between Faxfleet and Brough (Halkon 1990). On closer examination, the wood working skills used in making the boat were among the most advanced seen from the Iron Age in northwest Europe (McGrail 1987).

Subsequent chapters focus on The Romans, Germanic Peoples, The Vikings, The Normans, The Anarchy, The York massacre of 1190, the late Middle Ages, Civil War and more recent periods.

For anyone wanting to read the whole book it can be found directly from the publishers Pen & Sword books here: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Yorkshire-A-Story-of-Invasion-Uprising-and-Conflict-Paperback/p/16521