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The Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society

Since 1863

For everyone interested in Yorkshire's past

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Programme 2025: Key events

Prehistory Research Section events:

2025
December

Saturday 6th December 2025 Christmas Meeting.
In-person talk and guests are welcome.
Tea & coffee available from 11am and the talk starts at 11.15am until 12.30pm.

Venue: St George’s Centre, 60 Great George Street, Leeds, LS1 3DL

Dr Neil Wilkin, Curator of Neolithic and Bronze Age collections at the British Museum, will talk about: ‘Chalk Children: The Folkton and Burton Agnes drum burials in their Neolithic world In 2015, a burial containing three small children and a remarkable set of grave goods was excavated by Allen Archaeology Ltd near Burton Agnes on the Yorkshire Wolds. Of particular note was the decorated chalk ‘drum’, comparable to the well-known Folkton Drums, also buried with a child, discovered 125 years ago. This talk brings together new research and scientific study to explore the national importance of this pair of internationally important and poignant graves. What can they tell us about Neolithic Yorkshire and its place in the emerging artistic and cultural world of Britain and Ireland 5,000 years ago?

Dr Neil Wilkin is curator of the European Neolithic and Bronze Age collections at the British Museum. His most recent major exhibition project was The World of Stonehenge (2022). He is the co-author of the tie-in book The World of Stonehenge (2022) and Grave Goods: Objects and Death in Later Prehistoric Britain (2022)

Any enquiries to: info.prehist@yahs.org.uk info.prehist@yahs.org.uk

Possible Archaeological Events for Your Diary:

  • 18th October: CBA Yorks: Autumn Seminar: Workstation Creative Lounge, Sheffield
  • 3rd November: Neolithic Study Group conference: ‘Kinship in Neolithic Europe’
  • 14th - 16th November: Bronze Age Forum will be held in University College, Dublin

Guest Lectures (open to all) 

Bradford University: School Archaeological and Forensic Science guest lectures series.

Lectures start at 5.30pm - search SAFS guest lecture series on Ticketsource

Please note - Your E-Mail Address:

The majority of members now receive their notices and newsflashes electronically. If your contact details have changed, please let me know, so that our address list remains up-to-date. If you wish to change the way you receive your section information, please drop me a line - either by email, or by post: John Cruse, 26 Logan Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 9AR

Above programme updated 17th October 2025

 

 

25th September Talk. Dr Melanie Giles: ‘Bog Bodies: face-to-face with the past.’

  • Posted On: 1 August 2021
25th September Talk. Dr Melanie Giles: ‘Bog Bodies: face-to-face with the past.’
Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society
Prehistory Research Section & The Prehistoric Society
25th September 2021, 2 pm
Note: This will no longer be held at Leeds Museum. It will be delivered via Zoom. Contact info.prehist@yahs.org.uk for information on joining.
‘Bog Bodies: face-to-face with the past’
Talk by Dr Melanie Giles, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Manchester

Dr Melanie Giles encourages us to revisit the iconic phenomenon of bog bodies, through the story of Manchester Museum’s ‘bog head’ from Astley Moss, Worsley. By thinking differently about these landscapes, the many different kinds of artefacts also found in bogs, and the meaning of violence in later prehistoric and early Roman worlds. She will encourage us to tell more subtle stories around these discoveries, which addresses both their lives and deaths. She will end with some of the more creative ways in which museums have been responding to concerns about if and how we display human remains, encouraging us to see our archaeological work as a kind of ‘care’ for the ancient dead.

Any enquiries contact John Cruse, Hon Secretary YAHS, Prehistory Research Section john.cruse1@btinternet.com

Image: Tollund Man copyright Rose Ferraby

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