Yorkshire Archaeol J 76

A Romano-British farmstead covering 0.4ha was excavated on farmland near Thurnscoe, South Yorkshire, in advance of residential development. The site consisted of a sequence of ditched rectilinear enclosures linked to trackway and field system elements. A large T-shaped corn drying oven had been constructed outside the main enclosures. Possible burials were dispersed around the periphery of the enclosures, but in the final phase a small formalised cemetery appeared to have been established within one of them. Occupation of the site probably commenced in the mid-second century and ended by the mid-fourth century AD. Evidence was recovered which demonstrated that as well as coal, the inhabitants exploited both heathland and coppiced timber for fuel. There was some evidence for iron-smithing and a high quality snaffle bit was recovered from an enclosure ditch terminal where it had probably been placed as a structured deposit. Includes

introduction to specialist reports on

The relief shows a figure seated under a round-headed arch. It resembles Romano-British monuments, but several features link it to twelfth-century sculpture in Yorkshire and to examples at site further afield with Cluniac connections. A Romanesque context for the relief is suggested. A postscript considers the relationship of some Romanesque stone sculpture in the county to contemporary work in wood.

In the late 1990s a metal detectorist discovered a seal matrix which turned out to be that of the prior of the Dominican friary at Pontefract, founded by Edmund de Lacy in 1256. The article explores the subsequent history of the Pontefract friary and how seals were used by the order in England during the Middle Ages. The imagery depicted on the seal is discussed in the context of other Dominican survivals for Yorkshire. The conclusion of the paper is that the central figure is an early representation of St Dominic, perhaps the earliest in English medieval art.

A portrait of the eighteenth-century local historian of Yorkshire and Lancashire, Dr Thomas Dunham Whitaker.