Amazing news came through at the end of last week. A possible ‘shrine’ has been reported by excavators in the Yorkshire Wolds, as I understand it the site is located a few hundred yards from a fortified settlement which includes a Bronze Age ringfort which was excavated by Dr Peter Halkon and James Lyall a few years ago.

The site appears to be a large hilltop square enclosure surrounded by a ditch, I gather that the central square was enclosed by a palisade, so largely out of view. I’m not sure where the entrance was or if any evidence of a door or gate was found, so the ‘inner sanctum’ may have been visible from the right angle.

One of the most interesting features is that at the centre, the remains of a child were reported. The remains are in poor condition, so the sex is unknown and the phase of deposition hasn’t been reported so we don’t know if the child was buried before, during, or after the enclosures life-time.

What is known though, is that at some point the palisades were taken out and in the slots where they had been, cow skulls, cow forelegs, and some deer antlers were deposited. It’s uncertain whether this was in one monumental event or over a period of time but is suggested that the rest of the cow carcass was taken away for feasting, presumably no other bones were found on the site suggestive of feasting, and perhaps no evidence of butchery or heat processing was found on the cow deposits, Dr Halkon reports:

“At some point they demolished the monument, pulled out the palisade and reopened the slot where the palisade had been and inserted all the animal bones.

“The forelegs and the heads are bits they didn’t eat. They’d eaten the rest elsewhere – probably in the hill fort.”

It’s possible that the deer antlers may have been used for re-opening the the palisade slots, O’Brien’s Mapping Death (2021) reported deer antlers being used for digging the ditch of a ferta at a much later date than is suggested for this site. Afterwards the antlers were deposited along with the cow skulls and forelegs, probably as part of one event.

Dr Halkon reports that small amounts of Roman pottery was found “and would have recognised it as being ritual of some importance.“, I’m unsure what the material behind this idea looks like, but I look forward to seeing more information published, later re-use of these kinds of sites provide us with some of our most valuable insights.

You can read the full article form Yorkshire Post here.