A Late Neolithic Palisaded Enclosure at Marne Barracks, Catterick, North Yorkshire

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Following the ending of the cold war, the Royal Air Force station at Catterick in North Yorkshire was identified as being surplus to requirements. At the same time the Army was seeking extra accommodation in the Catterick area for units withdrawn from Germany. The station was therefore transferred to Land Command in 1994 and renamed 'Marne Barracks'. In 1999 the Ministry of Defence (MoD) commissioned an Establishment Development Plan (EDP) for the Barracks, to guide its long-term expansion and redevelopment. A key recommendation of the EDP was the need to undertake a programme of non-intrusive and intrusive archaeological investigations, which Archaeological Services Durham University were commissioned to undertake in 2000-2 (Archaeological Services 2001a 2001b;.In 2003 a planning proposal was submitted for the development of a large area of the former airfield for accommodation blocks for service personnel. Part of this area had already been assessed as being of high archaeological potential due to the presence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and post-medieval ditches, its proximity to a scheduled monument, and the depth of burial of the old ground surface during landscaping of the airfield in the 1930s (Archaeological Services 2002). It was recognised that the proposed development had the potential to disturb significant archaeological remains, even though the presence of the Neolithic enclosure was not known at the time, and since further development of the site might be requested in due course the MoD requested full archaeological excavation of the entire 11 hectare development area rather than just the footprints of the proposed new buildings. Archaeological Services Durham University undertook the excavation in September-November 2004. LOCATION, TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGYMarne Barracks is situated immediately south of Catterick village in North Yorkshire, bounded to the west by the A1(T) road and to the east by the River Swale (Fig. 1). The 2004 excavation covered an area to the north-east of the former runway centred on NGR: SE 2510 9695.The land within the barracks is predominantly flat with a mean elevation of c. 53 m aOD. An exception to this is Castle Hills to the north-east of the development site, a low natural hill modified by earthworks so that it raises c. 15 m above the surrounding ground level. The general flatness of the area has been accentuated by levelling of the airfield during the 1930s. Cut and fill operations were used to create a more level surface for an improved runw...

The Marlborough Mound, Wiltshire. A Further Neolithic Monumental Mound by the River Kennet

“…Castle Hill, Catterick, in Yorkshire, is a further motte site, in this case within sight of the palisaded enclosure at Marne Barracks that has been suggested as potentially Neolithic (Hale et al . 2009, 286).…”

Beyond Newgrange: Brú na Bóinne in the later Neolithic

“…The visibility of some sections of this palisade within the geomagnetic survey perhaps echoes the situation at Mount Pleasant where some portions of the palisade were destroyed by fire (Wainwright 1979, 240). While Neolithic palisaded enclosures are well-documented from Britain (Whittle 1997;Gibson 1998a;1998b;Hale et al 2009;Noble & Brophy 2011;Millican 2016, 47-52) and to a lesser extent Ireland (Grogan & Roche 2002), the scale of this monument is exceptional. Again, detailed discussion is (Lynn 1977;Hurl & McSparron 2004).…”

Tempo of a Mega-henge: A New Chronology for Mount Pleasant, Dorchester, Dorset

“…5 These date estimates do not support previous suggestions that enclosures with continuous ditches developed out of earlier enclosures with well-spaced individual posts (Whittle 1997, 161;Gibson 1998, 71). The double palisaded enclosure at Marne Barracks, Catterick, does however appear to be an outlier, suggested by its slightly later date, its unusual layout (wide entrances and radially aligned posts), and geographic isolation (Hale et al 2009;Fig. 15).…”