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Issue 71July 2003ContentsnewsNew Neolithic settlements found on Orkney Medieval double watermill found at Stafford Iron Age hilltop ‘town’ found at Margate Prehistoric landscape of settlement, ritual and magic Coins reveal how Hannibal bankrupted the Romans featuresUnderground warfare Great sites Islands in the Neolithic Tale of the limpet lettersRoman burials, medieval fields, and Saxons in Scotland issuesGeorge Lambrick on the looting of antiquities in Iraq Peter EllisOn archaeology and today's mentality of hurry, hurry, hurry booksA History of Childhood by Colin Heywood Conserving landscapes reviewed by Christopher Catling Farming in the First Millennium AD by Peter Fowler CBA updatefavourite findsPaul Pettitt on an antiquarian book found in a junkshop
ISSN 1357-4442 Editor Simon Denison |
newsNew Neolithic settlements found on OrkneyTwo new Neolithic settlements have been discovered on Orkney - a large stone house close to the Ring of Brodgar, and very early house structures near Wideford passage grave - adding to the already substantial evidence for a settled lifestyle in villages and farmsteads on the island dating as far back as 6,000 years ago. The discoveries underline the density of population on Neolithic Orkney, and also how greatly some of Britain's offshore islands differed in the Neolithic from the mainland, where settlements remain rare (see page 20). The house at Brodgar, excavated by Beverley Ballin-Smith from Glasgow University's field unit, lies only a stone's throw from the famous late Neolithic stone circle on the Brodgar peninsula. The structure was dated by finds of grooved ware pottery. And in layout and style, it seems very similar to the double-house found a few years ago at the late Neolithic village of Barnhouse, on the peninsula opposite Brodgar close to the Stones of Stenness. Barnhouse has been interpreted as a 'special' settlement, perhaps inhabited by people who controlled ceremonies at the Stones of Stenness, because of its proximity to the stones and the size of some of its buildings. The new house stands in the same relationship to the Ring of Brodgar - although the absence of any unusual finds from the house means that its Neolithic function can, sadly, only be guessed. The new settlement near Wideford tomb, excavated this spring by Colin Richards of Manchester University, fits a pattern seen elsewhere in the vicinity, where settlements have been uncovered at Stonehall near Cuween tomb and at Crossiecrown near the tomb at Quanterness. The new site consists of a number of large timber roundhouses marked by postholes - an unprecedented discovery for Orkney suggesting that these could be the earliest houses yet found on the island, provisionally dated to about 3900 BC. Neolithic pottery was found at the base of one of the postholes. Nearby, in a later phase of occupation, a stone house was discovered with curving stone walls very similar in design to the early Neolithic farmstead at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray - previously the earliest known structure on the island. It was associated with an oblong cobbled 'work area' with gullies, covered by vast quantities of Unstan ware pottery, five stone axes, a number of broken tools and flints. Medieval double watermill found at StaffordThe timber foundations of a massive two-wheeled watermill, thought to be medieval in origin, have been discovered at Stafford underneath the site of a 19th and 20th century mill which was demolished in 1957 to make way for a public park. Other two-wheeled medieval mills are known in Britain at monastic sites such as Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire and Abbotsbury in Dorset, but these were built out of stone. If the Stafford mill proves to be medieval following dendrochronology dating, it will be the first medieval double mill found in Britain made of timber. The exceptionally well preserved waterlogged timbers have now been 'preserved in situ' - in other words, reburied without full excavation, because of a shortage of funds to allow archaeologists to carry out the work properly. However, the trial trench provided enough evidence to establish the scale and importance of the discovery. The remains consist of the central mill chamber, where the waterwheels were housed between the two mill buildings. The buried timbers suggest that the medieval mill was rebuilt in timber in the post-medieval period - probably in the early 17th century when a reference exists to the damage caused by rebuilding work at Stafford mill. By raising the mill structure, the work caused the River Sow to back up upstream leading to flooding in the southern part of the town. According to mill historian Martin Watts, the double mill is likely to have served a dual function, with one mill building used to grind corn and the other used for another purpose such as cloth fulling. On one town plan dating to 1610, an area north-west of the mill was known as Tenter Bank, and tenter frames were used for stretching cloth after it had been fulled and dyed. The timbers, some of them about 2ft square, had survived virtually without erosion, their mortice-and-tenon joints still in pristine condition, according to excavator Gary Coates of Birmingham University's Field Archaeology Unit. 'The size of the structure and the preservation were just amazing. I have never seen anything like it,' he said. Iron Age hilltop ‘town’ found at MargateA large, densely-populated, defended later Iron Age hilltop settlement - perhaps an early form of town - has been discovered at Margate on the North Kent coast. Only a fraction of the hillfort has been excavated, as it lies underneath the modern town. But the trial excavation suggests that the inner of the fort's two palisaded ditches ran around the crown of the hilltop at Margate enclosing an area of some 6 hectares (15 acres), and was densely settled throughout with substantial roundhouses and other buildings. Settlement was also found between the inner and outer ditches as well as further downhill. The site overlooks Margate harbour - home of a substantial fishing fleet since medieval times, and used since the mid-19th century by packet boats and steamers bringing holidaymakers to the town. According to excavator Paul Wilkinson of the Kent Archaeological Field School, finds from the fort of mainly continental-style pottery suggest the harbour was used by trading vessels as far back as the Iron Age. The pottery indicates that the settlement was long-lived, surviving from about 250 BC up until the Roman invasion. In addition to angular, red-painted continental-style pottery from the beginning of the period, the site also produced examples of Gaulish fine pottery from the immediate pre-Roman period, a type imported elsewhere for use by the aristocracy. Apart from masses of pottery and loom-weights, the site produced few domestic finds and only one human burial - that of a young woman, presumably a person of very low status, thrown into a rubbish pit outside the outer ditch. The hilltop on which the site was found is, by chance, called 'Fort Hill', after a Napoleonic fort built there in the early 19th century. Until now, the existence of a substantial Iron Age fort on the same site had remained completely unknown. Prehistoric landscape of settlement, ritual and magicExcavations at a gravel quarry in Gloucestershire have revealed a landscape rich in settlement from early Neolithic times through to the middle Iron Age, containing a number of 'special' deposits including metalwork, decorated pottery, flint, stone and human remains. Most intriguing was a large, unparalleled late Bronze Age or early Iron Age post-built enclosure, which is thought to be an unusual form of stock pen. The teardrop-shaped enclosure measures 30m by 50m with two entrances, both less than 1m wide, one to the north, and a second on the western side. In the fill of one of the postholes of the western entrance was a 20cm bronze bar, an ingot, which appears to have been a kind of offering or talisman. The date of the enclosure is provisionally given by late prehistoric pottery; but it certainly predates a middle Iron Age field system which cuts across the site. No structural features were found, indicating that it was not a settlement enclosure. The presence of several spindle whorls - including four found with a complete pot in a pit - suggest it may have been used for penning sheep or goats. The earliest remains from the quarry, near Fairford in the Upper Thames Valley, consist of 30 Neolithic ritual pits found in pairs or groups of three. Environmental evidence suggests the landscape was thickly wooded, with clearance not beginning until the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The pits produced large quantities of pottery with flint, animal bone and worked stone, including a very fine quartzite axe polisher. The axe polisher was placed in the centre of a pit and was clearly a deliberate deposit. The excavations, led by Martin Wilson of Oxford Archaeology, found that settlement continued in the middle to later Bronze Age, with four roundhouses in what had become a cleared, open environment. No evidence of fields or boundaries were found, but the landscape may have been divided using fences or hedges that are now invisible in the archaeological record. In the middle Iron Age, open settlement was superseded by a large enclosure surrounded by a 6m-wide ditch, with an associated field system. In one pit inside the enclosure, excavators found an adult's skull and a fragment of a long bone that had been cremated in situ within the pit. Coins reveal how Hannibal bankrupted the RomansScientific analysis of Roman coins in the British Museum has provided new evidence that Hannibal, the audacious Carthaginian general, nearly bankrupted the Roman state during the Second Punic War in the late 3rd century BC. The study has shown that both the weight and the silver content of Roman silver coins dropped dramatically in the 10-15 years after about 225 BC. The weight of bronze coins plummeted in the same period, and a gold coinage - a rare thing in all ancient states - was minted as an emergency measure. This evidence for a dearth of precious metals adds to existing evidence for financial crisis in Rome. The number of coin hoards buried for security across Italy and Sicily is known to have dramatically increased around 215 BC, perhaps causing a shortage of private liquidity. Later Roman historians, such as Livy, describe how public funds also dried up in the period. Rome deferred payments to the army in 215-213, while senior officers volunteered to do without pay and sailors were paid out of contributions from wealthy individuals rather than the state. The Second Punic War (218-201 BC), marked most famously by Hannibal's march across the Alps in 218, was a war fought for money as much as for power. While Rome relied on recycled foreign coinage and plunder for its precious metal, Carthage controlled the silver mines of Spain and was able to produce plenty of money to pay for its fleets and mercenaries. Rome's finances only improved with successes in Spain and Sicily, in particular after the capture of wealthy Syracuse in 212. A new coinage, based on the denarius, was introduced in 211. However, Rome's eventual victory led to plunder and reparations on a huge scale. The museum's research, led by Andrew Burnett, has shown that Rome's silver quadrigati coins dropped in weight from about 6.5g of silver in 225 to about half that in 215, while the purity of the silver dropped from about 98 per cent typically to 80-90 per cent but often to a much lower figure - sometimes as low as 25 per cent with a heavy mixture of copper. Meanwhile bronze asses dropped in weight from about 280g to about 60g. Rome's gold coins, produced from about 215 to about 205, portray the sacrifice of a pig - a ritual to make an oath binding. The scene reflects Rome's relief at the fact that most of its allies in Italy remained faithful during Hannibal's invasion. Analysis of hoards across Italy, Sicily and Spain shows that all Carthaginian coinage in these areas was swept away after Rome's victory. It was melted down for recycling and replaced by Roman coins. Two generations later, when Carthage was finally erased after the Third Punic War in 146, all coinage in Carthage's homeland (modern Tunisia) was called in and melted down - an immense undertaking, reflecting Rome's intent to destroy not only the city but also all symbols of its former power. In briefSlave saleA writing tablet recording the sale of a slave in London in about 80-120 AD has been deciphered and placed on display in the Museum of London. The tablet, found in 1996 and made of silver fir, contains 11 lines of text inscribed into black wax with a sharp metal stylus. It has only recently been conserved and translated. It reads: 'Vegetus, assistant slave of Montanus the slave of the august Emperor, has bought the girl Fortunata ...for 600 denarii. She is warranted healthy and not likely to run away...' The tablet is the first deed of sale of a slave ever discovered in Britain, and shows that imperial slaves could be wealthy and own personal possessions, including other slaves. The price paid for Fortunata was far more than the annual salary of a legionary soldier. Iron Age goldThe largest hoard of Iron Age gold and silver coins yet found in Britain was found by a detectorist walking a field in Leicestershire earlier this year. Subsequent excavations by the county council, English Heritage and the British Museum produced over 3,000 silver and gold coins as well as the remnants of a Roman gilded silver cavalry helmet. A huge quantity of animal bones was also found, including pig, sheep and dog. The deposit has now been interpreted as an offering at a major but previously unknown religious site, perhaps the most important in the East Midlands at the time of the Roman conquest. Some of the coins bear the name Cunobelin, the Iron Age king immortalised as Cymbeline by Shakespeare. Earliest dogsSome of the earliest evidence ever found for the domestication of the dog has been found in Russia. Two intact skulls dating from about 13-17,000 years ago have been excavated by Russian archaeologists at the Upper Palaeolithic settlement site of Eliseyevichi 1 in the Bryansk region. The skulls, differing widely from wolf skulls, confirm that the dogs were domesticated breeds, resembling large huskies, living in a cold climate. They were found alongside the remains of mammoth, reindeer and polar fox, and they appear to have been eaten by their human masters. |
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