Barrows to Bog Bodies

ImagesImages courtesy courtesy of: of: CheshireThe British County Museum Council ChesterBritish City Council Wool Marketing Archaeological Board Service EnglishCheshire Heritage County Photographic Council Library TheChester Grosvenor City Council Museum, Archaeological Chester City Service Council The Grosvenor Museum, Chester City Council Illustrations by Dai Owen Warrington Library, Museum and Archive Service Illustrations by Dai Owen

Manors, Barrows to Moats and Bog Bodies OrdnanceOrdnance Survey Survey Statement Statement of of Purpose Purpose Monasteries TheThe Ordnance Ordnance Survey Survey mapping mapping within within this this documentdocument is is provided provided by by Cheshire Cheshire County County CouncilCouncil under under licence licence from from the the Ordnance Ordnance Survey.Survey. It It is is intended intended to to show show the the distribution distribution StoneMedieval Age | Bronze Age | Iron Age ofof archaeological archaeological sites sites in in order order to to fulfil fulfil its its 14 publicpublic function function to to make make available available Council Council held held publicpublic domain domain information. information. Persons Persons viewing viewing thisthis mapping mapping should should contact contact Ordnance Ordnance Survey Survey CopyrightCopyright for for advice advice where where they they wish wish to to licencelicence Ordnance Ordnance Survey Survey mapping/map mapping/map data data forfor their their own own use. use. The The OS OS web web site site can can be be foundfound at at www.ordsvy.gov.uk www.ordsvy.gov.uk Who Lived in Cheshire?

50,000-10,000 BC 10,000-4000BC 4000-2500BC 2500-800BC 800BC-43AD

Old Stone Age Middle Stone Age New Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age (Palaeolithic) (Mesolithic) (Neolithic) Barrow builders Tribal kingdoms In the beginning... Survival The early farmers Until around 10,000 The Ice Age was not These people hunted Farming began in In the Bronze Age, The people of Britain years ago, Cheshire continuous. There animals, fished and mainland Europe in permanent were divided into lay under ice. When were times when the gathered roots, nuts around 6500BC. By settlements were well tribes. The inhabitants this melted, it left climate warmed and and seeds to survive. 4000 BC the idea of established. People of Cheshire at this behind a landscape vegetation thrived, farming had arrived in were not time were of marshy lowlands creating the ideal Britain. People started moving called the scattered with small habitat for our early to grow crops and around all the Cornovii. The lakes and divided ancestors. keep animals, creating time and they skills to by high sandstone a reliable source of acquired more produce and ridges. belongings. shape iron People may have Flint tool food. This meant that been living in instead of moving were Thick forest covered Cheshire by 50,000 around to hunt High quality developed in the land so people BC, as a Stone Age Their weapons and food, permanent metal tools and this period. Iron chose areas with hand axe has been tools have been found settlements were ornaments and is easier to work lighter woodland found at the eastern scattered across built. highly decorated than bronze and is cover to live in, such edge of the county. Cheshire. These are pottery were more useful for tools. as high ground and mostly small flint Early varieties of made. lakeshores. blades, fixed to bone wheat, barley and Above: or antler to create oats would have been Gawsworth beaker arrows and the main crops. spears. Bones of animals Left: Soay sheep thought to resemble breeds like Soay sheep and Dexter Tatton axe cattle have been found. The Stone Age

Where did they live? Stone…the prehistoric toolkit Temporary camps Stone axes would have been an essential part Excavations at Tatton Park have found a of prehistoric life. Cheshire sandstone does Middle Stone Age flint working site. About not make good axes so stone tools were 900 flints were recovered and the remains of imported. Prehistoric “axe factories” a shelter were identified. There is evidence existed in Cumbria, Wales and Cornwall. that people were making flint tools in a cave Stone was quarried here, roughed out into Attached to long wooden in Carden Park. axe shapes and then taken away to be handles, these axes were finished and traded. Axes of all these types used to clear the thick of stone have been found in Cheshire. forests to allow crop cultivation and grazing. Some axes were never used and are thought to have been symbols of power and status such as this jadeite axe, imported from continental Europe.

Flint was used to make smaller tools such as arrowheads, Cave in Carden Park scrapers (used for working Early farms animal hides) and knives. Excavations at Tatton found evidence of brief New Stone Age farming. A scatter of flint artefacts and burnt grain was recovered with a radiocarbon date of around 2600BC. At Did you know... Oversley Farm in Wilmslow, the remains of a Stone Age timber longhouse were found You can chop a tree down in 30 along with grain storage pits. minutes using a polished stone axe. Don’t try this at home! The Stone Age continued

Pottery The Bridestones Tiny fragments of plain hand-made Stone Age The Bridestones is a Stone pottery have been found in Cheshire though Age chambered cairn, a there are no examples of complete vessels. burial mound of loose We know what this pottery would have stones over stone burial looked like (below), as we can compare the chambers. This kind of fragments to complete vessels from other structure is associated with parts of Britain. high status burials. Records show that in 1764 the tomb was 100 metres long and 11 metres wide. The stones that made up the cairn were later removed for road building, revealing the chamber inside .

Today you can see the remains of one of three chambers and the portal stones at the southern entrance. Death and burial In Stone Age Britain this is characterised by monumental tombs for the dead. There are three Stone Ages burial sites in Cheshire. They are a crop mark of a suspected mortuary enclosure at Churton, a possible long barrow at Somerford and the Bridestones at Congleton. The Bridestones, Congleton Stone Age Cheshire

Warrington

Ellesmere Port Northwich Macclesfield

Chester Somerford Bridestones Congleton

Churton Carden Key Nantwich ● Findspots of Neolithic ● stone axes ● Sites mentioned in ● the text The Bronze Age

Where did they live? knew where to find it too. The open cast or antler handle. Some axes had loops to help An early Bronze Age farmstead and trackway copper mines of Alderley Edge tie the axe head into place. were found at Oversley Farm, Wilmslow, before date back to prehistoric times. the second Manchester Airport runway was Not everyone would have used the new metal built. This is an important discovery as we have tools. Stone and flint implements were still little information about lowland settlements of important and most people would have this period. There is also evidence of Bronze known how to make them. Age occupation at the upland sites of Beeston Castle and Eddisbury Hillfort.

Masters of Metal…Bronze Age tools Bronze Age axe The first metal to be worked was copper. from Twemlow Copper ore is green or blue in colour and the The style of bronze axes metal can be extracted by heating with changed over time. The earliest charcoal. The resulting metal is soft enough to form was a flat axe cast in an be hammered into shape. Copper mixed with open mould. Palstaves were tin makes bronze, which can be cast to create cast in two piece Socketed axe more elaborate tools. Not only did our moulds and from Helsby ancestors discover how to work metal, they socketed axes and spear heads were cast around a clay core to give a Arrowhead hollow centre. from Brereton Axes of all types have been found in Cheshire.

Like the stone axes before them, these Alderley Edge copper mines metal axes needed to be fixed to a wooden The Bronze Age continued

Pottery Hand-made pots were used for storing and cooking food, but it is their use as containers for cremation burials that has ensured the survival of complete vessels over Bronze Age urn thousands of years. from Betchton

Death and burial During the Bronze Age, round barrows were a common method of honouring the dead. These are distinctive circular burial sites created by digging a circular ditch and placing earth and stones in a mound over a burial or cremation. In Cheshire, these mounds are usually sand. A single barrow could be re-used for several later burials. There are over 140 Bronze Age barrows in Cheshire. Few survive to any great height and some are visible only as ring ditch cropmarks. Both cremations and burials have Barrow excavation at been found in Southworth Hall, Croft these graves. Reconstruction of a Bronze Age barrow Bronze Age and Iron Age Cheshire

Warrington © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Cheshire County Council Licence No. 100019582. 2004 Oversley Farm Runcorn Lindow Alderley Edge Macclesfield Ellesmere Port Northwich Eddisbury Chester Congleton Bruen Stapleford Beeston Key Nantwich ● Findspots of Baddiley Mere ● Bronze Age axes ● Sites mentioned in text ● Bronze Age burials ● Iron Age hillforts The Iron Age

Where did they live? Making a living The settlements of Iron Age Cheshire Growing crops and raising animals was an can be separated into upland and important part of everyday life. As well as lowland. In the late Bronze Age farming, salt production was an important the population sought out the activity in Iron Age Cheshire. Brine from higher ground and this continued the springs of central Cheshire was boiled into the Iron Age. There would to create salt crystals which were then packed in crude pottery vessels to be dried have also been scattered and transported. Fragments of this fragile farmsteads across the Cheshire hand made pottery known as Cheshire Plain. Aerial survey has VCP (Very Coarse Pottery) have been identified a number of found at a number of places within and cropmark enclosures which beyond Cheshire, indicating the extent of may be Iron Age settlements. the salt trade in the Iron Age. The earliest VCP dates to around 2400 years ago. Iron Age Hillforts The sandstone ridges that cross Coinage was introduced to Britain by Cheshire were attractive sites for contact with the Belgic people of Gaul. Some tribes copied this style of coin and defended settlements and there are a Reconstruction number of Iron Age hillforts in Cheshire. began to mint their own. The Cornovii did not of a hillfort produce their own coinage though coins of Most of them are promontory forts, which Iron Age Farmsteads use a natural spur of land with steep sides. They other tribes have been found here, suggesting The sites of Iron Age lowland settlements were there were trade links with other tribes. have a short line of chosen because they were well drained and earthworks across suitable for farming. Fencing or earthworks Meols on the Wirral is thought to have been a the neck to create a would have enclosed these farmsteads. Recent long distance trading settlement since defensive enclosure. excavation for a gas pipeline has identified prehistoric times. The site was destroyed by Inside there would a settlement at Bruen Stapleford. The sea erosion but thousands of artefacts have have been round domestic buildings from this site were been recovered from the shore including houses, animal round houses. These circular buildings some Iron Age pins and coins. enclosures and were built of timber with wattle and Eddisbury Hillfort storage buildings. daub walls and a thatched roof. Iron Age gold coin from Warmingham The Iron Age continued

Getting around Lindow Man – A sticky end The body was that of a 25 year old man, An Iron Age logboat was found in 1911 whilst Lindow Moss was originally an extensive peat about 5ft 7ins high, of robust frame and cleaning Baddiley Mere. This logboat, made bog but it has been reduced to one tenth of bearded. He was naked except for a fox fur from a single oak tree, proves that the its original size by centuries of peat cutting. band round his left arm. waterways of Cheshire were used for transport There are records of men and cattle being lost and probably trade, during the Iron Age. in this peat bog but no one was prepared for He met a violent end with blows to the head. the well preserved foot that was discovered His throat was then cut and he was thrown into during peat extraction in August 1984. The the bog. Analysis of the contents of his stomach remainder of the body was found still in the showed his last meal was a coarse wheat and peat and a block was cut around it so it could barley bread. The circumstances of the death of be carefully excavated at the British Museum. Lindow Man suggest a ritual killing.

Lindow Man

Baddiley logboat

Death and burial The normal burial practices of the Iron Age population of Cheshire are unknown. We know about where these people lived but there is little information about how they died, with the exception of one startling archaeological discovery… Glossary

Radiocarbon dating Cropmarks are visible changes in the growth Scheduled Monument This is a way of dating organic material. All of vegetation that may indicate a buried A site designated as being of national living things have a known content of Carbon feature. These distinctions can usually only be importance by the government. This gives the 14 (a radioactive isotope of Carbon). This identified from aerial photographs. monument legal protection against disturbance. begins to break down on death. By measuring the amount of Carbon 14 remaining in an Mortuary enclosures are thought to have object we can work out how long ago it been used to house the dead prior to burial was alive. in tombs.

Cropmark of possible Iron Age enclosure Sites to Visit

Prehistoric copper mines Hillforts Museums

Alderley Edge, Macclesfield Helsby Hill Congleton Museum Map – OS explorer 267 – OS Ref 861775 Map – OS Explorer 267 - OS Ref SJ 493754 Displays include prehistoric artefacts from the National Trust. Numerous paths through National Trust. Car park on Alvanley Road. A Congleton area. woodlands. Pay and display car park on the foot-path at the end of Hill Road South leads B5087 is open all year from dawn to dusk. to the top of the hill. The Grosvenor Museum, Chester (except 25th December). The Chester Timeline gallery has a small Maiden Castle display of prehistoric artefacts. Stone Age burial sites Map – OS Explorer 257 - OS Ref SJ 498529 Bridestones, Congleton National Trust. The Sandstone Trail at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery Bickerton crosses this double ditched hillfort. Map – OS Explorer 268 - OS ref SJ 906622 Local prehistoric finds are on permanent Information boards at National Trust car parks Off Dial Lane, to the east of Congleton. display in the ‘Early Warrington’ gallery. at Duckington and Bickerton show way- On private land. marked paths to the hillfort.

Bronze Age round barrows Woodhouse Hillfort Map – OS Explorer 267 - OS Ref SJ 511757 Robin Hoods Tump The hillfort is within a Woodland Trust wood. Map – OS Explorer 257 - OS Ref SJ 575599 There are a number of paths including a Can be seen from Vale Road, SE of Tilston section of the Sandstone trail, which pass the Fearnall off the A51. On private land. hillfort.