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Issue 74January 2004ContentsnewsViking woman dies in Yorkshire featuresPiltdown anniversary Roman Frontiers Treasure spectacular Gerald Hawkins Harnham lettersUffington dog, chess board and that Roman villa on TV issuesHave archaeologists abandoned the countryside?, writes George Lambrick Peter EllisbooksTowers in the North: the Brochs of Scotland. by Jonathan West Offa's Dyke: History and Guide. by David A. Hinton Family Beliefs. by Joshua Pollard CBA updatefavourite findsJungle time. Mark Horton has a horrible trip to Panama.
ISSN 1357-4442 Editor Mike Pitts |
booksRound towersReviewed by Jonathan West Towers in the North:
the Brochs of Scotland This book ably surveys the present state of understanding about these enigmatic stone towers, setting them in the context of the roundhouse tradition, with many examples and useful illustrations and reconstruction drawings. Do not be put off by its overt regional nature. Whilst dealing with this esoteric form of settlement in geographical isolation, it answers, for me, questions unanswerable twenty years ago. It also gives well reasoned explanation about the demographics of Scotland during the Late Iron Age and the periods of Roman advance. I find myself with heightened awareness of the climate, tool use, material availability, construction techniques and commodity reasoning of the Caledonian peoples. So Brochs can be precisely defined in architectural terms (that's one that always troubled me, the variation). Dating has much improved; function variable, but reasonably understood. The biggest problem still is roofing. Sitting well in my bookshelf with Ian Morrison's work on crannogs (Landscape with Lake Dwellings, Edinburgh UP 1985), however, the book does fall short in two ways. Firstly, Morrison quotes Piggott: 'to understand a people, one must first understand their country'. For me, Towers has a geological component missing, and by extension an autecology (the biological relations between a single species and its environment) could surely be worked up. Staring at brochs (this commission made me fly up to do just that), one sees master masons' work. Knapped sandstone surfaces (not all of course), worked with a vast understanding of the medium, situated at precise loci where water, human vectors, and correct geology meet. More on landscape, please, Dr Armit. In your defence, Chris Thomas of the British Geological Survey tells me very little geological interpretation could have been made from your base data, anyway. This would have to be a whole book in itself. Secondly, there was a lot of preamble about the theoretical past, ably argued away but some vestigial wrong impressions were left in my mind. Read widely enough (please do so and enter the forum), this work would firmly resurrect the requirement for a Broch Construct (using the Butser definition, which Peter Reynolds coined to distinguish house 'reconstruction', where sufficient material survives to restore a building, from an archaeological 'construct' in which theory and experiment build on minimal evidence). We have the quantity surveying ability, we have the 'model', the heritage industry, and we have the healthy 'archaeomedia' industry to pay for it. Any takers? Jonathan West is former Director of Education at Buster Ancient Farm
Lost HikersReviewed by David A Hinton Offa's Dyke: History and Guide How much more appealing are milestones, legions and the Picts than earth banks, ditches and the Welsh! The latest Oxbow Books catalogue has a whole section on Hadrian's Wall and Britain's northern frontier, yet this book is only the third on Offa's Dyke and England's western frontier in over a century. At any rate, I think it is only the third, since it has no bibliography. Some other works get mentioned in the text (on page 105, 'Myers in his Ecclesiastical History …' should be 'Colgrave in the Historical Introduction to his and Mynors's edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History …'), but no direct reference is made to the late Frank Noble's British Archaeological Report, and readers will not know how to find some of the authors' own articles on the various linear and other earthworks. The argument that the central section, what might now be called the true Offa's Dyke, was built in response to the growing power of the Welsh kingdom of Powys, was set out in more detail by David Hill recently, and Margaret Worthington has published on the northern Wat's Dyke, advocating its construction by one of Offa's predecessors. The book merely says that the two earthworks are not far apart in date. The authors have devoted 30 years of research to the Offa's Dyke project, and a summary is very welcome. Without references, however, I cannot check whether some of the archaeological detail has been published before; I wanted to know where to find an explanation of the section drawing on page 65, which seems to show the ditch cutting the stone foundations of the bank … unless the stones were piled right up to the edge of the ditch – in which case, where is the berm that is shown on the reconstruction drawings on pp 124-5? If reference-seeking pedants like me find fault with this book, what about people buying it casually in an Information Centre when hiking along the Offa's Dyke Path? Technicalities are not explained when first used; for instance, a marking-out bank (my hyphen) is talked about on page 54, but the reader is not told what one is until page 87. True, an excellent index has the relevant entry, but does not locate the explanation. The book is generously supplied with maps, but I found reconciliation between some difficult – between page 72 and page 162, Mold has travelled a bit closer to Wat's Dyke and a lot further from Wrexham, but more seriously, the dyke is shown as discontinuous at the River Dee on the former page, but not on the latter. Tempus has done archaeology a great service with its publishing range, but rather like Time Team, some of its products leave a little to be desired. This one will probably sell well and I hope that it sells very quickly, so that its failings can be ironed out in a new edition. Then the western frontier will have something to give the northern a run for its money. David A Hinton is archaeology professor at Southampton University, specialising in the Medieval period
Island womenReviewed by Paul Bahn Easter Island. A Novel Among Stone Giants. The Life
of Katherine Routledge and her Remarkable Expedition to
Easter Island In 1913 a British expedition set sail to Easter Island, that enigmatic and unimaginably remote speck in the South Pacific. Katherine Routledge returned with the fruits of interviews, surveys and excavations that underpin modern understanding of the island's ancient history. That she published only a popular book on her work is insufficient explanation for her low profile today. Here at last are two books, both written by Americans, that celebrate her story. Easter Island has long fascinated the public, so it is surprising that it has rarely been used as a setting for novels (comic strips have been far more numerous). An outstanding novel by a new writer has now emerged which can be heartily recommended to those interested in the island and its study. Jennifer Vanderbes has drawn on several factual strands – the investigation of the island's vegetation through pollen analysis, the expedition by Katherine Routledge and her husband, and the arrival of Admiral von Spee's German fleet during the First World War – and has woven them together with great skill into an absorbing and imaginative narrative involving two women. Elsa Pendleton is an English lady, clearly but very loosely based on Routledge, being from the same period, but differing from her enormously in age and in being impoverished and trapped in a marriage of convenience to a wealthier man, and accompanied by a sister who is mentally disabled. The other, Greer Farraday, is a modern American scientist whose pollen work is based on that of John Flenley, geography professor at Massey University, NZ. Vanderbes has consulted Flenley himself as well as the American Georgia Lee, the foremost specialist on the island's past. The result is an accurate and believable account of scientific work, as well as a picture of life on the island in the 1970s. For good measure, we are given a glimpse of the complexities of attempts to decipher the island's 'rongorongo' script, and of the kind of poorly-conceived experiments in statue-moving which continue to be made. She is particularly good at conveying something of the hard, often tedious work of palynologists, and the sometimes cut-throat world of scientific publication. The book is a study of betrayal – the islanders were betrayed by their ancestors, while both Elsa and Greer are cruelly betrayed by their husbands. At the same time, Vanderbes focuses on the problems faced by women in scientific research, and by independent women in a man's world. Her novel skilfully weaves its strands and its two periods together, with some links being predictable and others more surprising, and of course she takes tremendous liberties with history. But the result is generally excellent, and one can offer no higher praise than that one regrets the many loose ends she leaves, since one would like to know much more about her characters and their stories. Van Tilburg's book, on the other hand, often tells one rather more than one wants to know about some aspects of that remarkable woman, Katherine Routledge. She has clearly done a great deal of very thorough research, with the enormous help of surviving relatives and family diaries and records. But the result is that one is given detailed information on many dull episodes and characters in her early life, while the final decline into madness and the years in the asylum are somewhat rushed, with little information, when these are precisely the aspects of her life which one would wish to understand better and see more fully analysed – for example by seeking opinions from experts on such mental conditions. One irritating aspect of this book is the presentation of the copious notes, which are cross-referenced to words on a page – it would have been more convenient to have small numbers inserted at the relevant points in the text. The value of her extensive bibliography is tempered by its arrangement. It would have been easier to use if it had not been divided: the reader has to hunt 12 thematic sections to find a reference. There are factual errors. For example, it is claimed that Riroroko was killed in 1888 (actually 1898); Routledge is told on 5 August 1914 that England was at war—she did not hear of this (war had been declared the day before) until the Germans arrived on the island in October. Van Tilburg indulges in several flights of sheer fancy, such as a romance between Routledge and her principal helper, Juan Tepano. The author is the leading authority on Easter Island's famous statues, having counted, measured and catalogued them for her 1986 PhD. Her publisher seems very proud of this, since the degree is mentioned at the top of every left-hand page. In Van Tilburg herself, and her account of this troubled and complex predecessor, one senses a great admiration, as if she aspires to emulate Routledge's qualities of scholarship and accuracy. The book's extraordinarily detailed notes on sources will be very useful for future specialists, but a truly empathetic biography of Katherine Routledge, one which really gets to grips with her personality, her many faults and qualities, and, above all, her illness and decline, remains to be written. Paul Bahn is author (with J Flenley) of 'The Enigmas of Easter Island' (OUP 2003)
Family beliefsReviewed by Joshua Pollard Henge Monuments of the
British Isles As a construct, henges have only been with us for some 70 years. However, our knowledge of these often impressive and enigmatic constructions – created across Britain (and Ireland) in the 3rd millennium BC – has increased greatly since the first tentative analysis by Kendrick and Hawkes in 1932. Over 120 examples are now known, found from Cornwall to Orkney. Constructed in earth, timber and stone, they range from a little over a few metres across to several hundred in the case of the massive Wessex 'henge enclosures'. Excavation and geophysics have shown the earthworks were the setting for varied internal structures, activities and deposits. If there is a common thread to henges, it is one of diversity within a theme. Harding has provided an intelligent and highly readable synthesis of available information and current interpretations. This is an ambitious task; and one that reminds us both how far we have come in understanding these monuments, and how much further we have to go. The book begins with chronology and cultural context. Charting origins in the centuries around 3000 BC, Harding distinguishes between early 'formative' henges (such as Stonehenge I and Llandegai A) and later 'classic' henges. The problems in defining developmental sequences are highlighted by a list of only 34 radiocarbon dates for henge earthwork construction Nine of those dates relate just to Stonehenge I, and a further 14 to other Wessex sites. Creating adequate chronologies, especially for sites outside Wessex, must be a priority. Harding's central thesis is that the Later Neolithic is a period of social crisis and invention, culminating in a religious 'revolution' manifested in henges. Here is a shift from a belief in the power of ancestors to the potency of gods and other supernatural agencies. Part of the cause may lie in the appearance of new ideologies that commemorate specific people through practices of single-burial; though the author also hints that this revolution (a term used cautiously) could have been initiated by one or more environmental catastrophes at the end of the 4th millennium. The decline of henges around 2000 BC is also linked to traditions of single burial with grave goods, this time more widespread and associated with Beaker material culture. Here the story is not one of revolutionary change, but a 'gradual re-negotiation' of religious values: henges slowly became less relevant as new 'family-based beliefs' grew in prominence and round barrow cemeteries provided ceremonial foci. Other chapters provide an extremely useful digest of recent theoretical work on Later Neolithic monumental architecture, highlighting the danger of recourse to grand, all-encompassing explanations. In this respect, a more critical stance could have been taken of Dames' and Meaden's obsession with reading sexual symbolism into the architecture of Avebury. Perhaps the most challenging question tackled by the book is how, in a world of small-scale societies, the broad geographical spread of henges can be reconciled with local ways of doing things. For Harding architectural diversity is the key, a core of Later Neolithic religious beliefs being interpreted, locally, in different ways. He illustrates with discussion of the monument complex at Thornborough, North Yorkshire, the focus of much of his recent fieldwork. His account of work there, in the face of continued gravel quarrying, gives this stunning prehistoric archaeology the prominence it deserves. Attractively produced, this book deserves a wide audience. Joshua Pollard is lecturer at the Department of Archaeology, University of Bristol
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