From Ms Sue Clokey
Sir: In his article ‘In this dark cavern thy burying place’ (July), Andrew Chamberlain suggested that all cave burials have been found in the limestone areas of Britain, and that the majority of Mesolithic remains are found near coastlines. This distribution may not, however, accurately reflect the activity of past populations.
The Wealden area of the South-East has not been as well covered by research as other areas of Britain, but there are numerous rock-shelters and caves amongst its sandstone outcrops, some of which form very dramatic features in the landscape. There is ample evidence for the use of some of these throughout prehistory, particularly during the Late Mesolithic. Despite very few excavations, at least one burial (from an unpublished excavation) has been recorded from a prehistoric context at a Wealden shelter, one which had been used repeatedly during the Late Mesolithic and the Neolithic.
Yours faithfully,
From Mr Rog Palmer
Sir: I read with wry amusement your note on the plough-damaged Anglo-Saxon helmet
(In Brief, June) and the comment that ploughing can harm ‘important’ archaeological material.
In the 1970s there was a fashionable flash of concern about plough damage, and although the problem has since been shoved under the archaeologists’ bed the annual erosion continues with the help of increasingly powerful machinery. While plough damage was once a reason for archaeological investigation, it now seems common on the majority of rural sites, and excavators have become familiar with plough-truncated sections and the consequent damage to the upper layers of sites and features.
At several sites that I have interpreted from aerial photographs, excavations have given only a fragmented reflection of subsurface features recorded from aerial photos as crop-marks. At one site, the excavator found – in her words – only ‘worn-out ditches’. At another I was accused of ‘over-interpretation’, although the features had been photographed with reasonable clarity on more than one date. Elsewhere, comparison of the dearth of information on the ground with the plethora of information from aerial photographs has troubled excavator and curator alike.
We cannot expect sub-surface features to survive undamaged when they are annually ploughed, yet there seems little that can be done to prevent it. Aerial survey has shown that much of Britain was covered with boundary and enclosure ditches during some 3,000 years of our past. Most of these features are levelled, and are recorded only as crop-marks or parchmarks; but many of the photographs that record them are now more than 30 years old and, in cases, sites have not been seen or photographed since the 1960s. What chance their survival? It is becoming increasingly probable that, in the near future, the information on aerial photographs will be the only surviving record of much of Britain’s past land-use. Now that is important.
Yours faithfully,
From Dr John Carman
Sir: The points made by Quentin Hawkins and Carolyne Kershaw
(Letters, April) concerning my feature ‘Interpreting the landscapes of battle’ in the February issue are well taken. In focusing on what others have called the ‘inherent military probability’ of actions in specific circumstances, they represent a common and useful approach to the history of matters military.
My basic point, however, remains intact: our historic battlefields do have things to teach us about past societies and their attitudes to people and places. For this reason I was extremely glad to see Simon Denison’s piece about house-building at Tewkesbury (‘ The sad tale of Tewkesbury battlefield’, June): such places are rare and valuable for their research potential.
Both letters reveal a set of assumptions about what was in the minds of those involved in the battles they cite, and an a priori view of what would be considered ‘appropriate’ military behaviour and attitudes to terrain in that age. The point behind my piece is that this is a matter for investigation rather than of prior knowledge. The piece was not a statement of finished research, but rather an outline of research I am only just beginning. Such research requires the preservation of historic battlefields because we need to investigate what they represent. Where we claim to know what a site represents, we can no longer argue convincingly for its retention as a research resource. There are few enough people researching historic battlefields in Europe; and if the Tewkesbury case is anything to go by, we need strong arguments for their preservation now. The idea that they represent sources of new knowledge is the kind of argument that may help.
Yours faithfully,
From Ms Dorothy O’Hanlon
Sir: I must take issue with your correspondent Graham Robertson
(Letters, July), who challenged the idea contained in a news item in May that ‘St Wilfrid’s stone church [at Ripon] was built during the first century of Christianity in England’. His point was that Christianity had been in Britain since Late Roman times.
However, as it stands, the first statement is true. Christianity came to Britain, not to England, during the Roman occupation. Alban and Patrick were Romano-Britons, not English. British Christianity and later ‘Celtic’ Christianity lingered long in the west of Britain, but the pagan English first received Christianity from St Augustine in 597. The distinction between Britain and England is often forgotten.
Yours faithfully,
From Miss Tina Gilbert
Sir: As an English teacher, and someone with a great interest in archaeology, I wholeheartedly support Paul Treherne’s view that heroic narrative is very important as a historical source
(‘Reclaiming heroism for the Bronze Age’, July). I use various heroic narrative sources with all year groups I teach (ages 11–18) – to develop an understanding of how what happened long ago can affect our thinking today – and the majority of students respond with interest to what they hear and read.
Yours faithfully,
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1997
Caves elsewhere
SUE CLOKEY
Hildenborough, Kent
31 July
Plough damage
ROG PALMER
Cambridge
22 June
Battlefields again
JOHN CARMAN
Clare College, Cambridge
1 July
The English church
DOROTHY O’HANLON
Liverpool
26 June
Epic heroism
TINA GILBERT
Bishops Itchington
Warwickshire
27 July