Graeme Guilbert - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Graeme Guilbert
Vernacular Architecture, 1982
West Midlands Archaeology 46, 2003
West Midlands Archaeology 45, 2002
Sussex Archaeological Collections 120, 1982
A distinctive post-ring pattern, recognisable in certain roundhouses excavated at Bronze-Age sett... more A distinctive post-ring pattern, recognisable in certain roundhouses excavated at Bronze-Age settlement-sites, is best represented in Sussex.
Structural Reconstruction, BAR, British Series 110, 1982
Excavation of a large number of roundhouses, all probably attributable to the mid-first millenniu... more Excavation of a large number of roundhouses, all probably attributable to the mid-first millennium bc, at a hillfort in north Wales has led to the identification of a recurring pattern of postholes, laid out with a symmetry suggestive of a seldom-appreciated level of design-consciousness among the builders of everyday structures in later prehistory. Much the same pattern can be recognized in the plans of certain roundhouses of various dates elsewhere.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2004
Previous suggestions that earthworks on Borough Hill might belong to a prehistoric hillfort are d... more Previous suggestions that earthworks on Borough Hill might belong to a prehistoric hillfort are disputed. Rather, it may be that a Roman fortification stood there, though other rectilinear earthwork-enclosures in the Derbyshire stretch ofthe Trent Valley, notably The Buries near Repton (probably an artificial rabbit-warren), point up the possibility of some later context, a variety of which is explored briefly, ranging from Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon, Viking or British) to Post-Medieval. Detailed and critical study ofBorough Hill, as of analogous earthworks and cropmarks locally, is surely desirable.
Bulletin Peak District Mines Historical Society, 1996
Reappraisal of a fragmentary axehead found in 1969 in an archaeological excavation on Mam Tor has... more Reappraisal of a fragmentary axehead found in 1969 in an archaeological excavation on Mam Tor has led to recognition that it comprises lead rather than bronze. The postulated, socketed, form of this axehead is a type that was widely produced during the Late Bronze Age, circa 11th to 7th centuries BC; and this example would probably have been made some time before the earthworks of the great hillfort that still ring the summit of Mam Tor. Such lead axeheads are rare in Britain. They have been variously explained as votive objects, as ingots-cum-currency, or as part of some metalworkers' equipment, perhaps serving as trial-pieces, as core-boxes, or as models from which to manufacture bronze axes. If correctly interpreted, this fragment from Mam Tor can be regarded as the oldest artefact of lead yet recovered from a site in the Peak District; potentially also as the earliest indication of exploitation of the resources of lead in the White Peak.
West Midlands Archaeology vol48, 2005
West Midlands Archaeology, vol46, 2003
Challenging Preconceptions of the European Iron Age (ed. W. Morrison; Archaeopress), 2022
Mam Tor has long been renowned as a striking local landmark, initially for wondrous landslips sca... more Mam Tor has long been renowned as a striking local landmark, initially for wondrous landslips scarring its towering mass, so too for an imposing bivallate contour-fort crowning its exposed summit. As seen today, with lengthy inturned entrances, the hillfort seems best attributed to the Iron Age, while artefacts from excavation in the 1960s have prompted suggestions that it originated in, or was preceded by, lightly
enclosed or unenclosed settlement of the Late Bronze Age. With appropriate caveats, an enhanced case for that broad sequence can be framed around critical assessment of excavated particulars together with fresh surface recording and interpretation of the hilltop. Mapping both natural and artificial features, the new plans include landslips around the fort, a perennial spring rising within it and, most notable because here depicted for the first time, a dense distribution of more than 200 platforms recessed into sloping ground over much of the 5.9ha enclosed by it, which is not to say that all were contemporary with the hillfort.
As a follow-up to fieldwork carried out at a site near Bradwellmoor Barn in 1990 and 1994, a test... more As a follow-up to fieldwork carried out at a site near Bradwellmoor Barn in 1990 and 1994, a test-pitting strategy was implemented when the opportunity arose in 1995. The full archives regarding the excavations and artefacts have been deposited with the Sites & Monuments records held by Park Peak Joint Planning Board, Derbyshire County Council and Sheffield City Museum. The patterns of distribution of the lithic artefacts is discussed.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal , 2010
It has long been recognized that, in such a place as the gritstone plateau of Stanton Moor, no ar... more It has long been recognized that, in such a place as the gritstone plateau of Stanton Moor, no archaeological monument can be considered entirely safe from damage, for, as Pitt-Rivers remarked of Nine Ladies in 1883, 'on a lonely moor remote from habitation no ... protection would suffice if visitors were determined to do damage, in spite of the penalties prescribed'. More than a century on, a programme of repeated, intensive, metrical survey of progressive erosion within and around this much-visited and much-loved, but much-abused, stone-circle was to demonstrate a significant loss from certain patches of the ground-surface, as quantified over the period 1988-1997. This in turn led to further survey and eventually to selective excavations undertaken in 2000. The principal purpose of excavating within the stone-circle and alongside its allegedly related outlier, the King Stone, was to assess the extent to which modern disturbance is affecting surviving anthropogenic deposits of ancient origin. Subsequent repairs to the monument cannot be regarded as a final solution to its problems, and it seems that continued vigilance through active management will ever be necessary.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2013
Construction of a water-pipeline between Bamford and Buxton in 1992-3 provided an opportunity to... more Construction of a water-pipeline between Bamford and Buxton in 1992-3 provided an
opportunity to excavate a cutting across the bank and ditch of Grey Ditch, where the pipeline was to intersect this linear earthwork within a field once known as 'Blake Acre'. Significantly, the bank of Grey Ditch was shown to overlie a ploughsoil containing a dozen sherds of Romano-British pottery. More than a hundred pieces of worked chert and flint were also retrieved from that buried soil, while the top of the underlying clayey substratum held in excess of a thousand similar artefacts, some coming from features cut into it, all apparently truncated by the ploughsoil. These varied deposits had been afforded considerable protection from modern erosion by a build-up of later, presumptively medieval, ploughsoil against the rear slope of the bank.
The chipped stone includes a mixture of items, many attributable to the Early and Late
Mesolithic, with artefacts characteristic of the later stage predominating and broadly datable to 9000-7000 years ago (though Blake Acre has provided no independent dating). Microliths are among the implements thought to have been manufactured on site, which is tentatively suggested to have served as a base-camp for a mobile population, exploiting imported flint (probably carried from a distant source to the east of the Pennines) as well as apparently local chert. Two thousand years or so later the Neolithic is most clearly witnessed here through a few sherds of Peterborough Ware, and several fiint tools appear to be of broadly similar age. Taken together, these varied objects suggest prolonged, but presumably intermittent, activity at this favoured spot, on sheltered, gently-sloping ground at thefoot of a relatively accessible stretch of the northern escarpment of the White Peak plateau of limestone, near its interface with the clay-covered floor of a southern embayment of the Hope Valley, and with sandstone/shale ridges to east and north. Vital resources close at hand and seemingly attractive to early settlers include plentiful bands/nodules of chert within the limestone and a series of springs, at least one of them warm and saline, while the perennial Bradwell Brook passes within little more than 300m of the excavation, and the occupied area probably extended closer to it. Two of the ten excavated pits were sufficiently abundant in Mesolithic artefacts to justify ascribing them to that period. A scatter of stakeholes and postholes, some apparently defining much of a round structure, would seem to imply a degree of permanence to occupation at some stage(s), but dating of the structural features is dfficult.
An appendix summarizes a small group of Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic artefacts recovered from a nearby site, 'Wheat Close', during archaeological investigation of a different pipeline constructed in 2004.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2007
A round mound has been identified within a pasture-field appropriately named 'Hull Bank', situat... more A round mound has been identified within a pasture-field appropriately named 'Hull
Bank', situated at the very edge of a gravel-terrace within the floor of the Trent Valley,
close to the Trent/Dove confluence. It lies within historic common pasture, beyond the
reach of open-field agriculture, which may well account for its survival. Contour-survey
has shown the mound to exceed 35m in diameter and to attain almost lm in height.
Although low by comparison with some of the few others recorded in lowland Derbyshire, this is a substantial monument and a welcome addition to a degrading stock of extant mounds in this region. Given that the Hull Bank mound is easily seen from a public footway of more than 200 years standing, its recent and chance discovery is bound to lead to concern that other earthworks of potential significance could yet await archaeological attention even in so populous a patch of Midland England, where concerted research into such matters, both in the field and among documents, is wanting.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2006
An example of cup-and-ring decoration, of the kind generally attributed to the Neolithic or Early... more An example of cup-and-ring decoration, of the kind generally attributed to the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, has recently been noticed on a rounded boulder situated in the midst of Harthill Moor, a much-visited tract of gritstone, featuring an array of notable archaeological monuments as well as conspicuous natural outcrops, and lying within the Peak District National Park. Since none of the surrounding monuments can be regarded as reliably dated, it is as yet difficult to picture anything of even the broadly contemporary setting of this rock-art, though it is not the only instance now on record hereabouts.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2005
In an addendum to an article published in Derbyshire Archaeol J 121 (2001) pages 190--195, the au... more In an addendum to an article published in Derbyshire Archaeol J 121 (2001) pages 190--195, the author discusses the possible authorship of some nineteenth-century graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle on Stanton Moor.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2001
Graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle. Recording the name `Bill Stump... more Graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle. Recording the name `Bill Stumps', it mirrors a fictional incident in Dicken's Pickwick Papers, and the question is raised as to whether it was inspired by the writer or the writer inspired by the inscription.
Alphabetical list of multi-period and function site reports (usually preliminary or interim), sep... more Alphabetical list of multi-period and function site reports (usually preliminary or interim), separately authored. Longer pieces include:
Many reports including more sizeable items on: `Bakewell showground' by D Garton, J Brown, A ... more Many reports including more sizeable items on: `Bakewell showground' by D Garton, J Brown, A J Howard & V Priest (279--82) brief preliminary details of 16ha evaluation project noting the recovery of a late eighteenth-early nineteenth-century shoe; `Bolsover Castle' by R Sheppherd & G Kinsley (282--3); `Breadsall Old Hall' by R Sheppherd & J Brown (283--6); `Stanley Grange' by K Challis & M Southgate (292--4); and `Sutton Carsdale Hall' by R Sheppherd (294--6).
Vernacular Architecture, 1982
West Midlands Archaeology 46, 2003
West Midlands Archaeology 45, 2002
Sussex Archaeological Collections 120, 1982
A distinctive post-ring pattern, recognisable in certain roundhouses excavated at Bronze-Age sett... more A distinctive post-ring pattern, recognisable in certain roundhouses excavated at Bronze-Age settlement-sites, is best represented in Sussex.
Structural Reconstruction, BAR, British Series 110, 1982
Excavation of a large number of roundhouses, all probably attributable to the mid-first millenniu... more Excavation of a large number of roundhouses, all probably attributable to the mid-first millennium bc, at a hillfort in north Wales has led to the identification of a recurring pattern of postholes, laid out with a symmetry suggestive of a seldom-appreciated level of design-consciousness among the builders of everyday structures in later prehistory. Much the same pattern can be recognized in the plans of certain roundhouses of various dates elsewhere.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2004
Previous suggestions that earthworks on Borough Hill might belong to a prehistoric hillfort are d... more Previous suggestions that earthworks on Borough Hill might belong to a prehistoric hillfort are disputed. Rather, it may be that a Roman fortification stood there, though other rectilinear earthwork-enclosures in the Derbyshire stretch ofthe Trent Valley, notably The Buries near Repton (probably an artificial rabbit-warren), point up the possibility of some later context, a variety of which is explored briefly, ranging from Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon, Viking or British) to Post-Medieval. Detailed and critical study ofBorough Hill, as of analogous earthworks and cropmarks locally, is surely desirable.
Bulletin Peak District Mines Historical Society, 1996
Reappraisal of a fragmentary axehead found in 1969 in an archaeological excavation on Mam Tor has... more Reappraisal of a fragmentary axehead found in 1969 in an archaeological excavation on Mam Tor has led to recognition that it comprises lead rather than bronze. The postulated, socketed, form of this axehead is a type that was widely produced during the Late Bronze Age, circa 11th to 7th centuries BC; and this example would probably have been made some time before the earthworks of the great hillfort that still ring the summit of Mam Tor. Such lead axeheads are rare in Britain. They have been variously explained as votive objects, as ingots-cum-currency, or as part of some metalworkers' equipment, perhaps serving as trial-pieces, as core-boxes, or as models from which to manufacture bronze axes. If correctly interpreted, this fragment from Mam Tor can be regarded as the oldest artefact of lead yet recovered from a site in the Peak District; potentially also as the earliest indication of exploitation of the resources of lead in the White Peak.
West Midlands Archaeology vol48, 2005
West Midlands Archaeology, vol46, 2003
Challenging Preconceptions of the European Iron Age (ed. W. Morrison; Archaeopress), 2022
Mam Tor has long been renowned as a striking local landmark, initially for wondrous landslips sca... more Mam Tor has long been renowned as a striking local landmark, initially for wondrous landslips scarring its towering mass, so too for an imposing bivallate contour-fort crowning its exposed summit. As seen today, with lengthy inturned entrances, the hillfort seems best attributed to the Iron Age, while artefacts from excavation in the 1960s have prompted suggestions that it originated in, or was preceded by, lightly
enclosed or unenclosed settlement of the Late Bronze Age. With appropriate caveats, an enhanced case for that broad sequence can be framed around critical assessment of excavated particulars together with fresh surface recording and interpretation of the hilltop. Mapping both natural and artificial features, the new plans include landslips around the fort, a perennial spring rising within it and, most notable because here depicted for the first time, a dense distribution of more than 200 platforms recessed into sloping ground over much of the 5.9ha enclosed by it, which is not to say that all were contemporary with the hillfort.
As a follow-up to fieldwork carried out at a site near Bradwellmoor Barn in 1990 and 1994, a test... more As a follow-up to fieldwork carried out at a site near Bradwellmoor Barn in 1990 and 1994, a test-pitting strategy was implemented when the opportunity arose in 1995. The full archives regarding the excavations and artefacts have been deposited with the Sites & Monuments records held by Park Peak Joint Planning Board, Derbyshire County Council and Sheffield City Museum. The patterns of distribution of the lithic artefacts is discussed.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal , 2010
It has long been recognized that, in such a place as the gritstone plateau of Stanton Moor, no ar... more It has long been recognized that, in such a place as the gritstone plateau of Stanton Moor, no archaeological monument can be considered entirely safe from damage, for, as Pitt-Rivers remarked of Nine Ladies in 1883, 'on a lonely moor remote from habitation no ... protection would suffice if visitors were determined to do damage, in spite of the penalties prescribed'. More than a century on, a programme of repeated, intensive, metrical survey of progressive erosion within and around this much-visited and much-loved, but much-abused, stone-circle was to demonstrate a significant loss from certain patches of the ground-surface, as quantified over the period 1988-1997. This in turn led to further survey and eventually to selective excavations undertaken in 2000. The principal purpose of excavating within the stone-circle and alongside its allegedly related outlier, the King Stone, was to assess the extent to which modern disturbance is affecting surviving anthropogenic deposits of ancient origin. Subsequent repairs to the monument cannot be regarded as a final solution to its problems, and it seems that continued vigilance through active management will ever be necessary.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2013
Construction of a water-pipeline between Bamford and Buxton in 1992-3 provided an opportunity to... more Construction of a water-pipeline between Bamford and Buxton in 1992-3 provided an
opportunity to excavate a cutting across the bank and ditch of Grey Ditch, where the pipeline was to intersect this linear earthwork within a field once known as 'Blake Acre'. Significantly, the bank of Grey Ditch was shown to overlie a ploughsoil containing a dozen sherds of Romano-British pottery. More than a hundred pieces of worked chert and flint were also retrieved from that buried soil, while the top of the underlying clayey substratum held in excess of a thousand similar artefacts, some coming from features cut into it, all apparently truncated by the ploughsoil. These varied deposits had been afforded considerable protection from modern erosion by a build-up of later, presumptively medieval, ploughsoil against the rear slope of the bank.
The chipped stone includes a mixture of items, many attributable to the Early and Late
Mesolithic, with artefacts characteristic of the later stage predominating and broadly datable to 9000-7000 years ago (though Blake Acre has provided no independent dating). Microliths are among the implements thought to have been manufactured on site, which is tentatively suggested to have served as a base-camp for a mobile population, exploiting imported flint (probably carried from a distant source to the east of the Pennines) as well as apparently local chert. Two thousand years or so later the Neolithic is most clearly witnessed here through a few sherds of Peterborough Ware, and several fiint tools appear to be of broadly similar age. Taken together, these varied objects suggest prolonged, but presumably intermittent, activity at this favoured spot, on sheltered, gently-sloping ground at thefoot of a relatively accessible stretch of the northern escarpment of the White Peak plateau of limestone, near its interface with the clay-covered floor of a southern embayment of the Hope Valley, and with sandstone/shale ridges to east and north. Vital resources close at hand and seemingly attractive to early settlers include plentiful bands/nodules of chert within the limestone and a series of springs, at least one of them warm and saline, while the perennial Bradwell Brook passes within little more than 300m of the excavation, and the occupied area probably extended closer to it. Two of the ten excavated pits were sufficiently abundant in Mesolithic artefacts to justify ascribing them to that period. A scatter of stakeholes and postholes, some apparently defining much of a round structure, would seem to imply a degree of permanence to occupation at some stage(s), but dating of the structural features is dfficult.
An appendix summarizes a small group of Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic artefacts recovered from a nearby site, 'Wheat Close', during archaeological investigation of a different pipeline constructed in 2004.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2007
A round mound has been identified within a pasture-field appropriately named 'Hull Bank', situat... more A round mound has been identified within a pasture-field appropriately named 'Hull
Bank', situated at the very edge of a gravel-terrace within the floor of the Trent Valley,
close to the Trent/Dove confluence. It lies within historic common pasture, beyond the
reach of open-field agriculture, which may well account for its survival. Contour-survey
has shown the mound to exceed 35m in diameter and to attain almost lm in height.
Although low by comparison with some of the few others recorded in lowland Derbyshire, this is a substantial monument and a welcome addition to a degrading stock of extant mounds in this region. Given that the Hull Bank mound is easily seen from a public footway of more than 200 years standing, its recent and chance discovery is bound to lead to concern that other earthworks of potential significance could yet await archaeological attention even in so populous a patch of Midland England, where concerted research into such matters, both in the field and among documents, is wanting.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2006
An example of cup-and-ring decoration, of the kind generally attributed to the Neolithic or Early... more An example of cup-and-ring decoration, of the kind generally attributed to the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, has recently been noticed on a rounded boulder situated in the midst of Harthill Moor, a much-visited tract of gritstone, featuring an array of notable archaeological monuments as well as conspicuous natural outcrops, and lying within the Peak District National Park. Since none of the surrounding monuments can be regarded as reliably dated, it is as yet difficult to picture anything of even the broadly contemporary setting of this rock-art, though it is not the only instance now on record hereabouts.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2005
In an addendum to an article published in Derbyshire Archaeol J 121 (2001) pages 190--195, the au... more In an addendum to an article published in Derbyshire Archaeol J 121 (2001) pages 190--195, the author discusses the possible authorship of some nineteenth-century graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle on Stanton Moor.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 2001
Graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle. Recording the name `Bill Stump... more Graffiti on an outlying orthostat of the Nine Ladies stone circle. Recording the name `Bill Stumps', it mirrors a fictional incident in Dicken's Pickwick Papers, and the question is raised as to whether it was inspired by the writer or the writer inspired by the inscription.
Alphabetical list of multi-period and function site reports (usually preliminary or interim), sep... more Alphabetical list of multi-period and function site reports (usually preliminary or interim), separately authored. Longer pieces include:
Many reports including more sizeable items on: `Bakewell showground' by D Garton, J Brown, A ... more Many reports including more sizeable items on: `Bakewell showground' by D Garton, J Brown, A J Howard & V Priest (279--82) brief preliminary details of 16ha evaluation project noting the recovery of a late eighteenth-early nineteenth-century shoe; `Bolsover Castle' by R Sheppherd & G Kinsley (282--3); `Breadsall Old Hall' by R Sheppherd & J Brown (283--6); `Stanley Grange' by K Challis & M Southgate (292--4); and `Sutton Carsdale Hall' by R Sheppherd (294--6).
Reflections of the past: Essays in honour of Frances Lynch, W.J. Britnell and R.J. Silvester (eds) (Cambrian Archaeological Association, Welshpool), pp. 303-336., 2012
Craig Rhiwarth is the highest and second largest hill-fort in Wales, with a very large number of ... more Craig Rhiwarth is the highest and second largest hill-fort in Wales, with a very large number of internal features of unusual form. The rampart is a single stone wall nearly 1km long, with one section built in a cellular form, defined by lateral and transverse orthostats. A fire in 1976 burnt off a large area of the fort, revealing considerable detail of the structures. Several artefacts were found, including a glass bead of HMG composition. This report describes the survey of the fort, with detailed plans of 14 of the sub-circular structures. There are also three square stone settings, one of them incorporated in a stone alignment of possible astronomical significance. The fort may have a Bronze Age origin and there is tenuous evidence for early (?lead) mining activity.
The Fig. 5 Plan can be downloaded as a separate file and is designed to print at 67% on three A4 sheets which can be joined together to make a full size version of the fold-out.