British

The last star letter (Jul/Aug) encouraged archaeologists to lobby their local MP. MPs are strongly placed to raise issues affecting local heritage, so Robert Key is right to suggest that archaeologists should involve them.

However, the All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG) offers a direct mechanism for influencing government. The government is working on a heritage white paper and numerous other items of legislation impacting upon archaeology that will go through parliament in the next few months. The fact is that APPAG (and its advisory group) has an important role to play taking the archaeological agenda forward. There have been some notable APPAG successes, not least the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 (also PDF version) – a private member's bill taken forward by an APPAG MP. More recently parliamentary answers to APPAG members revealed that the scheduling of ancient monuments is in abatement (due to lack of resources within English Heritage), and received the important concession from government that they will publish the consultant's reports feeding into the heritage white paper. The group has also lobbied MPs in the constituencies where local authorities have made cuts to archaeological services. It is clear that archaeologists need to do more through political channels to explain why archaeology matters.

Of course archaeologists (and the public at large) can't expect APPAG on its own to fight the fight for archaeology, but it would be a good start if all readers of British Archaeology urged their local MP to join APPAG. With more active members, APPAG will be in a better position to get a better deal for archaeology – both nationally and locally.

Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (professor Colin Renfrew, APPAG chairman), Lord Howarth of Newport (vice chairman), Lord Redesdale (secretary), Tim Loughton MP (treasurer).

• APPAG is an all-party group of 135 MPs and peers in the Palace of Westminster with an interest in archaeology. APPAG aims to further an understanding of archaeology in parliament and promote archaeology and archaeological education. An advisory group of archaeologists with an interest in parliament meets bimonthly to set priorities for APPAG, to help take these forward and arrange events for APPAG members. See www.appag.org.uk.

Plough damages henges

Neil Campling

Roy Loveday (feature, May/Jun) refers to "large flint [artefact] scatters invisible from the Rudston and Thornborough complexes in Yorkshire". At Thornborough, this is an unproven hypothesis, and pertains to the editorial comment about "misleading the public" (May/Jun).

The fieldwalking data that gave rise to this idea have a number of problems. Significant areas around the complex have not been fieldwalked. This has been done only two to three times, and subsequent walking failed to repeat the first pattern of find densities.

Large areas around the henges were cultivated for potatoes in the 1960s–70s. Recent experimental research monitoring plough damage in the area (www.archaeologicalplanningconsultancy.co.uk/papers/002_plough.html) has shown that artefacts can be moved by as much as 13m by just one episode of ordinary ploughing. The actual density of flints across the area is around 1–10 per hectare: compare the Vale of Pickering, where artefact densities are many thousands per hectare. There really isn't enough debitage (or choice finds) to demonstrate a distinction between "domestic" and "ritual" activity.

Neolithic flintwork may have been highly "curated", recovered from primary contexts to be reused or reworked elsewhere. There hasn't been enough investigation closer to the henges to confirm any "juxtaposition of religious and domestic foci". If anything, the nearby Ladybridge investigations have shown that neolithic activity, ritual or otherwise, was pragmatically located on higher drier ground, as large areas around the henges were covered by wet woodland. It is important that scholars do not allow unproven hypotheses to be repeated as if they were well-documented facts.

Neil Campling, principal archaeologist, North Yorkshire County Council.

So Nero, so far

Martin Henig

Miles Russell is right to remind us of the importance of a small group of statuary from West Sussex (feature, Jul/Aug). A year or two ago Grahame Soffe and I attempted to assess them in the Bulletin of the Association for Roman Archaeology, and came to rather different conclusions. The earliest of the marbles is a head depicting Germanicus from Bosham. The closest match of the colossal Bosham head was with Trajan, not Nero. The damaged head is undoubtedly mid 1st century and in general terms quite close to portraits of Nero as a child, but it is not Nero; the large fleshy lips and the hair style are markedly different from those of Nero. Rather it is surely one of quite a number of private portraits of children from around the empire, in this case presumably to be associated with the occupant of the Fishbourne complex, as Jocelyn Toynbee originally suggested (though I, and others, have suggested some refinements).

The Neronian inscription from Chichester would not be unexpected at this time but nor should it lead us into discovering Nero wherever we choose to look. The bronze head from the River Alde (outside our region) is patently not that of Nero but of Claudius, identified by amongst other traits, his large projecting ears.

There is a paper in a German festschrift which may escape readers, by Richard de Kind, "The Roman portraits from the villa of Lullingstone: Pertinax and his father P Helvius Successus", in T Ganshow & M Steinhart (eds), Otium: Festschrift fur Volker Michael Strocka (Remshalden 2005). The identification of the emperor Pertinax looks plausible, but I have not reflected on it yet.

Martin Henig, Institute of Archaeology, Oxford

Carol Twinch

As curator of the Rendham History Archive I was surprised to see the Head of Claudius renamed Head of Nero. Miles Russell made a reasonable case for revising the reputation of emperor Nero but I cannot accept that the bronze head found in Rendham in 1907 could so easily be reidentified simply on the absence of a receding hairline and double chin.

The assertion that an act of damnatio memoriae (mutilation of Nero's image after death) was carried out on the head cannot rely solely on its having been severed from the statue by force. The current theory of it being returned to Suffolk as a war trophy by Boudica's retreating troops has served well enough for almost 100 years and is supported by the tradition that the Boudican followers fought at the AD60 Battle of Pipney Hill (within Rendham parish). There appears to have been no attempt to disfigure the face of the head, as implied in the article.

If the bronze head is proven to be Nero, then so be it and we will amend our records accordingly. Indeed, given the character of Nero we would have to consider removing our copy from the History Corner in St Michael's church. But it might be prudent to hear what other prehistorians, plus the boffins at the British Museum's Romano-British collection, have to say about it first.

Carol Twinch, Rendham, Suffolk.

Hedge transplants

Ed Mountford & David Poyner

We read with much interest the article by Tom Williamson and Gerry Barnes (May/Jun). We have recently completed a study of the fieldscape of Highley parish, south-east Shropshire, based on a combination of hedge and archival research (Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, in press). Reassuringly, our conclusions agree with those reached by Williamson and Barnes.

Highley parish has many features typical of "ancient countryside". We found that surviving pre-1600 hedges supported a rich mixture of woody species, including many "woodland relic" species. However, hedges originating during the main early period of enclosure on land within the open fields and common wood-pasture were broadly similar in composition to the older hedges. Williamson and Barnes found much the same from their survey of Norfolk hedges: "these two categories of hedge seem barely distinguishable". We reached the same conclusion as they did: hedges on former open fields appear to have been created from a mixture of transplants taken directly from local woodland.

There is good evidence that shrubs were taken from local woods to create hedges on Shropshire commons. In the late 18th century, Archdeacon Plymley wrote: "I enclosed a small common... a trench was dug of considerable width and depth. Strong bushes of hazle [sic], willow, hawthorn or whatever could be met with in a neighbouring wood, were planted in this trench... When the fence was so far advanced young hawthorns or hollies or their berries, were put between the stems of the old quick..." (Agriculture of Shropshire, 1816). Documents demonstrate that at the time of early enclosure there was a ready supply of woodland shrubs in Highley. Leases and sales include underwood. Of particular significance was the enclosure around 1615 of the 140 acre common wood-pasture, the underwood from which was soon cleared.

Another important factor in hedge composition was the transplantation of former hedges when realignments took place during 1630–1870. Hedge transplantation would have been cheap and expedient. The "woodland relic" composition of certain surviving hedges dated by maps to the 19th century provided strong evidence for this practice. The composition of earlier hedges was transferred to hedges established during later times.

There are clear resemblances between the early enclosure hedges of Highley and other areas of old enclosure throughout the country. In all these areas, such hedges show a strong resemblance to earlier "woodland relic" hedges. It seems that local woodland and wood-pasture formed a widespread source of transplants for hedging in areas of ancient countryside. We do not, however, consider that local woodland was an open resource from which hedge transplants could be simply plundered; woodland and wood-pasture were a valued and regulated resource. We believe that the simultaneous enclosure of the common open fields and demise of the common wood-pasture in Highley was remarkably timely. This provided a source of abundant hedging material to supply the 30 miles of new hedges formed in Highley within a generation.

Ed Mountford, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough (ed.mountford@jncc.gov.uk); David Poyner, School of Biosciences, Aston University (D.R.Poyner@aston.ac.uk).

Please send your ideas for the magazine: we may not publish them all, but we will read and take notice. Ed

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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Issue 90

September/October 2006

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