Yorkshire Archaeol J 68

Reports on fieldwork carried out over a 4.5km long pipeline corridor in an archaeologically important area of the Yorkshire Wolds. Intensive aerial survey demonstrated the density and diversity of cropmarks in the area and provided a rare opportunity to place excavated features into a wider context of landscape development. Early prehistoric features recorded within the corridor included Neo and BA pit groups, and two hitherto unrecorded round barrows. Five pit alignments and ditch boundaries were also investigated. On the lower ground of the Gypsey Race valley, three previously unknown sites were recorded: an IA square barrow cemetery, a RB settlement and an AS settlement. There are specialist reports on `Prehistoric pottery' by T G Manby (35--49); `Roman pottery' by John N Dore (49--52); `Anglian pottery' by Christine Haughton (52--4); `The flint' by Peter Makey (54--64); `Worked stone' by T G Manby (64--7); `Human skeletal remains' by Anthea E Boylston & Charlotte A Roberts (67--71); `The animal bones' by Sue Stallibrass (72--80); `The plant remains' by Jacqueline P Huntley (80--1); `Molluscan analysis' by A Milles (81); and finally, there are notes on IA--AS metalwork, Neo worked bone, RB quern fragments and radiocarbon dates.

Presents the results of a computerised analysis of the two coded or cryptic inscriptions from the cross fragments. One is written in a form of Ogham and is interpreted as `Cross to king Jesus rock of help from Ahgus'; the other uses Saxon runes, tree runes, and Latin characters and its interpretation reads `Aethelburg knew me. . .pray'. `Appendix 1' sets out the Microsoft Q-Basic programme used to generate all permutations of the two alphabets and `Appendix 2' records those permutations of the Ogham alphabet that comprised pronounceable syllables. (See also 96/964).

Given that the early fifteenth-century panels from the window depicting events from the life of St William of York are no longer in their original order, this paper considers their correct sequence. Appendices discuss the `Panel interpretation' (168--74) and schematically depict `The panels re-ordered' (175--8).

Presents historical evidence for the reorganisation of field systems and changing agricultural practices on the Wolds in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Describes a chance find retrieved from a molehill c. 190m from Malham Tarn.

Argues against association of the battle of Catraeth with Catterick (N Yorkshire), but accepts the identification of the warrior Madog as a Yorkshireman, observing that he is one of the few British individuals known from Yorkshire in this period.

A gem found in 1958 and assumed to be Roman is now dated by its iconography to the late-sixteenth or early-seventeenth century. However, scientific analysis has identified the mineral as antigorite, which occurs widely in Europe and would have been accessible to the Romans.