Contact, Concord and Conquest: Britons and Romans at Scotch Corner Digital Monograph, 2020

This is the second of three monographs concerning archaeological excavations for Highways Englands 2013-17 upgrading of the A1 to motorway status between Leeming and Barton in North Yorkshire. A1 scheme research themes First Contact and Dere Street are addressed here, along with research questions concerning evidence from Scotch Corner and its hinterland. The archaeological remains at Scotch Corner encompass a remarkable era of social, economic and political transformations associated with the absorption of northern England into the Roman province. Artefact typologies, radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modelling indicate that the initial settlement (c.55BC-c.AD15) was characterised by unenclosed roundhouses and mixed arable and pastoral farming. A growing economy promoted exchange amongst communities from the coast and further inland. The local Brigantian tribal elite developed a power centre at nearby Stanwick, which operated like a southern British oppidum and was a base for Roman diplomatic missions. This volume examines the character of native society, settlement, and economic activity at Scotch Corner and its environs once first contact with Rome occurred around the beginning of the 1st millennium. It presents evidence for a period of relative peace and unprecedented prosperity during the early to mid-1st century AD as native elites centred at nearby Stanwick negotiated political concord with the potential invader. Finally, it describes the evidence for Roman conquest at Scotch Corner, with far-reaching implications for how the process of invasion is understood in the environs and wider region.