|
Date |
AGE |
SITE FEATURES |
OTHER
LOCAL EVENTS
& SITES |
|
10,000 - 2,500 BC |
Stone
Age |
 Maybe
that stony rise is a Neolithic burial chamber ....
|
Mesolithic (Stone Age) flints
have been found throughout the Dale. It's tricky to find much
else. |
|
c 2,500 - 600 BC |
Bronze
Age |
A Bronze Age
burial
mound hints at a mysterious distant past. |
Stones
enigmatically carved in the Bronze Age are scattered across the Dales. |
|
600
BC - 400 AD
including
the Roman occupation of Britain
|
Iron
Age |
 Hut
circles and
iron
smelting furnaces were built and the waste, like this slag, was chucked
nearby.
|
Evidence
of Iron Age life exists throughout the Dale. |
|
Roman
invasion of Britain 43 AD.
Romans
leave Britain 5th century AD
|
Roman |
Possible Roman stone water
channel
|
Inscribed
Roman lead "pigs", dated AD 81, found on nearby moor.York HQ
becomes biggest Roman centre in N. Europe and Constantine crowned
Emperor in York in AD ? |
|
The
Romans left Britain 5th Century.
Vikings
invade
|
Dark
Ages |
No
definite evidence for this yet
-
but we're still looking!
|
Vikings
pour in, settling in Jorvik (York) amongst other places and leaving many
place names behind. |
|
Norman
Conquest
1066
and all that
|
Norman |
The
Norman lords have left nothing
tangible
on our site
-
as far as we know.
|
William
the Conqueror throws a royal wobbly at the rebels up north - his
"wasting of the north" turns much of the local area into
uninhabited wasteland. |
|
Monasteries
become richer than the king - until Henry VII's Dissolution of them in
1548
|
Medieval |
Cistercian
monks build water courses called
culverts
- still running freely after 800 years!
Iron
workings fill the air with smoke.
|
Cistercian
monks establish nearby Fountains Abbey in 1137? and set up granges
(farms
& industries) in the area. |
|
Elizabeth
I and Shakespeare
|
17th
Century |
 A
barn of top-notch 17th century quality graced the land and a smelt mill,
now long gone, worked away by the stream.
|
Tenant
farmers build impressive stone houses in the Dale. |
|
The
Industrial Revolution
|
18th
Century |
Coal
mines delve into the land
and
the scene is one of noisy, dirty industry.
|
Scattered small scale mining
bites into the landscape .
|
|
The
Victorian Age
|
19th
Century |
The
open pasture land is split up into regimented squares with new dry stone
walls.
|
Industrial
towns draw the population away for work and the land is carved up by the
Enclosure Act. |
|
1914-1918
World War I
1939-1945
World War II
and
Today
|
20th
& 21st Centuries
|
Farming
creates the green and pleasant idyll.
|
Farming
and tourism begin to dominate the scenery. |
Muddy Archaeologist
