ABSTRACT
The older conventional view of northern England in the Iron Age was largely determined by historical sources dating from the Roman occupation. Gabrantovicum in the east have been taken to indicate tribal sub-septs of the Brigantes, though the Gabrantovici sounds like another descriptive name rather than a native identity. The square-ditched barrow cemeteries vary considerably in numbers of graves from just a few dozen to more than four hundred in the case of Wetwang Slack, the largest Iron Age cemetery known in Britain. Air-photography has shown the density of cemeteries across the Wolds, sites sometimes being no more than a couple of kilometres apart. Haselgrove suggested that the introduction of formal rites for the disposal of the dead could have been triggered by social stress resulting from increased pressure on land and resources. The field monuments and settlement sites of the North York Moors, including linear earth-work boundaries, have been investigated, mainly by locally sponsored research projects.
