Thorpe Thewles : In-depth Information

Between 1980 and 1982 Cleveland County Archaeology Section excavated over 50% of the enclosure. The ditch forming the enclosure was over 3 metres wide and 2 metres deep and the considerable upcast had been used to form a bank, probably on the inside.

The bank would have been capped with either a stout wooden fence or a thick set hedge to protect the communities livestock from bad weather and marauding wolves, wild boars and brown bears, then still native to the north of England. The entrance was at the southern edge.

The archaeology of the large central building is extremely complex due to several phases of construction but there is evidence to show that the house was rebuilt at least twice. A substantial drainage ditch, over 2.6 metres wide, surrounds the house, again with access from the south-east, presumably because in the Iron Age the prevailing wind was the same as today, north-westerly. The life span of the three phases of this house was between 70 and 100 years.

The earliest was badly disturbed by the later phases but it was broadly similar to the second phase, which was some 12.8 metres in diameter with a wall of upright stakes, coppiced from the surrounding woodlands. Those were interwoven with wattle and daub. The house was roofed with a conical framework of rafters, resting on a ring of posts. Thatch would have covered the roof, the eaves of which would have overlapped the walls and almost reached the floor.

The later phase was similar, but the wall lacked any wooden element and consisted purely of puddled clay, bonded with straw and hair. It is possible that timber was becoming relatively scarce by this stage in the history of the settlement, as the surrounding countryside was successively deforested. The final phase of the house was completely covered by a thick spread of burnt material that spilled across the walls and into the partly filled ditch. The obvious deduction is that the building was destroyed by fire, either deliberately or as the result of a domestic accident.

Initially this house would have been grouped with one or two ancillary buildings but most of the interior of the enclosure must have been given over to the corralling of livestock. Room may have been left for future expansion.

The erection of numerous structures and the increased use of the space around them meant that the next major phase of activity saw the bank being pushed back into the ditch and the site assuming an open character. The ditch became completely filled in with occupation debris, eventually levelling off the site. The settlement by this stage no longer resembled a defended farmstead but would be much closer to a village in size, density and complexity.

The most numerous of the species of livestock kept on site was cattle which would provide beef, milk, leather, bone, horn and manure as well as providing traction to pull the simple plough or ard used in the Iron Age. The actual Iron Age species, Celtic Shorthorn, has no modern equivalent although they resemble Dexter cattle in size and power.

A strain of sheep called Soay was kept for its meat and particularly for its wool, which would have been plucked rather than shorn. The Soay sheep has remained almost unaltered from its Iron Age predecessor on the remote Scottish island of St. Kilda.

The spinning of wool is attested by the presence of a small number of spindlewhorls. Soay sheep universally occur in two colour strains, fawn and medium brown and it is quite feasible that simple tartan patterns could be woven without the use of natural dyes from berries and crushed minerals. Odd pairs of post holes that cannot be assigned to other structures may well have held the upright supports of simple looms, and an attractively decorated bone implement found on the site may be a weaving shuttle.

Iron Age horses resembled modern Exmoor ponies in appearance. They could have been used for pulling ploughs and were certainly used to pull chariots and carts. Horses are often depicted in Iron Age art and were considered very important by the Iron Age people.

Three horse skulls were discovered at Thorpe Thewles and two of the skulls were buried without any other bones confirming the importance that these animals. Fragments of pottery vessels comprise the largest group of finds, although perishable vessels of wood and leather would also have been used for storage and tableware.

The pottery is very crude by modern standards, made of local clay and fashioned by hand into simple shapes before being fired in a bonfire or simple pit-kiln. The fabric is usually dark grey or black, indicating that the pottery was fired in an oxygen-free atmosphere, as would occur at the heart of a well-piled bonfire. Slightly finer quality vessels with out-turned rims that would accommodate a wooden lid were used for cooking, and these often have burnt concretions adhering to the outside where the vegetable contents have spilled over and burnt in the cooking hearth.

Large, coarser vessels without rims were probably used for storage. These are often thick-walled with very large grits incorporated into the clay to help conduct heat into the core of the vessel wall and so prevent cracking and warping during the initial stages of firing. A water-filled depression, or slurry-pit, was used to refine the clay; one of these was found within the ditches of a circular house, although it was not necessarily contemporary with the building.

In most respects, the settlement would be largely self-sufficient but certain items would have to be acquired through barter or gift exchange. The most important commodity would have been salt, although evidence for this could not be expected to survive. Nor is the locality rich in local stone. This would necessitate the importation of corn-grinding equipment to process the cereal harvest of spelt wheat and six-row hulled barley.

This is particularly important for spelt wheat, which is a hulled grain that requires extra grinding to convert it to bread flour. The basic corn-grinding implement is the quern. Two types of quern stone have been found at Thorpe Thewles.

The earlier form is the saddle quern, which is a simple flat stone with a saddle-shaped depression on the top-side in which the grain is ground using a smaller top stone. This was replaced by the beehive quern, which has two parts of equal diameter. The top-stone is hemispherical or bun-shaped, with a central conical hopper to hold the grain that falls down a hole to the grinding surface. It is held in position with a metal pivot that fits into a central hole in the bottom stone. The upper stone has a further socket to place wooden pegs for the handles used to rotate or oscillate the upper stone.

These objects were manufactured as rough-outs in quarry site factories in the Pennines and the North Yorkshire Moors and were traded across the region. The beehive quern was introduced into Northern England in the 1st Century BC and marks a technological advance in the processing of cereals. These advances in agricultural techniques allowed for the first time a surplus of agricultural produce that could be traded for the luxury goods that became available in the first century AD.

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