Revistas de JAS Arqueología
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An Indication of Northern Souls: Revisiting the 'Territory of Ritual'
No full textThis article revisits the interpretation of the distinctive cross-ridge boundaries of north-east Yorkshire and explains a regular association between these features and the far earlier Early Bronze Age burial mounds. Radiocarbon dating and palynological evidence now provides a chronology for the boundaries, while field survey and excavation evidence confirms a new and specific role for cross-ridge boundaries in protecting long established Early Bronze Age funerary areas and enabling their continued veneration in the changing landscape of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age
New Results and Considerations regarding the Fieldstone Wall of the Eighth-Century Danevirke
No full textThe article examines the origins and development of Danevirke, a monumental border fortification in what is now the area of Schleswig in northern Germany. Archaeological evidence shows that its origins date back to the fifth/sixth century AD and that the complex was expanded several times. Particular attention is paid to the Fieldstone Wall, whose construction and dating provide new insights into the transfer of knowledge and political relations between the Danes and the Carolingians. The results show that the expansion of Danevirke was closely linked to the power struggles and threats of the time
The Welsh Marches and the PAS: Possible ‘productive’ sites and their significance
No full textThe Portable Antiquities Scheme has resulted in the recording of over 1.8 million artefacts, predominantly of metal and from all archaeological periods, which have been found across England and Wales. This corpus has contributed greatly to academic research, one strand of which is the identification of early medieval ‘productive’ sites. These are potential areas of activity, and this data is particularly pertinent for the identification of early medieval sites, as other evidence – for structures and ceramic use, for example – is scarce. This article seeks to identify such sites across modern borders in the Welsh Marches, an area of little developer-led archaeology. This cross-border approach is still relatively uncommon in archaeology but one which is called for in many current Research Frameworks. The article identifies the sites and discusses their possible purpose and significance, including their relationship to Offa’s and Wat’s Dykes
The Short Dykes of Mechain
No full textThe article considers a group of short dykes which were examined as part of a study of this monument type, carried out by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust on behalf of Cadw, between 2000 and 2006. Various interesting points came out of the study, particularly regarding how short dykes in general fitted into their local landscapes. Their poor defensibility if viewed as monuments designed to impede or block access was also noted and this gave rise to an unease with this conventional interpretation of their function. Five of the dykes examined during the project, about a quarter, were dated by organic material which had been sealed beneath their bank at the time of construction and dates covering the period from the mid-fourth to late eighth centuries AD were obtained.A group of six short dykes centred on the town of Llanfyllin in northern Powys were identified during the study, all of which lay close to the boundary of the medieval Welsh cantref of Mechain, as defined by Melville Richards. This implied that they might have been used to identify parts of this boundary and the acquisition of two radiocarbon dates collectively covering the period from the fifth to early eighth centuries AD from one of these dykes (Clawdd Mawr) was seen as being significant in perhaps showing that the cantref was based on an early medieval political entity. An analysis of the Mechain dykes will attempt to prove that they form a coherent group and have the potential to point further research of the site type in a more productive direction
Offa's Dyke and Wat's Dyke: Scientific Dating at Chirk and Erddig
No full textIn 2018 and 2019, the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust undertook excavations on Offa’s Dyke at Chirk Castle, and on Wat’s Dyke at Erddig. The background, circumstances and stratigraphic narrative of these projects were presented in Volume 1 of this journal, but the scientific dating programme was not complete at the time of publication and the results were further delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the radiocarbon and OSL dates obtained by 2021 and discusses implications for future research
Nico Ditch: A Review of its Form, Function, and Date
No full textNico Ditch is an enigmatic curvilinear earthwork, the core of which runs for c. 8km across the southern part of the City of Manchester from Hough Moss to Ashton Moss. Although much of its length was built over during the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where it survives as an earthwork it comprises a U-shaped ditch 2m to 3m wide and 1.5m to 2m deep, with possibly a low bank on its northern side. This article reviews research into the origins, form, and function of Nico Ditch, drawing on over 140 years of study, as well as discussing grey literature archaeological fieldwork from the 1990s and 2000s. Using this material, it is argued that the line of Nico Ditch extended further west of Hough Moss into Stretford. This longer monument strengthens the argument that the ditch dates from the early medieval period
Flags and Frontiers: Linear Monuments Research in 2025
No full textProviding context and introduction to this seventh volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ), this article reviews the contents as well as select recent related research published elsewhere on linear monuments. The introduction also reviews the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory’s activities during 2025. The context of Britain’s ongoing public discourse focused on migration and its perceived threats to British and English identities is recognised, with the flag fervour of the summer of 2025 illustrating the ongoing need for academic critiques and comparative research on linear monuments, frontiers and borderlands. Specifically, it argues for the need for resesarch to takeinto account ephemeral material cultures, signs and symbols as well as monumental architecture in considering how divisions and demarcations are established and perpetuated in landscapes past and present
Poetry and Archaeology as Earthwork: Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns
No full textThis article analyses and interprets Geoffrey Hill’s collection of poetry Mercian Hymns (1971). In Mercian Hymns, Hill deals with the historical King Offa, Offa’s kingdom of Mercia, Offa’s Dyke, his coinage, rule and foreign relations, but in such a way that all these are connected to Hill’s childhood and youth, to his life now and to the region that once was Mercia. It is argued that what Hill achieves here can be read as a poetical transcendence of time and space. This essay also reveals a stunning analogy between Hill’s idea of the writing of poetry as work in the layers of language on the one hand and archaeology on the other: both can be seen as earthwork. The article is a slightly revised, but not updated version of Bode 1992
The Great Dykes of the Welsh Borderlands on Early Cartography
No full textOffa’s and Wat’s Dykes make comparatively few appearances on historic maps pre-dating the Ordnance Survey era, normally because of their lack of relevance to the primary purposes for which the maps were created. This short paper examines the published county maps that do scribe their courses through the Welsh borderlands. A preliminary attempt is presented to identify manuscript maps where the earthworks are featured. Collectively they add little to our existing knowledge of the dykes themselves, but they do contribute to their historiography
Viking Wirral in Public Archaeology and History
No full textThis interview which took place on 4 November 2025 with Clare Downham (CD) and Paul Sherman (PS) with editor Howard Williams (HW) discussed initiatives and challenges in promoting knowledge of the Viking Age in the Wirral. This frontier zone marked the boundary between England and Wales by land and a maritime boundary between England and the Irish Sea. As such it is often assigned a marginal rather than a central place in narratives of British and Irish history