Iron Age and Roman Settlement at Brough South, East Riding of Yorkshire

Abstract

Excavations to the southeast of Brough on a site close to the Humber estuary identified three phases of an Iron Age roundhouse, where a community raised sheep and pigs, grew cereals, spun wool and made their own pots. This was followed by early Roman-British boundary and trackway ditches, albeit with likely Iron Age origins. Activity apparently ceased in the second century AD and this might reflect wetter conditions over time with settlement moving further north while previously occupied land was given over to agriculture. Rare earlier prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon finds attest to the longevity of this landscape’s use probably due to the richness of the hinterland between salt marsh and estuary to the south, and drier conditions to the north.