From Mrs Ann Currie
Sir: As a lay person and 'general reader' of archaeology books, I heartily endorse your article 'Archaeology and the art of a good story' (September). Being mainly interested in prehistoric Britain, I would love writers to put flesh on the bones, roofs on the houses and food in the pots. Too often I find I'm reading endless pages about flint arrowheads or types of handaxes.
I have therefore decided to write my own short 'stories' about what might have been going on at certain sites. The carved bones found at Creswell Crags, for instance, made me wonder who carved them, and why. What was going on in their minds at the time? Likewise the elk skeleton at High Furlong near Blackpool, which had been attacked twice, made me wonder how it had managed to escape twice. The antler headgear found at Star Carr made me imagine the sort of ritual the people who lived there would have performed.
Some speculation, some 'what ifs' and some 'possiblies' are what is needed, if we are to be made interested in the ancient past lying all around us.
Yours faithfuly,
From Mrs Helen Paterson
Sir: How I agree with your article on story-telling. For years, I too have felt that science has overtaken imagination and intuition. If we can't tell a story about the living, from what we discover from the excavated dead, we have missed our archaeological vocation.
Yours sincerely,
From Mr Andrew Sewell
Sir: I particularly welcome your article on archaeology and story-telling. The difficulty seems to be that the academic and professional view concentrates on the artefact aspects of the past, in some senses like metal detector enthusiasts do. To me, at least, the essential aspect is that we are dealing with our predecessors and the way they lived and conducted their lives.
For me even the trivial flake tool picked up in the local fields brings me in 'instant' touch with the person, man or woman, who discarded it or sadly lost it. It provides an instant link over several thousand years with the loser, and very probably in fact the maker, in contrast to, say, 'modern' an tiques which have been handled by many
people over a few hundred years. Hopefully your article will encourage some re-orientation towards the personal rather than the artefact aspects of archaeology, at least in its presentation for general audiences.
Yours sincerely,
From Dr Nick Thorpe
Sir: While David Harris may well be correct to argue that farming spread through Asia and into Europe by the movement of colonising farmers ('First farmers "were colonists after all"', September), he is surely premature in concluding that developments spread through the whole of Europe in the same way. My recent survey of the evidence, The Origins of Agriculture in Europe (1996), shows that the situation in Greece is not typical of Europe as a whole.
A strong archaeological case can be made for an active role on the part of existing Mesolithic populations in many areas, with continuity across the Mesolithic-Neolithic boundary evident in both material culture and settlement patterns. In Scandinavia, it is quite clear that farming was known about, and contacts with German farmers were actively pursued, for 1,000 years before it was adopted there. What was holding back the supposed colonists from expanding across the Danish border? It makes much better sense to see this as a case of hunter-gatherers not becoming farmers until they chose. In Britain we do not see a sudden switch to a wholly agricultural economy with the Neolithic, but a continuing emphasis on wild resources. This strongly points to continuity in population.
A substantial contribution of huntergatherers to modern populations is indicated by the latest genetic data from the Institute of Molecular Science at Oxford. They conclude that some 85 per cent of the DNA lines they have identified go back to before 10,000BC, and that the more recent lines are limited to South-East Europe. So perhaps colonists brought farming to Europe, but native Europeans then took it over and passed it on as an idea.
Yours sincerely,
From Ms Fiona Gale
Sir: I was very pleased to see a picture of Cefn Cave on the front cover of July's British Archaeology. Unfortunately, however, you stated that Cefn Cave was near Denbigh in Clwyd. Last April, local government reorgansation took place in Wales. All of the previously existing six counties and many more districts were replaced by 22 unitary authorities. Clwyd County Council ceased to exist. Cefn Cave is now in the Unitary Authority of Denbighshire. (Confusingly, many of the new unitary authorities, including this one, in fact call themselves county councils.)
Local government reorganisation has disrupted archaeology in Clwyd as severely as anywhere else in Britain. Clwyd was the only county in Wales to have a full-scale archaeological service. Over the years it had developed into an exemplary and wellrespected operation covering the full range of archaeological provision, from planning advice and development control work, through SMR maintenance, project management and research work, to educational activities. Inevitably, local government change has affected what we do.
The four Welsh archaeological trusts still cover the whole of Wales, but in the former Clwyd area, the role of the local trust - the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust - was distinct from that of the County Service. Of the four unitary authorities which have replaced Clwyd and its districts, to date only two have some archaeological provision, and one of these is a part-time post.
More than a year after the changes, tough budgetary constraints have taken their toll. Local government archaeological provision is fighting hard to keep archaeology and our cultural heritage at the forefront of people's attention, but it is an uphill struggle.
There has been a great deal written about the actual and possible effects of local government reorganisation in England, and to a lesser extent in Scotland. It seems often to have been forgotten that it took place in Wales as well.
Yours sincerely,
Return to the British Archaeology homepage
© Council for British Archaeology, 1997
On story-telling
ANN CURRIE
Manchester
10 September
HELEN PATERSON
Castle Acre
Norfolk
10 September
ANDREW SEWELL
Marlborough
10 September
First farmers
NICK THORPE
King Alfred's College
Winchester
15 September
Welsh archaeology
FIONA GALE
County Archaeologist, Denbighshire
Ruthin
13 August