The Excavation of Barrow III, Irton Moor, North Yorkshire

Abstract

Irton Moor was excavated by Derek Simpson in 1973 but remained unpublished at the time of his death in 2006. Material from the excavation including a skeletal report and some publication drawings were located in DDAS’s archives and brought back to Bradford for archiving. Sufficient work had been done by DDAS to bring the report to publication though clearly the archive had suffered over the years. Irton Moor represents a small structured round cairn of the Early Bronze Age producing evidence for long-term occupation of the site from the Early Neolithic though this occupation does not appear to have been continuous. The cairn was used for Food Vessel and Collared Urn-associated cremations.

Keywords:

• Bronze Age
• round cairn
• food vessel
• collared urn
• funerary cup
• cremation burials

Acknowledgements

Disentangling the remaining archive has involved a degree of detective work and interpretation. AMG is grateful to English Heritage for financing the recovery of the material and an initial archive sorting and to Nancy Simpson for her hospitality and help during the recovery. Barrie Hartwell kindly arranged access to the QUB stores. Nick Cooper (University of Leicester) and Eileen Murphy (QUB) helped locate some missing material and Katarina Becker (University of Bradford) helped repatriate some of the pottery. Randy Donahue (University of Bradford) assisted GM-S with the flint identification. The site drawings are by DDAS, re-drawn by GM-S, the flint drawings are by DDAS and GM-S, the pottery drawings are by AMG and DDAS and the photographs are by Marius Cooke (formerly of the University of Leicester). Prof Susan Limbrey (University of Birmingham) is thanked for taking the time to up-date a report that she originally wrote some considerable time ago and for shedding some extra light on the barrow sequence. Finally thanks are extended to the anonymous referee(s) who highlighted some omissions and inconsistencies in the original draft.