From Mr Philippe Planel
Sir: In her article, `Chew, chew, that ancient chewing gum' (February), Elizabeth Aveling suggests that birch bark tar may have been chewed for its narcotic, medicinal or pleasurable effects. Could it not be that Mesolithic people also found that masticating tar was the best method for preparing it for the multiple purposes (waterproofing and hafting are cited) to which it was put?
People in hunter-gatherer societies are thought to have used their teeth for all kinds of purposes - cutting and holding, of course, but also masticating leather to make it supple. As the majority of chewers were children, this would seem to suggest that tar was a treat or a treatment - unless children were given the job of preparing tar for the tasks of the community.
Yours sincerely,
From Ms Marion Geeves
Sir: In his article, `In sorrow shalt thou eat all thy days' (February), Peter Rowley-Conwy claims that a genetic change occurred in grasses at the start of the Neolithic to make a non-shattering seedhead.
I have lived in the country for over 40 years and worked in the agriculture industry, and I know that cereal seeds (supergrasses)
do lose their seeds by themselves. This is why harvest-time is so chancy for the farmer. If the weather is very wet, and he can't get his machinery on the fields when the grain is ripe, it does shed, and even germinates and grows up through the existing crops if the delay is prolonged.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Rowley-Conwy writes: We know that wild and domesticated cereals are different. A genetic change has therefore taken place. Wild cereals shatter more easily than cultivated cereals when ripe. In modern farming, some cultivated grains may be lost during harvesting, but most remain attached to the ear.
Gordon Hillman of the Institute of Archaeology
in London has shown that sickle reaping of ripe wild plants would cause seed loss, except among the rare non-shattering mutants. If seeds collected this way were replanted and the process repeated, this would gradually select for nonshattering heads. Perhaps this is how the genetic change occurred.
From Mr Anthony Martin
Sir: I have recently seen much television footage on the eviction of protesters from their camp sites on the routes of road schemes. Two issues struck me.
Firstly, the new roads are set to extend through areas of archaeological significance, and while the Highways Agency is duty bound to provide for archaeology, the protesters are not. I wonder if any features of archaeological interest have been disturbed by the protesters' camps or tunnel systems? It would be an upsetting and ironic consequence were the protesters to have disturbed one feature of the environment which they sought to protect.
Secondly, do the protesters' camp sites not have an archaeology of their own, including both the surface fixtures and the subterranean systems? The examples I have observed appeared in essence to be defended settlements exhibiting ordered land divisions within defined perimeters. Space was allocated not only for sleeping quarters but also for the cultivation of vegetables, cooking, washing, and socialising. In addition there was a workshop area and several tunnel entrances. Does this have a resonance with hill fort architecture of the Iron Age?
As I witnessed the destruction of the camps under the buckets of mechanical excavators I wondered whether an opportunity to record an alternative life-style of the late 20th century had been missed.
Yours faithfully,
From Mr Quentin Hawkins
Sir: John Carman's feature on the landscape of battles
(`Interpreting the landscapes of battle', February) leaves much to be desired. I believe that terrain was often a critical factor in late medieval battles, and in many cases the terrain was specifically chosen for this reason.
At Bannockburn, for example, Edward II could have won by using tactics similar to those used by his father at Falkirk. For
this reason, Bruce chose to position his men in front of a forest which would have given them an escape route in the event of defeat. (The English cavalry would have been at a disadvantage among trees.) As it turned out, it was the English who retreated, and who foundered in marshy ground.
John Carman is wrong to say that the French chivalry 'never learned'. If charging home was such a poor strategy, then how come the French won the Hundred Years War? The French would have had a very good chance of defeating the English in 1415 if Henry V had not found such favourable terrain. A large number of late medieval battles were won by armies which fought defensively on well chosen ground. A narrow front was ideal for such a purpose, as at Agincourt and Dupplin Muir. So too was rising ground, as at Halidon Hill or Otterburn. Rivers also made good defensive sites, as at Boroughbridge.
I accept that in many battles in this era the key factor was military ineptitude on the part of the attacking army, but in many cases this resulted in part from a failure to appreciate the value of the terrain to their enemy.
Yours faithfully,
From Ms Carolyne Kershaw
Sir: In John Carman's article on battlefields, his historical-evolutionary approach was an erroneous over-generalisation. It portrayed the armies and generals throughout nearly 3,000 years (from Megiddo in 1469BC, to Crécy in 1340) as uninventive, always following an artificial set of conventions regarding troop deployment and use of terrain.
Generals are understandably reluctant to engage on unfavourable ground, though if they do so it may not simply be that they are following convention. They may be compelled to by circumstances (for example, Hooker at Chancellorsville in 1863). Moreover, the tactical use of landscape features - such as a small force deploying its flanks on impassable or difficult terrain to avoid being enveloped - was not a new concept in the later medieval period. One earlier example is Thermopylae in 480BC.
A number of factors contribute toward decisions about choice of battlefield, use of landscape features, and timing of the engagement. As Dr Carman indicates, these include culture, available technology, and the experience and training of both soldiers and commanders.
Yours sincerely,
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1997
Reasons to chew
PHILIPPE PLANEL
Die, France
10 February
Cereal seeds
MARION GEEVES
Calne
3 February
Points on protest
ANTHONY L MARTIN
Gifford and Partners,
Chester
11 February
On battlefields
QUENTIN HAWKINS
London SE25
28 February
CAROLYNE KERSHAW
Liverpool
18 February