Chariots and Context: New Radiocarbon Dates From Wetwang and the Chronology of Iron Age Burials and Brooches in East Yorkshire

Abstract

Summary This paper presents 21 new radiocarbon dates for Iron Age burials excavated at Wetwang Slack, East Yorkshire, including three chariot burials. The dates are analysed using a Bayesian approach, along with previous dates from the cemetery and from other chariot burials in the region. The model suggests that regular burial at Wetwang spanned the third and earlier second centuries cal BC, a shorter period than once thought, whilst the chariot burials all belong to a short‐lived horizon centred on 200 cal BC. The dating of brooch types present in the burials is also reassessed. Our results imply that brooches of La Tène D form appeared in Britain in the later second century cal BC, in line with Continental evidence, but reinforcing the void in the later Iron Age sequence revealed in a recent study of decorated metalwork. Both this apparent gap and the end of the classic East Yorkshire mortuary tradition may well be manifestations of the more general changes that swept across Europe at this period, ushering in the new forms of political organization and social practices that define the Late Iron Age.

Bayesian Chronological Modeling of SunWatch, a Fort Ancient Village in Dayton, Ohio

“…Presently, these older 14 C results greatly decrease the temporal clarity of occupation because the calibrated probability distributions are greater than 150 yr ( Figure 2, Table 1). However, the posterior probabilities of 14 C dates with large standard deviations potentially can become informative in Bayesian chronological models of robust 14 C data when there is also a high number of small standard error dates informing the model (Steier and Rom 2000;Bayliss et al 2011;Jay et al 2012). …”

British Iron Age chariot burials of the Arras culture: a multi-isotope approach to investigating mobility levels and subsistence practices

“…2). Bayesian analysis dates its main period of use to the 3 rd and early 2 nd centuries BC, with burial possibly starting before 300 BC, but with the majority of burials taking place within a 150 year core period (Jay et al 2012). It contains over 450 burials, many of them under barrows surrounded by four-sided ditches ('square' barrows) and some accompanied by La Tène-style artefacts, with three chariot burials located together on the edge of the excavations just outside of the main part of the cemetery (Dent 1984;Dent 1985b;Dent 1985a).…”

“…The Iron Age 'chariot' burials of East Yorkshire (UK) which have been radiocarbon dated fall into the period of the fourth to second centuries BC (Jay et al 2012; the term chariot is used loosely (Hill 2002)). The first two (not dated, since the skeletal remains are untraced) were excavated between 1815 and 1817 at Arras, providing a type site for the regional Arras culture, and they have been discussed in the context of a possible migration of Iron Age people from northern France, where burials with chariots are also found (Stead 1965;Cunliffe 2005).…”

The impact of Bayesian chronologies on the British Iron Age

“…Lastly, the insular involuted brooches in the Yorkshire burials (Fig. 7) have, through stretching their chronology, been dated too late to fill the gap between the prototypes and the advent of new types in the first century BC (Jay et al 2012). Consequently, the study has opened up another gap in a different type of metalwork, corresponding to the earlier part of the hiatus identified by Garrow et al (2009) and broadly equating to La Tène D1 in .…”

“…Thanks to the dating, we can now see that the flowering of motifs viewed as the real mark of insular La Tène art such as basketry hatching and triskeles took place when contact with the Continent is least evident (325-150 BC), thereby transforming our understanding of the context in which British decoration achieved its distinctive forms (Garrow and Gosden 2012). Jay et al (2012) had different questions and thus a different approach. This study focused on the Iron Age cemeteries, including 'chariot' burials, at Wetwang and Garton Slack in East Yorkshire, belonging to what is generally known as the 'Arras culture'.…”