Issue 83

July/August

Contents

news

Welsh cauldron finds offer rare insights

Broch builders house-proud, not warlike

Reindeer hunter preceded Canary fans

Rock art find in rare context

New light on Prittlewell "prince" grave

In Brief

features

From Universal Bond to Public Free-For-All
100 years at stonehenge: They may not have built it, but Druids ruled the last century

When Rome invaded: Gerald Grainge considers the Channel crossing

Freedom Fighter - or Tale for Romans?
The real Boudica: Richard Hingley looks for the native terrorist leader

Finding the Way
In Hadrian's footsteps: English Heritage report on the threat to the Roman wall

on the web

Recommended websites

letters

Views and Rsponses

CBA news

Headlines from the CBA office.

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

CBA news

Conference surprise

Richard Brewer of the National Museums & Galleries of Wales, and chair of the Young Archaeologists' Club Advisory Committee, organised the 2005 YAC network conference which took place in south Wales. There were high quality presentations and visits, and a surprise appearance from club president Tony Robinson, who paid tribute to the volunteers who run YAC branches throughout the UK. There was even an opportunity to go 100m underground at the Big Pit, a coal mine north of Cardiff.

The conference gave an appropriate send-off to Alison Bodley, YAC club coordinator for the past five years, who left the CBA in mid May for a career as freelance consultant, working principally in Yorkshire.

This year's CBA weekend will be in Leicester, September 23-25: see www.britarch.ac.uk/CBA/weekend.

National Archaeology Week

Every copy of this issue of British Archaeology distributed within the UK comes with a free National Archaeology Week booklet listing all registered events - if yours is missing, please ask the CBA for one.

In previous years, archaeology has been celebrated across the UK with a day of activities (described by culture secretary Tessa Jowell as "an enormous success"). Public interest was such that this year events will run over a whole nine days, from July 16-24.

This will be the biggest event in the CBA's long history, with over 250 activities in the programme. There will be talks on iron age burial practices and the open fields of Warmfield-cum-Heath; guided walks around a colliery and a medieval hermitage; tours of Time Team dig sites and historic battlefields, down into museum stores normally closed to the public and up around Welsh castles. You will be able to make charcoal, pots and a Celtic silver bracelet, mummify a Barbie Doll, wash broken pots, meet a Roman in Essex and a Celt in Rhyl, join professional artists and draw a neolithic tomb, excavate an 18th-19th century quayside or a bronze age wall, dowse for minerals and try out your metal detector on an archaeological spoilheap. There will be flint-knapping demonstrations and battle reenactments, and tours round the largest archaeological institute in Britain (do you know where that is?) and the English Heritage Centre for Archaeology (do you know where that is?). Full details at www.britarch.ac.uk/naw.

Book prize

A CBA title has become 2005 Transport Book of the Year. Thomas Telford's Holyhead Road, by Jamie Quartermaine, Barrie Trinder and Rick Turner (£17.50, ISBN 1902771346) was praised by the Railway & Canal Historical Society for the authors' scholarly achievements and innovative approach, as well as the book's pleasing design and readability. CBA book distribution has moved to Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London, E9 5LN, mo@centralbooks.com, 0845 4589910. Books can still be ordered online at www.britarch.ac.uk.

E-journal seminar

The CBA and the Society of Antiquaries of London continue to develop their proposals for a consortium of archaeological publishers to make available in electronic format, to paying subscribers, the contents of current print journals and monographs. This will enable publishers to gain more readers and generate extra revenue.

The Society of Antiquaries has funded a consultant to assess the proposed consortium and the state of the library market internationally.His report also considers issues such as suitable pricing models, licence terms and conditions of use, revenue allocation and consortium management. It is available at the consortium website, www.access2archaeology.info.

There will be a meeting to agree the details to get the consortium up and running, to be held on Monday July 11, 2:00-4:30, at the Society of Antiquaries, London, open to all.

Archaeology and politics

The general election over, the CBA has continued with its political advocacy, working with other national archaeological organisations in The Archaeology Forum (the re-named Historic Environment Forum).

The forum has written to culture secretary Tessa Jowell MP, to follow up issues raised in her March essay, Better Places to Live: Government, Identity & the Value of the Historic & Built Environment (available from the DCMS website, www.culture.gov.uk). The forum asked for a meeting, noting that archaeology has much to offer the debate about identity in the UK.

The forum has also written to the new minister for culture, David Lammy MP, asking for a meeting and suggesting four main areas where government action is needed: recognising the value of our historic environment, with dcms providing a strong lead within government; sustained investment in national and local government historic environment services; help for the voluntary sector; and promoting and celebrating the contribution that archaeology and the historic environment make to our quality of life.

Staff changes

With Alison Bodley's departure the CBA has continued to restructure the secretariat. Don Henson is now education and outreach coordinator. He joins the senior management team, with conservation coordinator Gill Chitty, finance director Peter Olver and CBA director Mike Heyworth. They lead the implemementation of the five-year strategy agreed at the CBA's Winter General Meeting in February (www.britarch.ac.uk/cba/strategy).

Don's new post brings together education, including YAC, in keeping with the growing focus on outreach and public participation. He will be supported by a newly-created post of YAC network and events officer (to be appointed shortly), as well as existing YAC and CBA staff.

Seren Langley is another new arrival at the CBA secretariat, starting as assistant information officer in May. She is working with Jonathan Bateman, CBA information officer, to continue to develop the CBA's information services.

William Foot, project manager of the CBA's successful Defence of Britain project and then of English Heritage-funded studies focusing on defended areas in England during the second world war, has left to work as a freelance consultant. Much of William's work will be the subject of a CBA research report to be published later this year.He will continue to work on military archaeology, shortly starting a study of army camps for English Heritage.

biab online

The CBA's bibliographic service - the British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography - has been rebranded as biab online, and is now available as a free service via the web site at www.biab.ac.uk. Printed and bound copies of the bibliography, with options to allow users to choose the content, will still be available through a "print-on-demand" service (details available shortly). Concentrating staff resources online will allow major enhancements to the service. We hope to expand the scope to cover all historic environment publications, including policyrelated material. A Table of Contents service will allow users to view the contents of recently published journals, and in due course receive notification of new publications by email.

Further details are available from biab online's chief bibliographer, Isabel Holroyd, who works from the British Academy, London (0207 969 5223, i.holroyd@biab.ac.uk).

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