Cottam, Cowlam and environs: an Anglo-Saxon estate on the Yorkshire Wolds

TY - JOUR

T1 - Cottam, Cowlam and environs: an Anglo-Saxon estate on the Yorkshire Wolds

AU - Richards, Julian D

AU - Ashby, Steve

AU - Austin, Tony

AU - Haldenby, David

AU - Hummler, Madeleine

AU - Jelley, Elizabeth

AU - Richardson, Jane

AU - Roskams, Steve

AU - Niven, Kieron

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - From 1993–95 investigation of a so-called ‘productive site’ known as Cottam B revealed an Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied during the eighth to ninth centuries AD, succeeded in the late ninth to early tenth century by an Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. The final report concluded that the Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been an outlying farming and hunting dependency set within a royal estate centred upon Driffield, but that following the Viking partition of East Yorkshire it developed into an independent proto-manor. In subsequent years, fieldwork was undertaken at other early medieval sites in the immediate locality. At Cottam A (in 1996) and later at Church Farm, Cowlam (in 2003), contemporary Anglo-Saxon occupation was revealed at both sites. These sites provide a local context for the results from Cottam B, and show widespread and dispersed settlement foci in this part of the Wolds in the eighth and ninth centuries. They illuminate how a number of outlying dependencies of a single estate were interrelated, and how they contributed to the evolution of the Late Saxon and medieval settlement pattern. This paper provides a summary report of the archaeology of Cottam A and Cowlam with a supporting digital archive, and draws conclusions about the nature of the activities and interrelationships within the proposed Anglo-Saxon estate in which these settlements were likely to have been situated.

AB - From 1993–95 investigation of a so-called ‘productive site’ known as Cottam B revealed an Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied during the eighth to ninth centuries AD, succeeded in the late ninth to early tenth century by an Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. The final report concluded that the Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been an outlying farming and hunting dependency set within a royal estate centred upon Driffield, but that following the Viking partition of East Yorkshire it developed into an independent proto-manor. In subsequent years, fieldwork was undertaken at other early medieval sites in the immediate locality. At Cottam A (in 1996) and later at Church Farm, Cowlam (in 2003), contemporary Anglo-Saxon occupation was revealed at both sites. These sites provide a local context for the results from Cottam B, and show widespread and dispersed settlement foci in this part of the Wolds in the eighth and ninth centuries. They illuminate how a number of outlying dependencies of a single estate were interrelated, and how they contributed to the evolution of the Late Saxon and medieval settlement pattern. This paper provides a summary report of the archaeology of Cottam A and Cowlam with a supporting digital archive, and draws conclusions about the nature of the activities and interrelationships within the proposed Anglo-Saxon estate in which these settlements were likely to have been situated.

U2 - 10.1080/00665983.2013.11021005

DO - 10.1080/00665983.2013.11021005

M3 - Article

SN - 0066-5983

VL - 170

SP - 201

EP - 271

JO - The Archaeological Journal

JF - The Archaeological Journal

IS - 1

ER -