London's past
Reviewed by Peter Rowsome
London Under Ground
eds Ian Haynes, Harvey Sheldon and Lesley Hannigan
Oxbow £35.00
ISBN 1-84217-030-9 hb
This collection of essays examines our knowledge of London's archaeology after more than 25 years of excavation and research since field units were set up in the early 1970s.
Summarising the archaeology of London is an ambitious undertaking.If William Cobbett could describe the city in the 1820s as a 'Great Wen' - a pathological swelling - and rail against its monstrous growth, then the size and complexity of its published and unpublished archaeological archive is capable of inspiring similar feelings of awe today. London Under Ground bravely takes up the challenge of making sense of all these data, and for the most part it succeeds.
The book is divided into 16 chapters, providing a chronological approach with the occasional thematic chapter for good measure. An introductory chapter (Harvey Sheldon and Ian Haynes) charts the development of archaeological coverage in London from its antiquarian origins to the impact of recent government guidelines. Analysis of the type of work now undertaken reveals more evaluations and fewer excavations, and the authors admit to fears about the direction in which this is carrying archaeology. An appendix (Robert Cowie and Robin Densem) lists publications and events by year, and includes tables showing the numbers and types of archaeological projects by organisation. These 'bookends' would enable someone in the profession to draw interesting conclusions, but the presentation is less accessible to the general reader, a point which applies to much of the book.
Many of the chronological chapters provide excellent and up-to-date summaries, beginning with Jonathan Cotton's 'Foragers and Farmers', an impressive survey of the Neolithic to Middle Bronze Age evidence which captures the big picture. Nick Merriman handles the 1st millennium BC with equal aplomb. 'Digging up the People of Roman London', by Bruno Barber and Jenny Hall, provides valuable insights into cemeteries and their interpretation. Harvey Sheldon contributes an informative chapter on Roman Southwark, a settlement whose size and importance has often been overlooked, and David Bird's chapter on the Roman countryside sheds much-needed light on a subject which remains poorly understood.
On the downside Mark Hassall's chapter on the Roman City is relatively short and seems tired, perhaps defeated by the large amount of new data now available. The thematic chapters on Roman Art (Martin Henig) and Religion (Ian Haynes) are good roundups but fail to excite. Robert Cowie and John Clark give us a wealth of information on Lundenwic, and Late Saxon and Norman London respectively. The medieval and later periods are represented by chapters on aspects of London - Buildings and Defences (John Schofield), Medieval Pottery (Alan Vince), Playhouses (Simon Blatherwick) and Mortuary Archaeology to 1800 (Vanessa Harding) - and though worthy they would be helped by a broader overview.
The inconsistent use of illustrations is frustrating but perhaps to be expected in a book of this kind. Some of the chapters make good use of maps, drawings and photographs, whilst others use graphics too sparingly, and several include no illustrations at all. Bibliographies with each chapter are useful but variable and inevitably include a great deal of repetition.
In the foreword, London's mayor Ken Livingstone says that 'London's history is all around us. Some of it is visible in our buildings and discernible in our patterns of streets and open spaces, but more of it is hidden under ground, as this book shows so clearly.' But where controversial issues are identified (and London archaeology has had plenty) there is a tendency to play it safe.
So, while the cover of the book shows Baynard's Castle being destroyed by construction machinery in 1972, the text contains only one brief, diplomatic, reference to the event. It is left largely to Jane Sidell, in her chapter on environmental archaeology, to offer a frank assessment of new dangers arising from the 'harsh environment of competitive tendering' which undermine standards of research and archiving.
Peter Rowsome is a Senior project Manager at the Museum of London Archaeology Service
The spirit of the North
Reviewed by Caroline Hardie
Northumberland: the Power of Place
Stan Beckensall
Tempus £14.99
ISBN 0-7524-1907-2 pb
Stan Beckensall is one of Northumberland's most prolific amateur archaeologists with a publication record that puts most professionals to shame. He has made an internationally important study of prehistoric rock art, he has published on Northumbrian place names, and has excavated an enviable number of archaeological sites in the county. As a truly 'Renaissance' man, he also writes poetry and plays. This latest publication draws all these facets together to produce a very personal account of Northumberland and some of its more special places.
The book is not intended to be an archaeology book or a guidebook; it is more than that. Beckensall uses his own poetry and the work of local artists to convey a sense of place in a way that a conventional guidebook book could not. At Housesteads, that well-known fort on Hadrian's Wall, he conjures up an image readily recognised by regular Wall visitors:
A place where empire halts.
Mist-haunted desolation holds in check
The will to move ahead
The chapter on place names provides useful advice for anyone wishing to take up place name studies. Many fascinating examples are given, Seggy Hole, Labour in Vain and Corney Horners to name but a few. As Beckensall points out, the study of place names is within anyone's grasp. You only need a large-scale map and the landowner's cooperation in recording present day names, then a trip to the records office to record old names for comparison.
Beckensall has also drawn together some useful archaeological information. The chapter on the Breamish Valley pulls together much of the fascinating work that is still being carried out there in a form not currently available from one source. The chapter on War and Peace conveys the horrors of living in the border zone from medieval times. Once again, Beckensall's poetry captures what hard facts fail to record:
The Scots rampaged, a bloodlust veiled their eyes
And they forgot the child they murdered could have been their own.
And they forgot despair of crops destroyed,
A butchered kyle and slaughtered sheep,
For what they did was in a different world
For anyone who knows and loves Northumberland, this book should bring back fond memories. It does not try to cover all aspects of Northumberland's past, and indeed some parts of the book, for example the section on Morpeth, are so slim as to make one wonder why he wrote anything at all. Readers may get frustrated with the captions and the index. They are not always easy to use and there are mistakes. It is also necessary to stay alert as Beckensall's mind flits from one subject to another and the links between subjects can be tenuous. There is also some repetition; the back cover alone tells us twice that Beckensall has lived in the county for 35 years. However, I have read two publications this year called The Power of Place and am minded to recommend this one over the English Heritage publication of the same name. Beckensall's has far more of archaeological interest.
Caroline Hardie is the County Archaeologist for Northumberland
Shipping disaster
Reviewed by Gillian Hutchinson
Archaeology and the Social History of Ships
Richard Gould
CUP £17.95
ISBN 0-521-56789-0 pb
This book covers a lot of ground, apparently attempting to summarise everything one could need to know about underwater archaeology. There are chapters on underwater archaeological method; basic naval architecture; several on boats and ships at successive periods; ancient trade; naval warfare; maritime infrastructure; and the future of maritime archaeology.
It is written in an accessible style by an author who is clearly in love with his subject. It is engaging and useful enough, if you make allowances for the inevitable over-generalisations in a book of this scope and some surprising omissions of recent discoveries. My problem with it is that it does not live up to the promise of its title.
The key selling point distinguishing this book from others about underwater archaeology is its stated aim to explain what can be revealed about social history. 'This book is about underwater archaeology's contribution to the effort to identify and study extinct sociocultural systems.' The author's background is in anthropology, and he promises to employ social-scientific hypotheses to the evidence from shipwrecks to make it more interesting and significant.
It would have been useful to have had some discussion of methodology for this approach. Some concepts are sporadically introduced and cautioned against, such as presentism (using the present as a direct guide to the human past); uniformitarian principles (not to be confused with presentism); ethnocentrism; and the historical particularist perspective (focusing exclusively on the singular characteristics of the period and place under study). However, the author does not propose a positive theoretical framework and he certainly does not heed his own warnings, showing great attachment to historical particularism.
The search for the results of this approach, for new appreciations of the social history of ships, is obscured by other detail and is not well rewarded. Chapter subheadings sometimes promise more than they deliver. Boats and Behaviour gives no more profound insight than that the pattern of change in shipbuilding traditions differs between different civilisations because of 'differential cultural and situational conditions'. Infrastructure and Empire in Maritime History is a grand heading for the rather banal observation that the Caesarea breakwaters and the Bermuda floating dock 'represented extreme examples of monumental infrastructure during the peaks of their respective empires'.
For some shipwrecks, including the Marine Electric, and the Trinidad Valencera, Gould is able 'to identify convincing linkages between the physical associations represented by the wreck and the socio-economic and legal factors that ultimately caused the disaster'. The questions to address are why, at different periods, ships were not always built to the highest standards and why they continued to be operated when they were no longer fully seaworthy. Other opportunities to make socio-cultural inferences are often side-stepped. For example, Gould talks about the importance of the information that shipwrecks can reveal about the social relations of trade but, disappointingly, does not divulge what that information is, unless in a brief discussion of the possibility of centralised control of trade in the Mediterranean Bronze Age.
There could be a very important book written on the subject of Archaeology and the Social History of Ships. Unfortunately this is not it.
Gillian Hutchinson is a maritime archaeologist and Curator of the History of Cartography at the National Maritime Museum
Ancient Essex
Reviewed by Mark Atkinson
Prehistoric and Roman Essex
James Kemble
Tempus £16.99
ISBN 0-7524-1488-7 pb
This book is the first general survey of prehistoric and Roman archaeological sites and finds in Essex. Its geographical scope is, however, wider, taking in south Suffolk, in acknowledgement that the geology, topography and early history of this part of eastern England often transcends modern county boundaries.
Evidently written from the author's stance as extramural Tutor in Archaeology at Essex University and Mid-Essex College - and therefore aimed primarily at extra-mural students - the reader is first primed with a discussion of the nature of the evidence from which the early history of Essex and south Suffolk may be pieced together. Aerial photography, fieldwalking, geophysics, metal detecting and the Sites and Monuments Record are all given due consideration. Curiously, excavation is not featured.
Successive chapters, covering the Palaeolithic to late Roman periods, are solid accounts that outline technological and social development through time. The descriptions of 'key sites', generally presented in panels, are adequate introductions if perhaps a bit sketchy. A wide range of images is used to good effect, site plans are used sparingly, while reconstruction and artefact illustrations complement the text throughout. Some of the photographs and county-wide maps could have been better, however. The final chapters comprise a gazetteer of sites, a survey of ancient roads, listings of museums and record offices, a glossary and a reading list.
Perhaps inevitably, the principal source of information that Kemble has drawn upon is the local journal, Essex Archaeology & History. However, in doing so, much of the book reads as a simple collation of the available evidence. For a book surveying many of the more significant archaeological discoveries in Essex and South Suffolk, its discussion is not entirely satisfactory of their significance and implication to our wider understanding of prehistoric to Roman Britain and beyond. Evidence and interpretation are largely incorporated at face value into the accounts of the various periods, and there is little sign of critical appraisal to engage the reader in further thought.
Having said this, the book is a readily accessible account of the prehistoric and Roman archaeology of this area. Indeed, its potential as a 'launch-pad' into more detailed reading and study is one of this book's strengths.
Mark Atkinson is a project manager with Essex County Council
Local history
Reviewed by Keith Emerick
Landscape Detective
Richard Muir
Windgather Press £16.99
ISBN 0-9538630-2-6 pb
In these days of Time Team, Meet the Ancestors and a growing interest in community archaeology, perhaps the most important statement in this useful book is that one should 'dispel any notion that worthwhile discoveries about England's [sic] heritage may only exist in remote and desolate places.' This is important advice. In many archaeological societies and local groups there is a new and palpable interest in discovery, and discovery can happen anywhere.
This book is a short, concise read organised in five clear chapters dealing chronologically with the origins and development of Ripley village, North Yorkshire, from the Roman period through to the Parliamentary Enclosures and the creation of a model village in the 1820s.
Muir's intention is twofold. Firstly he shows how the landscape detective goes about his or her work, 'investigating real problems of history and archaeology', recording and interpreting features in the landscape, considering and discounting interpretations. Secondly he presents the case study of Ripley as an example of his 'total landscape approach'.
The two intentions can sit uneasily together, as the individual chapters are not consistent in their format. Some chapters contain useful 'how to' sections for those about to embark on their own surveys, but this is not consistently applied. 'How to' advice can be winnowed out of the text and it is useful to see a case study, but the lack of consistency is an annoyance.
But as a story of a landscape the book is exemplary and throws up some interesting discoveries. Ripley's proximity to Fountains Abbey may lead one to think that its landscape has been researched to death, but this is far from the case. Muir's research has revealed the location of a pre-Conquest church and the possible location of the Synod of Nidd recorded by Bede, in addition to a designed formal garden, possibly of the late 17th to early 18th century.
Any book that encourages the reader to go out, look at and think about landscape is to be welcomed. Small gripes aside (the use of 'internment' for 'interment' being one), this book will I hope become a popular tool for those embarking on the discovery of their own landscape.
Keith Emerick is an Inspector of Ancient Monuments at English Heritage, working in Yorkshire
Defended border
Reviewed by Tam Ward
A Fortified Frontier
Iain MacIvor
Tempus £15.99
ISBN 0-7524-1428-3 pb
This is mainly a book about castles on the Anglo-Scottish border. Its first four chapters are a concise but informative summary of the events that relate to these monuments, which begin at the time of the Romans and guide the reader through the Dark Ages and the formative periods leading to the establishment of the Scottish and English kingdoms and their fluctuating boundaries. The scene is thus set, and the book goes on to explain the development of defensive and castellated sites from the earliest motte and bailey castles to the final artillery fortresses of the 18th century.
The following chapters deal with the defensive and offensive alterations which were made to many sites in response to improved artillery. At this point it is somewhat disappointing that the development and story of the bastle houses of the Borders is not included, these being the final phase of the history of fortified and defended houses in Britain which are, moreover, unique to the area under consideration. Instead, the final chapters deal with the pseudo-castles of the 19th century.
However, interesting information on the care and repair of these sites is given, ranging from the activities of antiquaries in the late 18th century to the private and public bodies entrusted with preserving these buildings today.
This book is easy to read and will be a welcome addition to the castle enthusiast's bookshelf - beginner and expert alike - and in particular to those with an interest in the turbulent history of that peculiar boundary between the Solway and the Tyne. There is a full gazetteer of sites with national grid references, and a more than adequate select bibliography.
Tam Ward is an archaeologist working for the Biggar Museum Trust in Lanarkshire
