Sharp Howes

Among the rolling agricultural fields of the Yorkshire Wolds, southwest of Scarborough, lies a little-known collection of prehistoric burial mounds known as Sharp Howes, sometimes written as Sharpe Howes. Unlike the dramatic stone circles and towering monuments of Britain's more famous ancient landscapes, these earthworks are easily overlooked. Yet beneath their weathered surfaces lies evidence of communities that lived, died and buried their dead thousands of years ago. Sharp Howes forms part of an extensive prehistoric landscape around Folkton and Flixton, an area containing burial monuments and archaeological sites spanning several periods of human occupation. The name howe, commonly encountered throughout Yorkshire, derives from an old term associated with a mound or burial place. Here, the name describes a cemetery of prehistoric barrows, deliberately constructed monuments raised above the surrounding ground. The cemetery is generally associated with the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, periods during which burial practices reflected increasingly elaborate relationships between communities, their ancestors and the landscape. The site attracted the attention of Canon William Greenwell, the nineteenth-century antiquarian whose extensive excavations contributed enormously to the early study of Britain's prehistoric burial customs. Greenwell investigated eight barrows associated with the Sharp Howes group. Five formed a relatively concentrated cluster, with additional mounds lying to the south and northeast. One of the most prominent mounds measured approximately 80 feet across and eight feet high. Its construction was particularly revealing. Layers of chalk slabs had been covered with earth and capped with chalk rubble, forming a substantial artificial monument intended to endure within the landscape. At the centre, excavators discovered a grave containing a contracted human skeleton, buried with a pottery food vessel. The position of the body and inclusion of a vessel provide evidence of deliberate funerary practices. Such objects are often interpreted as grave goods, potentially reflecting beliefs concerning the dead, personal identity or the significance of burial ceremonies. However, the precise meanings intended by those who placed them remain unknown. The surviving earthworks have suffered considerable disturbance. Greenwell recorded that one prominent mound had originally possessed a conical shape, but that approximately six feet had been removed from its summit before his investigation. Later visitors described agricultural equipment, stored materials and other activity affecting the remaining monuments. By the early twenty-first century, the landscape surrounding Sharp Howes had become predominantly agricultural, with some mounds substantially reduced or difficult to distinguish. The cemetery nevertheless remains a tangible connection to the prehistoric inhabitants of the Yorkshire Wolds. And it is the unanswered questions surrounding those inhabitants that make Sharp Howes particularly compelling. Why were these particular positions chosen for burial? Did the mounds serve as territorial markers, sacred places or enduring memorials to important individuals? Were the dead believed to remain spiritually connected to the living? Across Britain, prehistoric burial mounds subsequently became associated with folklore concerning ghosts, supernatural beings, hidden treasure and entrances to otherworldly places. Such traditions demonstrate how later generations interpreted ancient monuments whose original purposes had been forgotten. However, no dependable published account has yet established a specific haunting or paranormal encounter at Sharp Howes itself. It would therefore be misleading to attach stories of apparitions, mysterious lights or supernatural entities to these particular mounds without supporting testimony. Their significance lies instead in the documented presence of ancient human burials and the unresolved beliefs that shaped their construction. The mounds have stood through enormous changes in the surrounding countryside. Their builders left no written explanation of the ceremonies performed there. The people were buried, their graves covered, and the monuments became part of the land. Thousands of years later, Sharp Howes still marks a place where the living deliberately set aside ground for the dead. Type of Phenomena: Ancient Burial Practices / Prehistoric Ritual Landscape / Archaeological Mystery / Wider Burial-Mound Folklore Haunting Classification: Prehistoric Burial Cemetery / Ancient Earthworks Documented Features and Traditions: Group of eight prehistoric barrows recorded in Victorian excavations Five closely grouped burial mounds Human skeletal remains discovered within a central grave Pottery food vessel deposited alongside a burial Substantial chalk-and-earth mound construction Evidence of historic damage and later agricultural disturbance Possible ceremonial and ancestral significance Wider British folklore associating burial mounds with supernatural activity No verified site-specific paranormal reports currently identified Paranormal Evidence Level: Documented Archaeological Site / Recorded Human Burials / Historical Excavation Accounts / No Substantiated Site-Specific Haunting Reports