We recently excavated a rare kind of Iron Age settlement in Warwickshire. From out the ground came evidence that pointed us to our age-old habit of walking with animals. Our site sat in an ancient landscape, most likely riddled with drover’s roads and ancient byways, connecting places of a similar type. Herders traded livestock north and south, east and west, and possibly travelled with food for feasts on the hoof.
If you like to walk old roads that may hark back to prehistoric times, you could help to trace these routes. You may even find you have drovers and herders in your family.
Archaeologists I work with excavated this rare site. If you’re interested in archaeology, ancient byways, and protecting our historic landscape find out more in my recent blog post for Explore the Past:
‘Walking With Animals: Along Drove Roads and Ancient Byways‘
“A stream of animals came all at once: mostly sheep, a few cattle and a couple of goats. Out of the mist, and along a drove road, behind them ran two young boys. They were shouting and waving sticks, trying unsuccessfully to round up the stragglers; until a man on a horse appeared. Soon enough, there was an orderly rumble of hooves going in the right direction. They were funnelled between deep ditches into a large round enclosure. Gates opened, then sheep, goats and cattle were separated from each other in different pens.
Some of the animals had come from another farmstead just to the north, and some from far away. From near and far, they walked with herders, along drove roads, saltways, round the contours of a hill, and along every kind of ancient byway. Some had come from the most western parts of the British Isles.” Read more….
Photos: Ekrulila on Pexcels, and Gaëtan Werp on Unsplash.
