Issue 111

Mar / Apr 2010

Contents

news

New centre for Stonehenge – if drivers agree

British archaeologists help record Armenian rock art

Geophysics finds encourage new look at Stanton Drew

Dramatic rock art discovery in Swaledale

in the press

in brief & phase 2

features

The Future of our Past (not online)

In the run-up to the General Election, the parties give their views on heritage

410–2010: Rome and Britain

Introducing the events and issues commemmorating 1600 years since the end of the Romans in Britain

THE BIG DIG: Barcombe Roman Villa

What was it like to live in rural Roman Britain? Report on 11 seasons of fieldwork at the villa and bath house

Polynomial texture mapping for archaeologists (not online)

A new imaging technique is relatively easy and cheap to operate, yet has enormous possibilities in archaeology

Introducing Stonehedge and other curious earthworks

Stonehenge is the focus of unprecedented research. Yet the site was last surveyed in 1919, until now...

Remembering Fromelles

One of the most pointless battles of the First World War, with great loss of life, occurred at Fromelles in northern France. Only now are some of the dead being honoured with individual graves

on the web

Caroline Wickham-Jones looks at e-material

Adrian Green describes the new website for Salisbury Museum

science

Sebastian Payne considers the remarkable potential of hammerscale for understanding the work of iron smiths

requiem

A tribute to some of the archaeologists and lovers of antiquity who died in 2009

letters

your views and responses

CBA Correspondent

Mike Heyworth considers the thorny issues of treasure and responsible detecting

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

news

News is written by Mike Pitts

New centre for Stonehenge – if drivers agree

Plans for new facilities for Stonehenge, the first significant development for the monument since the underpass was built in 1967, were approved by the new Wiltshire council on January 20. The decision ends years of argument about what should replace existing arrangements and where this should go.

The new reception site will be at Airman's Corner, 2.5km west of the stones. As consent was given for parking arrangements and a building with cafe, shop and museum displays, Wiltshire council published a proposed driving prohibition order to affect the a344 road as it passes Stonehenge, and two nearby byway routes.

The A344 closure is all that remains of a grander project costed at £540m. This would have seen the A303 in a tunnel and a £79m visitor centre east of Stonehenge. It was dropped by the government in late 2007 as too costly (feature, Mar/Apr 2008), and replaced by the present scheme as a "temporary" solution to greet the 2012 Olympics.

After a public consultation (feature, Sep/Oct 2008), the Airman's site was chosen in May last year. Architects Denton Corker Marshall's design of separate car parking and partially concealed coach parking, and a building of two transparent boxes capped by a floating roof, was mostly welcomed. It was critiqued by CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) as "lacking... a feeling for [the] landscape". CABE was also concerned that the "appealing" canopy would "require a highly engineered solution", raising possible cost issues.

English Heritage chief executive Simon Thurley was upbeat about the project, telling British Archaeology that "money's not going to be the problem", dismissing talk that English Heritage's powers may be diminished under a future government. However he was concerned that objections to the proposed byway restrictions from the "motorbike scrambling lobby" could jeopardise the entire scheme. DCM director Stephen Quinlan shared this worry, suggesting readers support the driving prohibition by responding to the consultation, which closed on February 15. Salisbury MP Robert Key said he has ensured that "Conservative front benches are properly briefed", in the event of a change in government. "I believe they will see the sense in pursuing this", he added.

In January, the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes, said they had agreed to loan objects for display at the new centre.

British archaeologists help record Armenian rock art

Within an extinct volcano beside a glacial lake at 3300m above sea level between the Black and Caspian seas, is one of the worlds' most extraordinary outdoor galleries of ancient art. Little known outside Armenia, thousands of prehistoric carvings are pecked on the smooth surfaces of glaciated rocks and boulders. A new joint UK-Armenian project has set out to study this art. Returning from the first field season, archaeologists report that the carvings are threatened by the harsh climate and by tourists who reach this remote location in 4-wheel-drive vehicles.

In summer Mt Ughtasar is a landscape of pools and now ungrazed meadows, but for most of the year it is under deep snow. During 12 days of fieldwork last summer, the Ughtasar Rock Art Project recorded over 150 carved rocks (including hundreds of individual petroglyphs) within 12 50m×50m grid squares.

The motifs include long-horned bezoar goats (still occasionally seen in Armenia) as well as deer, cattle, wolves or dogs, human figures, "snakes" and what are described as "a number of particularly expressive leopards". On one day of informal fieldwalking, archaeological features were found including stock enclosures with decorated stones built into them, and possible graves. Standardised recording forms and photography were used, but no rubbings were taken to avoid harming the art.

Little is known about who made the petroglyphs or when, though it has been suggested they date from the fifth to second millennia BC. Depictions of wheeled transport may indicate a bronze age date (3500–1200BC), and some of the motifs appear on ceramics and bronze artefacts excavated from bronze age burials. The land is too high for permanent settlement, but until quite recently was used by lowland farmers for summer grazing.

The project is codirected by Tina Walkling, a mature student at Reading University, and by Anna Khechoyan and Armen Asryan in Armenia. Team members include Chris Musson, Heather James and Richard Walkling. Almost entirely self-funded, the project is sponsored by the Landscape Research Centre in the UK and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia.

Geophysics finds encourage new look at Stanton Drew

In 1997 English Heritage announced the results of a geophysics survey at the Stanton Drew stone circles, Somerset: the largest known timber henge had been found inside Britain's second largest stone circle. It is thought to have been contemporary with smaller henges at Stonehenge and Avebury, yet there has been little further research or excavation at Stanton Drew. Last July a local archaeological group conducted its own survey, which it now says revealed significant new features and should be completed and extended to take in the surrounding area.

Working with Richard Sermon, archaeological officer for Bath and North-East Somerset, members of the Bath and Camerton Archaeological Society (BACAS) used a modern Bartington luxgate gradiometer (cheaper than English Heritage's caesium vapour magnetometer). In a sample area of the stone circle, they were able to map the posthole rings seen earlier. They also found anomalies between the stones of the circle, which John Oswin and John Richards (BACAS) and Sermon suggest may be contemporary features. Though not revealed before by geophysics, similar features had been claimed earlier in the year by dowser Paul Daw.

At the nearby Cove, traditionally seen as a freestanding structure of the same age as the circles, various surveys suggested the stones may in fact be the remains of a much older long burial mound, possibly extending some 50m and into the adjacent pub garden.

Dramatic rock art discovery in Swaledale

A large sandstone panel decorated with cups and grooves is being described as one of the most impressive recent discoveries of enigmatic prehistoric carvings in upland areas of England and Scotland. It was found last November by Michaela Lambert during research and fieldwork in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, with Paul and Barbara Brown and Andy Murray. They also found several examples of less elaborately marked rocks.

The scale of prehistoric rock carving in Britain has become apparent only in recent years, largely thanks to several determined independent fieldworkers. Over 1,000 marked rocks in Northumberland have been published, and many more have been mapped across northern England: Yorkshire alone has nearly 1,600 examples. Swaledale, with around 20 examples in three known areas of prehistoric rock art, was not thought to have especial significance in this respect. The new panel was discovered in an area not previously researched.

It was hidden within deep bracken, and partly buried under turf and debris on a glacial terrace above the river Swale. It is a large wedge-shaped boulder, 2.1mx1.5m and 40cm thick, and marked on its front, side and sloping face. The decoration on the latter consists of 81 cups, 15 of them surrounded by single rings and one by three rings. All are incorporated within a design of shallow pecked grooves. An arrangement of serpentine grooves is visible on its north vertical side, and a pecked single groove and cupmark adorn its western side. On the western part of the face, where cups, rings and a "rosette" of eight cupmarks have been enclosed by a meandering groove, the carving is particularly fresh. By contrast some grooves have all but disappeared from its weathered eastern face.

The date and purpose of these carvings are much debated. Few have any context allowing dating by association, and all but a very few of the carvings are no more than abstract grooves and depressions. Richard Bradley, professor of archaeology at Reading University, has suggested that more complex designs, such as this new Swaledale stone, were sited where they could be seen from a distance, often on high ground, and indicate the locations of former paths and boundaries in parts of the landscape that were not permanently settled. It is thought most are probably late neolithic or bronze age in origin (c 3000–1000BC).

In the press

A burst water main in a medieval burial site in York city centre unearthed ancient human remains on Christmas Day. Police closed High Ousegate to traffic and parts of Piccadilly and Stonebow, as council workers spent the day washing mud from the roads and retrieving human bones which had been scattered around the collapsed paving stones. In September, a burst water main unearthed a human skull. The York Press, 25 Dec.

Five rare sheep were viciously killed at struggling heritage site Flag Fen in Peterborough. The deaths leave just five of the historic Soay sheep, similar to the type reared by bronze age villagers at Flag Fen. Dogs allowed to run free at the site could be to blame for five savage attacks in just 12 months. Flag Fen's long term future is uncertain, but it could come under the control of Peterborough city council as part of the Culture and Leisure Trust, due to be created in April. Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 7 Jan.

Freezing temperatures have preserved the contents of the Antarctic hut used by Captain Robert Scott as his 1912 expedition base, but increased snowfall has prompted the Antarctic Heritage Trust to launch a preservation project. The trust found two frozen blocks of butter. "What's amazing is how strong that smells", said Lizzie Meek. The find follows last month's discovery of two crates of Scotch whisky under a hut used by the explorer Ernest Shackleton, during his 1907–09 expedition to Antarctica. 17 Dec.

A 4,000-year-old lentil seed unearthed in an archaeological excavation has successfully sprouted after being planted. Dumlupınar University archaeology professor Nejat Bilgen said they found the seed during an excavation in Kütahya province. "It would be the first seed from very old times whose genes were never modified", say the scientists. Hürriyet Daily News, 16 Dec.

Viking age gold

A local metal detectorist has found a significant group of early medieval gold objects in a field in West Yorkshire (the precise location has not been disclosed to protect the land from unwanted attention). He recovered five small pieces in September 2008 (three rings, one demi-ingot and one fragment of cloisonné cell-work) and reported them to the local Finds Liaison Officer, Amy Cooper of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The findspot was excavated by WY Archaeology Advisory Service in October 2008. Neither that nor detecting in the area retrieved any further ancient finds, but a small "cut" was identified, probably the disturbed pit in which the gold had been buried. Sonja Marzinzik, curator, insular early medieval collections at The British Museum, says the piece of cloisonné brooch is seventh century and the four other items approximately 10th century. The objects were declared treasure, but a further ring found by the detectorist at the bottom of the field in April 2009 has not yet been assessed. While Viking-era silver is relatively common, gold like this is rare.

In brief

Historic buildings lose support

In December the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced plans to withdraw £40m funding that had been targeted for old and historic university buildings (much of it due for Oxford and Cambridge). Also in December Peter Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Business Innovation And Skills, wrote to HEFCE to confirm the higher education budgets for 2010–11, outlining reductions totalling £398m compared to the current year. "The economic situation is extremely challenging", he said, "and across the public sector we are all facing difficult choices".

First the theatres, now the home

This year the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust hopes to mount a "full-scale archaeological excavation" at New Place, the house in which Shakespeare died in 1616, aged 52. Built in 1483, New Place was the second largest house in Stratford, but was demolished by its then owner in 1759, and excavated by the antiquarian James Halliwell-Phillipps in the 1860s. Evaluation by Birmingham Archaeology in December suggests that some wells and structures are present on the site. Trust director Diana Owen said she hoped visitors would be able to watch, or "even join in", the excavation.

• A project to excavate the Hadrian's Wall Roman fort and civil settlement (vicus) at Maryport, Cumbria, has won £165,600 development funding in support for a £3.74m HLF bid. See also Senhouse Roman Museum.

Seahenge complete

On January 30 Lynn Museum, Norfolk, near the site where Seahenge was excavated in 1999, closed for four months for the installation of the main timber. While split posts from the apparently funereal oak ring dated to 2049BC went on display in the museum in 2008, the central component – an upturned tree stump – had remained at the Mary Rose Trust, Portsmouth until conservation was complete.

Dating landmark

In January, the journal Radiocarbon published INTCAL09, a radiocarbon calibration curve that reaches back to 50,000 years ago and also significantly improves earlier parts of the previous curve (INTCAL04). The new curve dates the art in the Chauvet cave, France, to a warm era 36,500 years ago, not a younger cold one as previously thought.

Phase 2

In News (Jan/Feb 2010) we reported the discovery of bronze age flower heads in Forteviot, first proof that flowers, and not just pollen in sweetened drinks, had accompanied people to the grave in prehistoric Britain. In case you missed it (after Huw Williams reported the news on Good Morning Scotland and the Radio 4 Today programme, it went – with British Archaeology – around the world), between printing and publication of the magazine it was confirmed that the flowers actually were meadowsweet, like earlier pollen finds (see Letters).

Having turned down the British Museum's original plans for a working and exhibitions extension (feature, Nov/Dec 2009), in December Camden council gave permission to revised plans. Work was set to start in January with a proposed completion in 2013. The museum said £92m of the total cost of £135m had been secured.

Sarah Dhanjal won the £1000 2009 Marsh Archaeology Award (CBA correspondent, Nov/Dec 2009), for quality and engaging education work with people under 18. The Council for British Archaeology announced the award at the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference in Durham University.

The appeal for the Staffordshire hoard was launched at Birmingham Museum on January 14 (News, Jan/Feb 2010; feature, Nov/Dec 2009). Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar announced a grant of £300,000 and unveiled the donation website. Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent city councils each gave £100,000. £3.285m is needed by 17 April to acquire the hoard, but longer term a further £1.7m is being sought for conservation, study and display. "Archaeological finds don't come any bigger than this", said David Starkey.

A good archaeologist can read a bucket of soil as if it were a complex historical novel.
Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (2000)

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