People on Ilkley Moor
Dates |
The Environment on Ilkley Moor |
The People on Ilkley Moor |
70 million to 2 million years BCE |
Late in the Tertiary Period, Yorkshire rivers begin cutting their present valleys. Britain starts cooling down. |
|
2 million to 10,000 BCE |
The Great Ice Age of the Pleistocene Age; the Pennines are scoured smooth by repeated advances of the ice. About 12,000 BCE, the first modern plant species arrive - Dwarf Birch |
|
7,500 BCE |
Pines, juniper, ling, crowberry and cotton grass become established. As the climate warms, alder, oak and hazel arrive; heath woodlands start to establish themselves on the higher ground. |
Nomadic Middle Stone Age settlers (Mesolithic peoples) arrive in the Yorkshire Wolds - hunting in the woodlands, fishing in the swampy scrubland of the valley floors and the lakes, and gathering wild woodland foods. They migrate west into the Dales. They used tools and weapons of flint, and there was considerable organised trading in flint Evidence of their way of life has been found in Grassington and around Settle. Take your children to visit Victoria and Attermire caves above Settle. Follow their imagination of what life was like! |
5,000 BCE |
Alder and hazel woodlands develop on the higher ground. |
These nomadic hunter gatherers are now active on Rombald's Moor. They live by following migrant herds of game, and from gathering wild foods. |
4,300 BCE |
The valley bottoms are still swampy and dominated by willows. This will be true until the Middle Ages. The higher ground of the present day moors is covered with deciduous forest of oak, alder, yew and lime. |
Neolithic, New Stone Age, hunter-farmers arrive in Yorkshire. They absorb the original permanent population. The new people were mixed farmers. Liberated from the nomadic life of following the seasonal migration of herds of game animals, they put down roots - literally and metaphorically! They continue using flint and stone tools, but these are much improved They have more time for leisure, and greater prosperity and security. They know about sewing and basic textiles - and probably sewed skins for tents erected on stone foundations in forest clearings. They don't yet have the plough, and so till the land with antler picks to sow cereal crops. They keep domesticated goats, sheep, dogs, and stocky highland cattle Some items found in Yorkshire to fill out the picture
Much of the evidence on Rombald's Moor has been overlaid by the intensive agriculture and settlements of the Bronze Age peoples, soon to arrive. |
3,000 BCE |
Continuous occupation on Rombald's Moor starts about now. They have left no human remains/clothing/pottery/anything sacred - only their hunting flints! |
|
around 1800 BCE |
Warrior farmers arrive in Yorkshire from Rhineland. They bring with them the greatest innovations since man mastered fire. As well as bringing much finer pottery, different burial customs (single burials in round barrows), they possess a new technical expertise. They produce tools and weapons, first of copper and lead, and later of copper and tin. Gradually these Bronze Age tools and weapons replaced the stone. While Stone Age earthworks continue in use, this is the major period for erecting stone circles and standing stones The new arrivals are much more efficient farmers - they've also brought with them the plough. Green Crag Slack, and Woofa Bank (among other sites in Yorkshire) reveal something of their sophisticated beliefs around death, and their complex rites of burial. It is probable that many of the carved stones on Ilkley Moor are associated in some way with the dead. The best preserved of their circles on Ilkley Moor is the Twelve Apostles - an eloquently silent reminder of the technological revolution they brought over the north sea, and a mute proclamation of ancient knowledge and faith. Just as powerfully mute are their carvings - known as "cup and ring stones" |