Colonisation and Community in the Vale of Pickering

Principal investigator: Liam
Level: Personal research project

Colonisation and Community in the Vale of Pickering: exploring medieval settlement and lordship in Brompton, North Yorkshire

Looking out across the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, it is hard to imagine that it once comprised a diverse landscape of wetlands, woodlands, drylands and heathland: an environment that has been intensively exploited and occupied from the Romano-British period and before. The area around Brompton, on the northern edge of the Vale, appears to have been a favoured location, a place of transition where contrasting environments converged and offered a range of opportunities. This research seeks to unlock the history of settlement and lordship in Brompton from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. It will build on previous archaeological investigations carried out by the Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society (SAHS) at Castle Hill and use this as a starting point for exploring wider issues concerning the nature, morphology and scope of medieval settlement practices in North Yorkshire (Evans et al. 2016; Pearson, & Woods 2017; Pearson et al. 2018, 2020). It will consider on how Scandinavian settlement in the late ninth and tenth centuries and Norman colonisation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries impacted on the existing rural landscape of the Vale, and the communities who occupied the land.

Referee:

Steven Mithen FBA

Professor of Early Prehistory

Department of Archaeology

University of Reading, UK

Audit data

• Created: 3 years ago
• Created by: S M
• Updated: 3 years ago
• Updated by: S M