Iron age find is a Wold first (From Gazette & Herald)

Iron age find is a Wold first

HIGH-FLYING experts have been at work on the Yorkshire Wolds - and discovered an Iron Age cattle ranch stretching more than six miles across.

The finds were made by a team of aerial archaeologists, and will feature in a BBC TV programme to be shown next week.

Mysterious lines in crops outside Weaverthorpe, near Malton, were first spotted by aerial photographers in the 1950s. Until now experts have been baffled, but English Heritage aerial investigator, Dave MacLeod, who worked with three other archaeologists, hopes to reveal all in the ground-breaking BBC2 series Time Flyers.

The team used the latest techniques in aerial archaeology, combined with ground excavations, to examine the lines.

Mr MacLeod said: "Essentially we are looking at the remains of a highly-sophisticated cattle business that is more reminiscent of the High Chaparral, rather than small-scale peasant farming.

"The funnels channelled livestock into broad droveways leading down to the settlements along the Gypsey Race, which is still the only reliable water source on the Wolds."

Mr MacLeod said the cattle would have been driven up and out of the funnels to higher pasture to graze and brought down for water twice a day.

It is thought they are part of a much bigger system stretching more than 12 miles across.

He added: "Clearly thousands of cattle were being herded.

"Looking at our aerial photographs we can see that the Yorkshire Wolds are covered in a mass of ancient markings, hinting that the rural population two thousand years ago wasn't too much different from that today.

"These people were engaged in specialised farming and had the stability, resources and expertise to ranch on a much bigger scale than most people realise."

Time Flyers - Reading Between The Lines - will be broadcast at 7.30pm, on Thursday, on BBC2.

Updated: 10:52 Saturday, October 26, 2002