Issue 85
November/December 2005
Contents
news
Archaeologists find trowel - and other stories
Bid to list first commercial nuclear power station
Model views - arial photography on the cheap
Cave archaeologists find human remains
features
From Ashes to Dust: who cares about sports heritage?
Jason Wood thinks the historic environment is losing out to sport in
government spending - and this will worsen as the London Olympics approach.
He has a solution
Coast Survey special
Archaeology on the shores of Norfolk and the Isle of Wight
White Badges
Mike Pitts visits poignant wartime field art asking 'Will we remember them?'
Roads to the past: Ireland's archaeological revolution
It's a long road: Dàire O'Rourke reveals extraordinary Irish archaeology in danger from the expanding road network.
on the web
letters
CBA news
Headlines from the CBA office.
ISSN 1357-4442
Editor Mike Pitts
letters
Distant past
by David Bird
I have just completed the Level I undergraduate distance learning programme in archaeology, with the University of Exeter, and am about to proceed onto the Level II diploma course. Sadly, after this, I will face the problems of having to transfer study centres to continue, as by 2008 the University of Exeter is to abandon its distance learning archaeology programme.
This, I believe to be a great shame, as the potential is vast. If this programme had been expanded, instead of cancelled, I am convinced that more of the public would have utilised it in a bid to become more aware and actively involved within the archaeological field.
The distance learning programme that has been run to this date by Exeter has been a joy to study and I will be very saddened at not being able to complete my studies there. I would to take this opportunity through British Archaeology to thank my Level I tutors: Tina Tuohy and Dr Martin Gillard, whom offered all the support and advice that I could need.
I was also sent a wealth of information to help me complete my studies by: Jenny at the CBA, Paulette at Historic Scotland, Cynthia at the Hillforts Study Group, Stephen at Somerset County Museums Service, Catherine at Wessex Archaeology, Toby at Flag Fen, Pippa at English Heritage and Emily at Antiquity. All of you provided me with invaluable help and advice that aided me to gain my first year certificate with a Merit pass.
Thank you.
David E Ferguson, HMP Whitemoor, March
by Howard Williams
The article Exeter bids for new students (News, Sep/Oct) is wholly accurate, but I wanted to raise three points of clarification.
1 Exeter is one of the success stories of the last 10 years for teaching and research in university archaeology. We were rated 5 in the 2001 RAE, 24/24 in the 2001 QAA. This year we have recruited more students with higher A-level results than ever before, and we
were third in the Times league table.
2 We are one of the fastest growing archaeology departments in the country. In the last two years, there have been five academic appointments: myself (early medieval and mortuary archaeology), Carl Knappett (Aegean bronze age and ceramics), Bruce Bradley (stone tool technology and North American prehistory), Jose Iriarte (environmental archaeology and South American prehistory) and professor Anthony Harding (prehistoric Britain and Europe). With 13 permanent teaching staff, there are plans to further expand undergraduate
and postgraduate student numbers, staffing and resources including a £0.8m renovation of our facilities. We have added two new ma programmes to the successful programmes in Experimental, Landscape and Wetland Archaeology.
3 Your question about neolithic stone balls reads as an unfair and dismissive addition aimed at the student, although I am sure this was not the intention. Andrew Young was awarded one of the highest marks possible for his superb dissertation.
Howard Williams, Admissions Tutor and Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter
by Mark Pluciennik
It was reported that Exeter University is dropping its Archaeology and Egyptology courses by distance learning and is referring students to the Open University, even though the latter does not offer these subjects. In this instance, students would be better advised to contact the University of Leicester, who has been successfully doing just that for a number of years.
Mark Pluciennik, Director of Distance Learning, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
Real world
by John Cutting
I am not a professional archaeologist, but a member of the public with an interest in archaeology and history. I have read the articles and letters in British Archaeology concerning the loss of A-level archaeology courses.
Those in the real world have to fight for funding, adhere to deadlines and work to strict budgets and come in on cost for projects. The academics appear to ignore these issues, probably leading indirectly led to the A-level's demise.
This is highlighted by some recently advertised books. I placed orders via a wholesaler over the internet. There have been numerous notifications of delay. The publication date for some books is delayed and if you enquire why the answer is normally, we are awaiting
the manuscript! This failure to meet publication dates highlights the problem of cloistered academics.
This attitude is also shown in the comments made about programmes such as Time Team. They promote archaeology to the public and therefore should be encouraged and used to promote educational courses and to provide a firm base of support for archaeology in the community and therefore a reason for ongoing funding. A failure to treat archaeology as an area needing public support and funding
will see it stagnate.
John Cutting, Winsford
Falling stones
by Olaf Swarbrick
Since 1998 I have visited 1,140 standing stones, mostly prehistoric, between the Lizard peninsula and Unst, and for each have obtained a colour sketch, a brief field record and photographs. I did not intend to include stone circles, dolmens or long stone rows, although some are represented (not Avebury or Stonehenge), but I did include outliers and centre stones. I have been
frequently asked how deeply these stones are set into the ground. This data is randomly scattered within the literature and not readily available. The graph gives this information for 26 stones obtained from articles and booklets, some from fallen stones
where discolouration and staining showed the depth, two from county archaeologists and one from a farmer on whose land the stone recently fell.
I am assuming that the socket depth and the length of the stone below ground are the same, although this may not always be correct. I have excluded from this analysis the Hoar Stone - 0.9m high with an alleged 2.5m (73% of the total length) underground - as this seems to be unlikely. Although I am also uncertain about Rudston, which is 8m high and which from information from Humberside CC records, has at least 4.8m (38% of the total length) in the ground, I have included this.
The depth within the socket varies from 0.3m to 4.8m and the average is 1.75m, although 48% of the sockets were 1.0m or less. The percentage of the stone underground was 14–38% with an average of 24.7%. Given the depth of the ditch at Avebury and other sites it is clear that our forebears were well able to make deep excavations, but it seems that they often omitted to provide adequate sockets for many standing stones. Many have fallen and others lean by up to 60 degrees. The socket packing would have been only poorly compacted without heavy metal rammers, concrete was not available, and a convex shape to the foot of somestones would have reduced stability.
I will be pleased to provide the national grid references for the sites and the references which I used.
Olaf Swarbrick, Denmans Lane, Fontwell, Arundel, W Sussex BN18 OSU
Digging out
by Bernard Mulholland
Laura McAtackney asks, "What do we really know about the Maze site?" (Long Kesh/Maze: an archaeological opportunity, Sept/Oct). The case she then makes for the retention of the site is largely an anthropological one, rather than explicitly archaeological. Not that that reduces the value of such research, but rather it enhances her argument, since archaeologists get so few opportunities to forensically examine a site where many of the component parts are still available for study.
However her case is one-dimensional, relating only to the second half of the 20th century, and ignores the previous (potential) 9,000
years of archaeology that likely underlies this H Block site, and as archaeologists we would be duty bound to excavate the site down to "natural", surely? This would entail dismantling the structures, after they had been recorded, so as to determine what, if anything, lay beneath them that might give us a deeper understanding of the site's archaeology.
The Maze offers the opportunity for a full scale archaeological research excavation, with the buildings dismantled and removed to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum site at Cultra, and I would suggest that it offers the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) and its committee on professional associations the opportunity to bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from around Europe to test and apply theoretical and experimental archaeology in the field.
Bernard J Mulholland, Portadown
Villa memories
by David Woodland
With the fractured news in a letter I received this week which said "Dinnington is in the news on tv, they've found some old pottery down there", I immediately dug out an old map. I was born there in 1927. I remember the pile of sandstone blocks that existed there when I was roaming thereabouts in the 1930s and from my fading memory it was in a grazing field then so the "site" must have been cleaned up.
There were shaped stone blocks on two different streams, one on an old established footpath. Could they have been put there to dam up points for drinking water? One of them is just down stream from a spring, close to the Roman villa.
There was also a row of maybe six pits filled with large stones, about a metre wide and maybe 2 metres deep, overgrown by grass. Could these areas both off the Fosse Way have been used for resting areas and the pits have been latrine pits?
Good luck with your work, it's so important to retrieve so much that was lost and to get a clear picture of our history.
David Woodland, Nerang, Queensland, Australia
• The writer's full letter and annotated map have been passed to Bob Croft, excavator of the Dinnington Roman villa.
We welcome letters from readers. They may be emailed to Mike Pitts the Editor at editor@britarch.ac.uk or faxed to 01904 671384. They may be edited.
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