New Discovery on Bingley Moor by us Old-Timers on 22-4-2010

What an absolute beauty!
Forgetfull Dave (ErraticDave), Mad Bob, Paulus and myself went for a wander last Thursday to browse the Rock-Art in the area. After frobbling around and following our noses, I stumbled across this.

Prehistoric Tomb

.....What do people think?

Nice isn't it?

Mikki x

Mmmmm

Rather small in size, no signs of outer cairn ...?

Are the two stones part of one larger stone that has split along a fracture?

Mmmmm

Needs further investigation - suggest probe depth of setting & take soil samples, and again look for remains of outer cairn ...

Are the stones positioned on a southern slope?

Looks like a natural feature from the photo ... take a look again in the clear light of dawn. Mmmmmm ...

Hi John!

lowergate wrote:Rather small in size, no signs of outer cairn ...?

Scattered remains of smaller stones are below the long 'cist'. Other smaller stones are scattered and visible just below present surface. The two stones lie more than 6ft long.

lowergate wrote:Are the two stones part of one larger stone that has split along a fracture?

Nope - 'fraid not. (mind you - we didn't dig down to the bases to make 100% sure; but they seems to be 2 separate long pieces)

lowergate wrote:Needs further investigation - suggest probe depth of setting & take soil samples, and again look for remains of outer cairn ...

Agreed. We were hoping for a bit more of a scan yesterday, but we got chatting with the moor warden and ended up further up the moor looking at another of the cup-and-rings. There's a length of external walling right in front of this 'cairn' though - 30-40ft long. An arc of stones surrounds the cist-looking feature in a bell-shaped outline. Another pile of surface stones is on the western outer edge of this.

lowergate wrote:Are the stones positioned on a southern slope?

No. Soz...

lowergate wrote:Looks like a natural feature from the photo ... take a look again in the clear light of dawn.

Get thassen over 'ere in the coming weeks & we'll take you up for a gander. There's distinct man-made features about it, which you'd see if you saw it in the flesh. We'll tell you a bit more abaat it at this Thursday's moorland meet! See y' then!

atb - Paul

With the above extra informtion it may not be 'Mmmmmm', more a mmm


john

On my flickr blog,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erraticdavestoneage/
I've put some pics up which show the scattering of stones, on the slope below the cist. Hard to do it justice with a camera, as growth and stuff hide quite a bit, but I've seen worse accredited barrows. And better of course.

Needs further investigation.

Needs a lot of further investigation, but I've been looking at images of other accredited cist tombs, and there are less likely looking things academically accepted. Split stones seem to be commonplace for burial cist usage.
They weren't daft enough to wait for someone to invent angle grinders. The deceased would have been a bit gamey.
As for the fungi, fug it. We can leave that to the grant equipped. It's been there long enough to wait for them to finish the cheese and wine chat, and pretend they're working.
Anyway! What about my wandering stone age mafiosa on Middleton moor? (See rock art section) Don't go telling me it's obviously Nick Griffin, as a youth.

Hello again John!

lowergate wrote:Even given these better pictures it still looks like one split stone.

It may be the photo/lighting but the inner face of the LH stone looks 'fresh' rather than 4000 years old.

Cold light of dawn again I'm afraid.

Have you looked at the type and age of any lichen/alga/fungus growing in symbiotic association on the stones?

Needs further investigation.

I get wot y' saying. We do need another look. We were chatting with the warden and he gave us some helpful tips and advice (seemed a damn good fella!). There's another tomb a bit further up the hill from here, uncatalogued, untouched, covered on the whole by peat & herbage, measuring 4x3 yards and 30cm high. We're gonna give this a better look when we're up there again shortly. We could do with some of your help!

atb - Paul

Great find guys!
Looking at Daves photo here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erraticdavestoneage/4557551187/
it looks like some of the sarsens on Fyfield that have been split with a hammer and chisel.
It looks like it has three chisel marks along the top edge.
Can you look closer at these next time your up there?
Pete

Hi Pete -

PeteG wrote:Great find guys!
Looking at Daves photo here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erraticdavestoneage/4557551187/
it looks like some of the sarsens on Fyfield that have been split with a hammer and chisel.
It looks like it has three chisel marks along the top edge.
Can you look closer at these next time your up there?
Pete

We'll definitely have a look at those when we're up there again next week. We've been out walking today over Lancashire and met up with a friend we aint seen for a few months who's got in with a decent archaeo professor who's trustworthy, open-minded and can keep her gob shut aswell! We've now gotta sort out some dates to get 'em over and they can have a look. Fingers crossed!

If & when owt comes of this, we'll add it to TNA for all to peruse & add further comments - but it might take a bit longer than we initially hoped. If you manage to get up here, we'll wander over and you can have a gander.

atb - Paul

I want to get up asap as I'd like a good close look at this site.
Do you see much evidence of stone breaking in this area?
How far away is the nearest track that broken stones could be hauled away on a cart?
Pete

PeteG wrote:I want to get up asap as I'd like a good close look at this site.
Do you see much evidence of stone breaking in this area?

Some - but not a lot.

PeteG wrote:How far away is the nearest track that broken stones could be hauled away on a cart?

150-200 yards away. There's extensive evidence of other human activity from various periods all around, which makes it a bit troublesome. We have neolithic & Bronze Age very close by; WW2 practices on the same stretch of moorland; and medieval events aswell. This is wot's making me indecisive: unless/until we can get further data from this site, we've gotta be cautious. But there's a prehistoric cairn 100 yards away; C&Rs 300 yards away; prehistoric walling 300 yards away; 18th century quarrying 250-300 yards away; army training foxholes 200 yards away. It's been a pretty active moor!