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| A prehistoric scraper from the Yorkshire Wolds |
During August, we are publishing through this blog a series of new photographs taken by archaeological photographer Ian Cartwright for an online Image Gallery created with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can read more about the gallery here, and you can see the whole gallery online here.
Here is our caption for this image:
This prehistoric stone scraper, with a white patina and orange staining, dates from the Neolithic period, and its recorded provenance – “Yorkshire Wolds” – is relatively unspecific. The number written on the object indicates that the object was acquired by Pitt-Rivers by 1874, when he listed “13 Scrapers, Yorkshire Wolds” under the number ‘965’ in his personal catalogue of his collection. As well as this information, copied from earlier labels or markings by a modern curatorial hand, the number ‘10’ with an illegible word beneath are written in pencil.
This prehistoric stone scraper, with a white patina and orange staining, dates from the Neolithic period, and its recorded provenance – “Yorkshire Wolds” – is relatively unspecific. The number written on the object indicates that the object was acquired by Pitt-Rivers by 1874, when he listed “13 Scrapers, Yorkshire Wolds” under the number ‘965’ in his personal catalogue of his collection. As well as this information, copied from earlier labels or markings by a modern curatorial hand, the number ‘10’ with an illegible word beneath are written in pencil.
But the single word “Greenwell”
connects the object to a highly significant moment in the history of
archaeology. Canon William Greenwell
(1820-1918) was an important Victorian antiquarian, who began excavating
prehistoric barrows in Yorkshire in the mid 1860s.
Pitt-Rivers would, during the 1860s and 1870s, develop the principles of modern scientific archaeological fieldwork and recording. The influences on him in this development were complex, but his experiences with Canon Greenwell were undoubtedly significant. Writing in the 1880s, Pitt-Rivers recalled that ‘My very first lessons as an excavator
were derived from Canon Greenwell, during his well-known and valuable
exploration in the Yorkshire Wolds, in the course of which I obtained a large
amount of useful experience that has been a constant source of enjoyment and
interest to me ever since’.
He joined Greenwell’s field
team in North Yorkshire during April 1867, excavating at Willerby Wold and
Ganton Wold, and surveying a series of earthworks recorded on the Ordnance
Survey maps of the area. On 26 April 1867, under the headline ‘The Opening of the
Yorkshire Tumuli’, the Hull Packet and
East Riding Times listed the archaeological team led by Canon Greenwell as
‘including the Rev. Dr Farrar of Durham; Colonel A. Lane Fox, Grenadier Guards;
Mr J.H. Blackhouse, of Darlington; Mr Fairless Barber, of Rastrick,
Huddersfield; Mr Burgess, of Huddersfield; Mr Charles Hartley, Mr Pycock, and
Mr Monkman, of Malton, and others.'
This object may have been acquired by Pitt-Rivers from Greenwell during
the fieldwork, or at another time before 1874, but it represents evidence not
only of the Neolithic of Yorkshire, but also of its place in the history of
exchanges between Victorian antiquaries - and the beginnings of modern scientific fieldwork in archaeology.
(Pitt
Rivers Museum Accession Number 1884.133.56)
