Springs, Woods and Transhumance: Reconstructing a Pennine Landscape during Later Prehistory

Abstract

This article explores evidence for the nature of a Pennine landscape – the Wensleydale, Swaledale and the Swale/Tees-Greta Uplands (Figure 1) – in Later Prehistory. It portrays an environment with a complex mosaic of woodlands, different from the moors and dales we know today but with important continuities between the present and the past. It reveals how human activity was often linked to the sites of springs and other related water features, and how these were foci for human utilisation of the resources available in the landscape.The article begins by outlining the geological structure of the area, and by introducing the general occurrence, characteristics and natural history of springs and their offspring – haggs, gutters, sikes and becks. We can attempt to reconstruct the fully developed woodland environments of this area as they were soon after 4000BC: after the establishment of all tree species but prior to extensive human interference. Evidence comes from available pollen reports but also from the fragments of semi-natural woodland which survive today on the dale sides and at the head of tributary streams. The article argues that past woodland communities should be defined by reference to the national classification of contemporary vegetation types (Rodwell 1991 et seq). This approach is especially relevant in this area, where soils of abruptly changing pH, derived from frequently faulted alternating calcareous/siliceous strata, control the reactive composition of the woodland canopy, field and shrub layers. The article describes existing examples of woods which together provide a sample of the woodland mosaic which may once have covered the dale sides. The evidence of tree remains in blanket peats demonstrates that woodland on the highest plateau was stunted, species poor and may not have extended much beyond the 'shelter' of the gills formed by in-cutting streams.Across Wensleydale, Swaledale and Teesdale, from the end of the Mesolithic through to the establishment of the first settled farming communities at about 1200 BC, there is evidence for transient human activity. It is found in the vicinity of springs which rise below the uppermost limestone scars and at passes across the interfluves – as predicted by Penny Spikins (Spikins 1996). The article discusses the distribution and preferred location of three categories of this evidence – lithic scatters, rock art and the numerous burnt mounds – in the context of the disposition, detailed composition and density of the woodlands in which these people lived.