The prehistory of York

Abstract

Over the past half century knowledge of the archaeology of Roman, Viking and Medieval York has advanced significantly, yet information on preceding prehistoric periods remains scanty. To all intents and purposes the prehistory of the York area is as invisible in literature as it is on the ground. This paper will briefly review the background to the prehistory of York, attempt a characterisation of the archaeology, and propose an outline strategy to advance understanding of the prehistory of what is probably the least well known sub-region of Yorkshire. An initial version of this paper was presented at a conference on the archaeology of York, held in the city in November 2011.

Keywords:

• York
• Vale of York
• prehistory
• sub-region
• research strategy

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to John Oxley, York City Archaeologist, for access to the York Historic Environment Record and ‘grey literature’ contained in it, and to Dave MacLeod for information on air photographs taken by Historic England. Patrick Ottoway assisted in data gathering and provided information on the excavations on the University extension site at Heslington. For information on recent excavations I should like to thank Duncan Stirk at Aecern Archaeology, Graham Bruce at On-Site Archaeology, Brian Antoni, Christine McDonnell, Ian Milsted and Jagoder Olender at York Archaeological Trust, and Cath Neal and Steve Roskams at the Department of Archaeology, York University. Generous help was received from John Cruse, who gave data from the Yorkshire Quern Survey, Jim Innes, who provided information on palaeoenvironmental research results and Terry Manby, who kindly let me have sight of his paper on ‘The earlier prehistoric archaeology of the Vale of York’. I am grateful to David Knight, Terry Manby and Steve Sherlock for comments on this paper. Thanks are due to Brian Antoni, Graham Lee, Terry Manby and Nadya Pretrova for assistance with illustrations, and to Rick Jones, Terry Manby, BAR Publishing, the Council for British Archaeology, Historic England, North York Moors National Park Authority, York Archaeological Trust and York City Council for permission to publish illustrations.