Calf Holm is a small native (Romano-British) settlement situated on the upland fringe of the upper South Tyne/Cumbrian Pennines, immediately west of the limestone outcrop of Dine Holm Scar. Like comparable sites in the region, it most likely consisted of stone-founded round or sub-rectangular huts within an enclosed yard, occupied broadly in the 2nd–4th centuries AD by a small farming community practising mixed pastoral agriculture.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Such settlements represent the continuing indigenous population of the northern Pennines under Roman rule, living in the hinterland of the military zone south of Hadrian's Wall and probably supplying livestock, wool, and labour to nearby garrisons and roadside vici. Calf Holm itself is not individually prominent in the literature but contributes to the dense pattern of native upland farms documented across this part of the frontier landscape.
There has been no published excavation of Calf Holm; knowledge of it derives essentially from field survey identifying earthwork enclosure remains and associated hut platforms on the ground. No closely datable artefactual assemblage has been recorded, and its Roman-period attribution rests on morphological comparison with better-investigated sites in the region rather than on stratified finds.
Calf Holm is a small native (Romano-British) settlement situated on the upland fringe of the upper South Tyne/Cumbrian Pennines, immediately west of the limestone outcrop of Dine Holm Scar. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman period native settlement at Calf Holm, immediately west of Dine Holm Scar is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Roman period native settlement and a bloomery 160m north west of Bleabeck Force (1.1 km), Roman period native settlements and field system, hut circle, bloomeries, lead smelting site and charcoal pits immediately south east of East Force Garth (1.3 km), Romano-British hut circle and enclosing bank and ditch immediately east of High Force Quarry (1.6 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Roman period native settlement at Calf Holm, immediately west of Dine Holm Scar