Issue 110

Jan / Feb 2010

Contents

news

Burnt mound theory tested to perfection

Dig find proves flowers placed in bronze age graves

UK's first complete Roman lantern found in Suffolk

Research continues as Saxon hoard is valued at £3.3m

in the press

in brief & phase 2

features

Newhenge: Latest discoveries and interpretations from the Stonehenge Riverside Project team

Dig the beat: Exploring pop music from an archaeological perspective, including additional online content

THE BIG DIG Mellor: A hillfort in the garden: This long-running research excavation near Stockport, Greater Manchester, is now ready for publication

The Peat Men from Clonycavan and Oldcroghan: Findings of the Bog Bodies Research Project at the National Museum of Ireland, with Bibliography

letters

your views and responses

on the web

Caroline Wickham-Jones looks at archaeological gifts

Dan Pett summarises the website set-up and technologies for the Staffordshire Hoard

spoilheap

news

News is written by Mike Pitts

Burnt mound theory tested to perfection

David Chapman found an eroding "burnt mound" – a common but unexplained prehistoric mound of fired stones – on the Lleyn peninsula at Hell's Mouth. Excavations in 2008 revealed an oak trough containing a residue of burnt stones and charred chaff and seeds (News, Mar/Apr 2009). Last summer Chapman and a team from Ancient Arts tested the theory that the trough had been used for brewing. The result was a lot of burnt stone – and 77 pints of light ale.

That burnt mounds had been used for brewing was first suggested by Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, who made an ale using fired rocks in a wooden trough in Co Galway. Chapman set out to replicate the process and compare the resultant debris with that excavated at Hell's Mouth.

A trough a quarter of the original's volume, set into a pit and sealed with clay, was filled with water and the area around saturated to stem any leakage. A bonfire of small round wood was lit over a heap of stones, and in a hot, bright and oxidising blaze a strong colour change was noted in the stones as they turned "white" as their temperature rose to red hot.

The stones were raked from the ashes, dropped into the trough and returned to the fire. This way the water was boiled to sterilise it, and all buckets and equipment were "scalded". Brewer's malted barley was drenched in boiling water to help release the starches, and then added to the trough after it had cooled to 60°C. The resultant "wort" was held at 60°C for an hour and a half with the addition of a hot stone every 10 minutes.

Elderberries were added – the skin being one of the best sources of wild yeast in Europe – with a small quantity of brewer's yeast as a backup. The ale was further flavoured with honey, blackberries and rosehips. Once strained through cloth into buckets, the wort was cooled in a stream and then covered and left to ferment for five days. The mash was cooked on the hot stones into bread or biscuits, which Chapman describes as "tasty and nutritious". This left some of the stones covered in charred barley.

As they worked, says Chapman, the stones began to form "the classic horseshoe shape that is so common in burnt mounds". The many stones at the mound centre were needed to bring a large volume of water to the boil, but to hold it at a constant temperature it was easier to use stones from either end of the very hot fire. In the nature of the process it is unlikely, he adds, that proper stratigraphy would be forming, so mounds used over many years could appear to indicate a single event.

Dig find proves flowers placed in bronze age graves

Flower heads have been found in a bronze age grave excavated at Forteviot, south of Perth, amongst other plant material lying close to a bag and a small knife-dagger. While the plant variety has yet to be firmly established, the discovery settles years of controversy following the recovery of meadowsweet pollen from bronze age graves in Scotland (Letters, Jul/Aug 2006) and Wales (News, May/Jun 2006). Some archaeologists argued for flower offerings, but others suggested to the contrary that the pollen indicated alcoholic drinks such as mead or beer. The Forteviot find shows that in at least one case actual flowers had been lain with the body.

The discovery comes as work continues on the contents of an exceptional cist grave, whose large capstone was lifted in August. While little remained of the body, parts of a birch bark coffin were found resting on quartz pebbles. The cist was probably once covered by a low stone cairn, and the first radiocarbon result dates it to 2140–1950BC. Other finds include a bronze dagger with a gold hilt band.

The cist lay amongst monuments with a long history. Cropmarks of a major prehistoric ceremonial complex were first recorded in the 1970s. Excavation in 2007 confirmed a late neolithic date (2800–2500BC), uncovering an avenue of large oak posts that would have stood at least 3–4m high. This approached an enclosure, also marked by large postholes, over 250m across its longer axis.

Within this was erected a 40m diameter circle of about 30 posts (2700–2480BC), which itself came to enclose a henge earthwork with a single entrance (whose ditch fills span 2470–1890BC). The pit for the cist had been dug into the partly-filled henge ditch.

At least 10 cremation burials have also been found within the henge. These are presently undated, though there were fragments of iron age crucible with one. Excavations in 2010 are expected to uncover further cremations, and will explore the possibility that an 80cm long sandstone slab found this year derives from a former ring of megaliths.

The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot Project (SERF) is directed by Gordon Noble (Aberdeen University) and Kenneth Brophy and Stephen Driscoll (Glasgow University).

UK's first complete Roman lantern found in Suffolk

Fragments of Roman lanterns are known from three other sites in Britain, but the first near-complete example seen here has now been found in Suffolk. It is very similar to one excavated at Pompeii, Italy, and is thought to date from the first to third centuries AD.

The lantern was recovered in September by Danny Mills, who was attending a weekend metal detecting rally at Glemsford, Suffolk. It lay about 45–50cm below the surface of a cultivated field. The find was reported to Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service and Faye Minter, the Portable Antiquities Scheme's Finds Liaison Officer for Suffolk. The landowner has donated it to Ipswich Museum, where it is expected to be displayed later in 2010 after study and conservation are complete.

The copper alloy lantern, which would probably have had a horn windshield, is around 25cm high and 13cm wide. It had a cylindrical body and a domed lid attached to uprights by two still-flexible chains, and a circular base plate with three feet. Parts of the frame and a foot are missing, and one of the surviving feet had been replaced in antiquity, but it is otherwise complete. The lantern was raised with soil within the frame, which may reveal further details of its internal mechanism as it is conserved at Ipswich Museum.

Minter says there is no record of previous archaeological finds from the field, but new searches have produced building materials, pottery and other metalwork dating from late iron age to late Roman times (c 100BC–AD410). It is hoped further investigation will include geophysical survey.

Caroline McDonald, curator of archaeology at Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service, says she is "delighted that the landowner has given the lantern to the people of Suffolk, where it will be seen in a public collection".

Research continues as Saxon hoard is valued at £3.3m

A new British Museum booklet on the hoard

Research on the Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon hoard found near Hammerwich in July (feature, Nov/Dec 2009), is preparing to gear up now that it has been valued. Four independent trade specialists reported to the Department for Culture Media and Sport's treasure valuation committee, which met on November 25 to decide on a value of £3.285m – the highest price ever put on a British treasure find. The money will be shared by the landowner Fred Johnson and finder Terry Herbert.

Work on the hoard so far has been restricted to basic cataloguing and cleaning and study needed for a proper valuation. Once an owner is identified, it will be possible to resource the time-consuming and skilled processes of full conservation and analysis. Further excavation at the site is also planned. The National Geographic Society, which will make films following the hoard's study, has offered £150,000 to aid research and conservation.

Since the discovery was announced on September 24, the find has attracted public interest on an unprecedented scale for modern times. In 19 days 40,063 people queued for up to four hours to see 80 pieces exhibited at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. A small selection went on show at the British Museum on November 3, and in February the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, will mount its own exhibition.

West Midlands politicians sought to find a home for the hoard in the region, though the British Museum, the only other likely claimant, had said from the outset that it would not seek to acquire it. As well as the museums in Stoke and Birmingham, other locations proposed for exhibiting some or all of the hoard include Lichfield Cathedral, the county of Staffordshire, Tamworth and The Public arts centre in West Bromwich. A brewery close to the find site has launched a Hoard ale.

On October 23 Ian Austin, minister for the West Midlands, chaired a meeting which decided that Birmingham and Stoke would act as joint custodians. Austin spoke of the hoard's benefits in "tourism, in education and heritage". Birmingham Museum said it would aspire to be the "worldwide centre for Anglo-Saxon archaeology and study".

As disagreement continues as to when the hoard was buried (with dates proposed for individual items between the sixth and eighth centuries), a significant development has been the discovery of organic material. David Saunders, keeper of the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum, told British Archaeology that two pieces of wood had been seen in sword pommels of sufficient size for radiocarbon dating.

The hoard's martial nature was further confirmed when 56 soil lumps retrieved entire from the field were taken apart in Birmingham. Amongst numerous tiny pieces of metal were scraps of helmet plates of types not seen in the hoard before.

In the press

The Aubrey Hole excavated in 2008. Original photo by Adam Stanford (of Aerial Cam), with excavation directors Julian Richards and Mike Pitts. So that explains the extra Stonehenge megaliths.

Bronze age axe heads, spearheads and a chisel were found when a father and son were caught [allegedly] acting as metal detecting "nighthawks". "It was a remote, rural area, 5.30am, dark, raining", said Crown prosecutor Richard Wood, "they didn't have permission to be there and they didn't volunteer the items were in the car. They gave inconsistent accounts. It was not any old field – in the recent past archaeological teams made significant discoveries of bronze age items". Paul Hitchens and Paul Anthony Hitchens told the court they had intended to report the finds officially but had been stopped by police before they had an opportunity to do so. The jury cleared them of theft of bronze age artefacts belonging to the Crown. 30 Oct

I planned a home cinema and gym in a £150,000 basement extension. We found 32 skeletons: my house was on the site of an old Quaker meeting house. There was an unexpected twist, in that I fell in love with one of the builders. Next month Jonathan and I will be getting married .Alison Smith Squire, 18 Jul

Ritual feast

Reading University's Department of Archaeology has been awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education. The honorary prize will be presented next February at Buckingham Palace after a banquet at Guildhall in the City of London; each university can submit one entry every two years. Archaeology at Reading has received several accolades, among them the recent claim to be Britain's only academic department with five British Academy fellows, pictured, L–R: Richard Bradley, Roberta Gilchrist, Martin Bell, Michael Fulford and Steven Mithen.

Detected

On September 1, Inside Out on BBC South broadcast what is thought to be the first film of "nighthawks" in action. Using a heat sensitive camera, reporter Joe Crowley filmed five men illegally searching with metal detectors and digging holes at a scheduled ancient monument in Sussex (they worked without lights). He questioned one man who was wearing a camouflage jacket and holding a detector, who said he was "butterfly hunting", adding, as he lifted his spade over his shoulder in what Crowley saw as a threatening gesture, "I tell you, take that torch out of my face, because you're making me [beeped] nervous". Crowley had been tipped off by Ann Clark, English Heritage historic environment field advisor for Surrey and West Sussex. She says the site has been repeatedly plundered, with rumours circulating of significant finds.

In brief

Hidden report attacked UCL actions

Nearly two years ago in British Archaeology, James Doeser described how UCL had suppressed an investigative report (Jan/Feb 2008). Completed by David Freeman, Sally MacDonald and Lord Renfrew in 2006, the inquiry had considered the provenance of a large group of fifth–eighth century Mesopotamian bowls that UCL had borrowed for study from Norwegian collector Martin Schøyen. Fears that UCL had something to hide have now been confirmed, with a copy of the report placed in the House of Lords library, and was downloadable from Wikileaks. The 94-page document concludes that the bowls had been excavated in Iraq and illegally exported after 1990, not, as claimed by Schøyen, procured from Jordan before 1965. UCL, says the report, had a "duty to deliver [the bowls] to a constable" for return to Iraq. Instead, they were returned to Schøyen, who had begun legal proceedings against UCL. In a letter from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies to the vice provost of UCL in January 2000, John Klier argued that "particular problems regarding the ownership of the objects themselves" are irrelevant to research. By contrast, the report recommends that all research derived from the bowls should be excluded from official records. UCL has yet to comment.

More money for AHOB

The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB) has received £1.1m from the Leverhulme Trust. Since 2001 AHOB has made dramatic advances in the archaeology of early Britain, pushing human occupation back to at least 700,000 years, at Pakefield, Suffolk, and reinvestigating older finds such as Gough's Cave, Somerset, where remains were dated to nearly 15,000 years ago and possible cannibalism was identified. AHOB3 will study new sites on the East Anglian coast and investigate the last neanderthals across Europe.

Major awards launched

The biannual British Archaeological Awards, featuring six major areas of activity in communication and research, will open the 2010 Festival of British Archaeology at the British Museum on July 19. Nominations close on 1 March.

Phase 2

In the News report about Stonehenge bluestones (Nov/Dec) bad typing and spell-checking resulted in the geologist Geoffrey Kellaway being incorrectly named George. More profoundly, the report's fundamental premise – that the Stonehenge megaliths that are not local came from a wider area than previously recognised – was apparently undermined in the very week the magazine went to the printer.

Richard Bevins (National Museum of Wales) and Rob Ixer (University of Leicester) had proposed that the discovery of rhyolitic tuff with stilpnomelane near Stonehenge indicated that at least some bluestones could not have come from the Preseli region, long seen as the major single source of such stones.

However Bevins found just such rock to the north of the Preselis. "It rather lessens our belief in all other major orthostats not coming from the Preselis", commented Ixer, excluding the non-sarsen sandstones and a few rocks that remain unprovenanced.

Having been the first to bring you the not-Preselis news, British Archaeology was quick to be first with the contrary theory, and a text by Ixer and Bevins was posted on the magazine web pages within days.

In discussion of this issue on the web it was clear that not everyone understands the nature of the News pages. For the record, they contain what they say: news reported by the editor (not the editor's ideas – nor, for that matter, those of the CBA).

One last note on the subject. While archaeologists seem agreed that the pit ring found by the river Avon near Stonehenge probably contained bluestone megaliths (feature, this issue), contrary to reports also to be found on the web, to date no actual bluestone has yet been found in the pits.

Other jobs included chopping down trees and assisting on archaeological digs – small fry for a man of his intelligence.
Dominic Carman on BNP leader Nick Griffin's career path, Daily Mail Oct 23

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