Stanwick, North Yorkshire, Part 1: Recent research and previous archaeological investigations

Abstract

Following Wheeler's excavations there in 1951–52, the earthwork complex at Stanwick, North Yorkshire, has been regarded as a key site for the late Iron Age in northern England. Wheeler's conclusions remain widely accepted, despite subsequent challenges to certain aspects of his dating and sequence. Since 1981, however, renewed excavation and survey work have been undertaken, along with complementary documentary and cartographic studies. This paper focuses on the nineteenth-century records of Stanwick, including the earliest detailed survey of the earthworks in 1816, and important, hitherto unpublished material from Alnwick Castle, relating to the plan published by MacLauchlan in 1849 and the discovery of the Stanwick hoard.There follow separate papers on the results of a new survey of the earthworks by the R.C.H.M.E. (Part 2), and a report on excavations on the earthworks between 1981–86 (Part 3). Together, these studies indicate that Wheeler's deceptively straightforward scheme for the context and develo...