Duggleby Howe (also known as Howe Hill, Duggleby) is one of the largest round barrows in Britain, located on the southern side of the Great Wold Valley in East Yorkshire, and is one of four such monuments in this area, known collectively as the Great barrows of East Yorkshire. Duggleby Howe is believed on the basis of artefacts recovered to be of Late Neolithic date, but no radiocarbon dates are available.
The monument consists of a mound, the base of which was 120 feet (37 metres) in diameter. The top of the barrow was apparently truncated at some point in the past, leaving an almost-level platform some 47 feet (14 metres) in diameter. On this was constructed a post-mill of medieval type. The mound was 22 feet (7 metres) high at the eastern end and 18 or 19 feet (5 or 6 metres) high at the western end.
The barrow lies within a roughly circular enclosure, approximately 370 metres in diameter, formed from interrupted ditches, and open to the south. To the east of the barrow, one within the enclosure and one outside, are two ring ditches, believed to be of Bronze Age date. Although the barrow itself was long known, it was not until 1979 that the existence of the enclosure was confirmed using aerial photographs taken by D.N. Riley.
The barrow was first excavated in either 1798 or 1799 by the Reverend Christopher Sykes, but of his excavation no records remain. Beginning on July 21st 1890 J.R. Mortimer, under the sponsorship of Sir Tatton Sykes, excavated "an area of 40 feet square over the centre of the barrow, and a portion of the east side" over a period of more than six weeks. This excavation was re-assessed by Ian Kinnes, Timothy Schadla-Hall, Paul Chadwick and Philip Dean in 1983 to produce the interpretation presented below.
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In the first phase of activity at Duggleby Howe a shaft grave was
excavated and at the base of it was interred an adult male in a crouched
position accompanied by a Towthorpe bowl, flint cores and flint flakes.
Higher up in the fill of the shaft grave were interred an adult and an
infant, both in a crouched position. At the feet of the adult was placed
another adult's skull.
Once the shaft grave had been back-filled two adults, accompanied by
flint and antler tools, were laid in the hollow created by the settling of
the fill of the shaft grave.
To the east of the shaft grave was then cut a shallow grave in
which was deposited another adult in a couched position, accompanied by
flint arrowheads, flint flakes, a bone pin, and various implements formed
from boar tusk and beaver tooth.
The primary round barrow, comprised of "clayey or earthy matter" was
then erected and in it were included the remains of four infants, three children, an adolescent and an adult. The mound was then completed
with a layer of "small chalk grit" and a thinner layer of "Blue
Kimmeridge clay".
Subsequent to the construction of the primary mound, 53 cremations were
inserted into the crest of it. None of the cremated remains were enclosed
in vessels, but instead occured in heaps 6-18 inches (15-45 centimetres)
in diameter and 1-6 inches (2-15 centimetres) high. Because not all of
the barrow was excavated, Mortimer considered it possible that there were
equally as many cremations preserved in the untouched part of the mound.
The cremations were unaccompanied by artefacts except for three fragments
of burnt bone pin.
The barrow was subsequently enlarged by the addition of "roughly
quarried chalk" to create the massive final mound.
Later the mound was used as the emplacement for a post-mill.
Kinnes and his colleagues see Duggleby Howe as a cemetery used
over a long period of time, representing a stratified funerary sequence for
the Late Neolithic. Roy Loveday has suggested, as did J.R. Mortimer, that in fact the many burials may represent instead a sacrifice to mark the
death of a powerful figure, perhaps the individual found at the base
of the original shaft grave.
Mortimer's excavation technique, although good for the time, has not
recorded the archaeological stratigraphy sufficiently well to allow this
question to be settled.
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
Phase IV
Phase V
The Great Barrows of East Yorkshire
References
