archaeo.log

I wonder as I ponder

I wonder what I want to know when looking back in time
I wonder if I hope to see a life that’s strange to mine
Is it the lure of Otherness that makes me tread this course?
Or do I hope to find within myself and Them a source
of similarity, a link to hands I cannot hold
yet have those same hands though my mind is changed, I’m told.
I cannot think the same thoughts for my World has shaped my Being
And the things of Theirs I see are not the same when *I* am seeing
What do I hope to capture then, when back I look at Them?
A thread of continuity reaching back to way back then?
Or just an understanding that my ways are not all ways
There are other ways of Being, far beyond the common gaze
That our answers are not finite but are bounded by what’s known
By looking back at how we thought of this, I see we’ve grown
to recognise our biases and watch ourselves at work
to question what we’re saying and where deep assumptions lurk
This can only be a good thing for humanity today
but I’m not sure it gets me closer, all that Time gets in the way…

Leave A Comment, Written on November 1st, 2012 , Musings

Procrastination

I’m supposed to be writing an essay on the role of the individual in processual and post-processual archaeologies, but instead I’m sitting here musing on the point of archaeology at all. I’ve enthused before that for me it’s the one true multi-disciplinary study as you are required to dip a toe into all sorts of intellectual waters, but that idea is really starting to hit home. Why do we study archaeology, what do we think we can know? It seems to me that what we think we can know is expanding all the time, based on what we think we can know about what it’s like to be a human NOW.

Technically, these advances in knowing are happening in disciplines that are studying what it’s like to be a human in the recent past, but the insights gained there are applied by archaeologists engaged in thinking about the deep past. There is an underlying assumption there that because we are human, both now and in the past, the ways of knowing about humanity are applied universally.

I’m currently reading about semiotics and structuralism, and yes, I can see the point of thinking about such things, BUT, do people really think about these things all the time? Surely the point is that most of this symbolic stuff happens below the level of consciousness. Therefore is it appropriate to imbue these meanings to the conscious level of prehistoric people? Granted, not having iPhones, they probably had a lot more time for sitting and thinking, and yes, the past was probably a lot more present to them than it is to my peers, but at the same time, I doubt looking at a toothpick and thinking of all the possible symbolic meanings that the toothpick might have to them, was a daily occurrence. These symbolic meanings need ‘pointing out’ to bring them to the attention of the conscious thought. That’s me airing my ignorance again, but there’s just this nagging feeling with all the ‘interpretative archaeology’ I’m reading, that we’re putting thoughts into people’s heads, and thinking a bit too much about this ourselves. Because we can.

This brings me back to the idea of the point of studying archaeology: are we really doing this to learn more about what people in the past might have thought and experienced, or are we doing this as a kind of applied sociology/philosophy – testing out these ideas on our ancestors? I’m writing about the role of the individual in this essay, but it seems to me that the individual most involved in the archaeology, is the archaeologist.

Leave A Comment, Written on October 29th, 2012 , Musings

Stonehenge Avenue

I’ve finally got round to looking at the July 2012 issue of Past (available low-res http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/files/PAST_71_LowRes.pdf)

During my research on the Stonehenge Environs for last year’s field notebook, I had become a bit obsessed with Stukely’s description of the Avenue:
“..For at the bottom of the valley, it divides into two brances. The eastern branch goes a long way hence, directly east pointing to an ancient ford of the river Avon, called Radfin, and beyond the visto of it bears directly to Harradon hill beyond the river. The western branch, from this termination at the bottom of the hill 1000 cubits from the work at Stonehenge, as we said goes off with a similar sweep at first but then it does not throw itself into a strait line immediately, as the former, but continues curving along the bottom of the hill, till it meets, what I call, the cursus.”

Now this fascinated me, and as I look at the geophys on p14 of Past, I fancy I can see a continuation of the straight section of the Avenue, running up as far as the Cursus. As the authors so obligingly point out on p16, this is on a solar alignment. I can’t help but wonder if the original path was straight, and the diversion off to the river was an alteration. I was also fascinated by the idea that the avenue continued *beyond* the river crossing, as this would mean that the idea of the connection from Durrington to Stonehenge via the means of the river and Avenue wasn’t necessarily correct, if the avenue had other plans. I’m not sure I believe the idea of there being a direct use-connection between the monuments, and such can never be proven. I would go as far as saying both monument have a pathway down to a river (and the same may be true at Marden, so perhaps this is a henge thing rather than a Stonehenge thing).

I haven’t got very far pursuing this yet, as although I can see a linear feature heading towards Harradon hill, this doesn’t look terribly convincing. I would have to potter around and have an actual look I think.

Offsetting

While we mostly used triangulation to delineate interesting rocks on our drawing, we found that the results worsened as we approached the edge of the trench, as the inaccuracies of the method became a high percentage of the measurement taken. Therefore, for the rocks around the centre of the trench, we decided to use offsetting and ‘swinging the tape’ in order to record these rocks.

Having pegged a tape horizontally along an edge of the trench, a second tape was used to measure horizontal displacement from this edge. In order to do this accurately, an angle of 90 degrees must be obtained between the two tapes. Rather than measure with a compass or optical square, we opted for the quicker method of holding the end of the tape firmly on the rock corner and then adjusting the tape so that it read the lowest reading possible, as the lowest reading would be obtained when there was a 90 degree angle between the rock-point and the baseline tape.

Leave A Comment, Written on August 8th, 2012 , Diploma Year One, Techniques

Triangulation

Whilst this technique obviously has many applications, it was encountered in the process of recording significate rocks within a trench otherwise full of rocks so is written to demonstrate this scenario.

You will need two surveyors tapes, preferably of different colours as that makes it much easier to record and minimises errors (proven by experimentation!). Secure each tape at a corner of the trench. At the start of the recording, we had a white tape and a yellow tape, so labelled the trench corners as W (for white) and Y (for yellow).

Taking care to keep the tapes horizontal (not parallel to the ground as we were on a crazy slope) bring the loose end of the tapes together at a corner of a rock. Note the readings on both tapes. Take readings at all interesting points of the perimeter of the rock, as these will describe the outline when you come to draw it.

Nicky demonstrating the multi-colour tape technique. July 2012. Copyright K Bragg

Once your rock has been described as a series of Y and W readings, it is time to draw! Drawing as soon as possible enables you to see if it has come out at all reasonably-shaped. Remember here that you are interpreting where the edge of a rock is, and the scale at which it is to be drawn will not allow much accuracy of depiction, so even when you do this carefully it is perfectly possible to end up with something preposterous.

You will need to have prepared your drawing with a scale outline of the trench (in our case we used 1:20 as a scale) with your Y and W points (or whatever you want to call them) marked on the drawing. You will need a pair of compasses with which to mark out the distance from Y or W – put the point of the compass against the scale rule and measure out the appropriate reading. This gives you the distance scaled to match the drawing. If you dislike using the scale rule constantly, it is much easier to draw out the scale as a reference on your drawing. We drew the 1, 2 and 3 meter points, and then another metre with finer subdivisions so that you can put the point of the compass at the correct number of metres away and then adjust for the sub-metre fraction. Which is harder to explain than to do. If you want 2.24 metres, you put the point of the compass at the 2 mark and then add on the 0.24. This avoids the need to mark in graduations for every metre, and stops you wearing a hole in the zero point!

Scale for drawing.

Using the compasses, draw arcs of the appropriate length from the appropriate corners and where they cross is the point on the rock that you measured (hopefully!). Repeat for all the points you recorded and then freehand draw the appropriate outline. For the more interesting rock shapes this was aided by a sneaky vertical photo of said rock.

Leave A Comment, Written on August 3rd, 2012 , Diploma Year One, Techniques

Chapel House Wood – Day One

Today started with half an hour spent backfilling the site of last year’s excavation: light-coloured limestone was moved from the spoilheap to the excavation (the light colour denoting lack of exposure and therefore was from the excavation, whereas the darker limestone was a clearance cairn) and then a covering of soil tipped on top. As this was quite tiring, there was a break immediately afterwoods so we could recover!

Site Reconstitution: backfilling last year’s excavation. July 2012. Copyright K Bragg.

As I’d turned up a week after the start of the dig, the trenches were already open and being cleaned, so my first task (and one that was to take several days to accomplish) was to produce a drawing of significant rocks within a trench. The reason for this is that we are looking at potential stone-built structures and amidst the mass of visible stones, we wish to pick out any that could be meaningful.

First significantly-large rocks plotted. July 2012. Copyright K Bragg

Leave A Comment, Written on July 15th, 2012 , Diploma Year One, Excavation Notebook, Fieldwork

Fashion

I am troubled by the use of the concept of fashion to explain change. Fashion relies on communication, not only of the idea of the new thing, but surely also how it is to be reproduced. Fashions imply contact of a regular and sustained sort if the fashion is to spread in anything like the timescales implied by some of the chronologies I read.

This is more of a note-to-self to have more of a think about this at a later date.

Leave A Comment, Written on June 19th, 2012 , Musings

Burghclere Beacon, Hampshire

Visit Date: 16th June 2012

Weather: Today was extremely windy, with a shower of rain. This made it quite hard to determine the shape of the land surface as the long grasses were being blown about, and the rain prohibited many of the photographs I would otherwise have taken as well as limiting visibility.

Introduction

Burghclere Beacon, or Beacon Hill, Hampshire is a site I’ve visited quite a few times, almost always, it seems, in vile weather. We were going to attempt some kite aerial photography, but it was just too windy for that..

We parked in the carpark to the east of Beacon Hill, having followed the brown signs from the A34 to get there. The ascent is fairly steep and, where the underlying chalk is exposed, can be slippery in wet weather.

The view back down Beacon Hill May 2010. Copyright K Bragg

The ramparts are very well defined still, and the curve of the hour-glass shape of the enclosure is really remarkably smooth. It was at this point I decided that the ditches were for you to shelter in when the windy was this strong, as it was quite hard to stand up.

The curve of the ramparts at the northern section. June 2012. Copyright K Bragg

As one does, we walked around the ramparts as far as the original south-east-facing entrance and then walked down the southern spur of the hill. The 5th Earl of Caernarvon has his tomb on the south-western point of the hillfort and I note from the Ordnance Survey maps that there is a field boundary that cuts off this point from the rest of the hillfort, which is interesting as the rest of the field boundaries go round the hillfort not through it. You can just about see it on Google Earth, as a line that cuts off that point.

Entrance to the hillfort, looking towards the southern spur. June 2012. Copyright K Bragg

To the west of the path is a strange square thing, shown on the Ordnance Survey map as a disused pit. I have not yet discovered what kind of pit it is. It is shown on old Ordnance Survey maps as just square earthworks and the later ones as a disused pit, so someone must know!

Disused pit on southern spur of Beacon Hill May 2010. Copyright K Bragg

Walking further down the spur, we came to a low bank, perpendicular to the path. There did not seem to be a ditch associated with it (although it was hard to see the actual ground surface), and a look at some old Ordnance Survey maps shows a field boundary at approximately that position, so my best guess is that it is an old hedgebank.

Linear bank, possibly an old field boundary June 2012. Copyright K Bragg

As we walked down the hill, we could see ‘steps’ in the path where the ground level changed height suddenly but because the grass was so long and the wind so strong, it wasn’t really possible to get a good view of what was going on *off* the path.

Having reached the bottom of the hill and faced a gate saying ‘private land’, we turned and climbed the hill again. Facing uphill, we could see clearly that there was an edge running parallel to the path (so running north-south) which was apparent even in photographs. Looking at Google Earth, it can be seen from the air, as can some similar earthworks on the eastern side of the southern spur. At one point they appear to form a square shape and could possibly be said to be parallel. However, I then looked at the 1999 images from Google Earth (what a wonderful feature!) and they showed my edge (and a section of earthwork to the north of it) as forming the boundary of an area of different-coloured land – the hill was pale green but the area downhill of this edge was dark, lush green implying something different was happening there. I cannot see a field boundary on this alignment on the old Ordnance Survey maps so it doesn’t seem to have been a permanent thing. I shall have to see what else I can find out.

The Edge, as visible from downslope June 2012. Copyright K Bragg

There is apparently the remains of a barrow near to the path, but I’m afraid I didn’t manage to spot it.

Entering the hillfort again, we followed the ramparts to complete the circuit and then descended the hill back to the car.

Leave A Comment, Written on June 16th, 2012 , Own Visits Tags: causewayed enclosure, Hampshire, hillfort, hilltop enclosure, Iron Age

Year Two Retrospective

I’m now at the end of the Certificate stage of the degree and I confess I have been struggling a bit with the idea of such malleable truths. The last essay I wrote dealt with the use of analogy in archaeological interpretation. I saw immediately that interpretation cannot avoid analogy so the question of whether it is valid to use analogy struck me as problematic. From that immediate reaction to the question, my reading then caused me to realise that archaeological theory is just applied anthropology and has no connection to the actual past. As the theoretical side was always my interest (I love to think) this caused me somewhat of a crisis. To the extent that I seriously considered not continuing with the course.

A chat with Hannah wherein I confessed my loss of faith helped enormously and I’ve decided to continue. But I need to do some practical fieldwork, something tangible to remind myself why I want to do this. I think a bit too much about things and if I don’t get out and about, it’s quite easy to collapse in on myself.

Leave A Comment, Written on June 14th, 2012 , Musings

Down Farm, Sixpenny Handley, Cranborne Chase

Visit date: 6^th May 2012

Weather: Initially chilly but bright, warm sunshine by the afternoon, wind negligible

Introduction

The route went from Martin Green’s farmhouse across Fir Tree Field to the Great Shaft, then over the field to see the excavated causewayed ring-ditch and the reconstructed round barrow. Leaving Fir Tree Field, the route then followed the footpath (somewhat intruded upon by oilseed rape) up the hill to the top of Gussage Hill to see the long barrow that is included in the Cursus and to view the settlement earthworks. Walking along the top of the ridge, the route then turned left onto the Ackling Dyke Roman Road and followed that as far as the road. Turning left, the next destination was the Wyke Down Henge and associated monuments. The highlight was then to see Martin Green’s museum and see the artefacts he has discovered on his farm.

Figure 1: Location of Wyke Down Henge and the Shaft in relation to other sites on Down Farm. After Green & Michael J Allen 1997 Figure 1

Fir Tree Field ‘Shaft’

Grid Reference: SU 0016 1467 (NMR SU 01 SW 163)

Site Overview

The Shaft is 10m wide at the top of the 3m-deep weathering cone, tapering to 5m across at the beginning of the vertical section. The entire depth is unknown, as when the water table was reached at 13.2m in 1992, and an augur put in to determine further depth, the bottom was not reached at 25.2m (Allen 2000 : 41).

Figure 2: Fir Tree Field Great Shaft showing the view into the weathering cone August 2009. Copyright K Bragg.

Health and Safety demands that such a dangerous hole must be fenced off, so access to the site is via key only. (Unfortunately on the day of the field trip, the key was not forthcoming, so photos are from previous visit.) A bridge is provided so that a view may be had down the shaft, but as this is mostly filled in, the view is not as dramatic as might be thought.

Figure 3: Fir Tree Field Shaft from viewing platform August 2009. Copyright K Bragg.

When excavated, a sequence of layers was discovered (as shown in Figure 4): the first layer revealed Beaker pottery and flints, lower down was a layer containing Peterborough ware from the mid-late Neolithic. In this way a sequence of layers dating back to the late Mesolithic was obtained.

Figure 4: Section of the Fir Tree Field shaft with radiocarbon details. (Source Green 2000 Fig 23)

Investigation History

Year	Investigation type	Investigation Details
1990	Discovery	Lush cropmark discovered in Fir Tree Field that when excavated turned out to be the Fir Tree Field Great Shaft (Green & Michael J Allen 1997 :121)
1992-1994	Excavation	Careful excavation provided a sequence of layers trapping environmental information in the range 5500-3775BP therefore providing key environmental information about the critical Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in this area (Green 2000).

Chronology and Current Interpretation

The shaft itself is now thought to be entirely natural and a result of water acidified by dissolved minerals causing the chalk to dissolve, although initially considered by geologists to be of anthropogenic origin (Green & Allen 1997 :130). Similar features can be found elsewhere in the area and such solution holes are a common feature of limestone and chalk geologies. The importance of this particular feature, in archaeological terms, is not just for the retrieved artefacts themselves, but for the rich environmental data that has been obtained that can then be used in the interpretation of the high density of archaeological sites in the area (Green & Allen 1997 :130-131).

Wyke Down Henge

Grid Reference: SU 0065 1528 (NMR SU 01 NW 113)

Site Overview

The Wyke Down Henge presents as a penannular enclosure consisting of 26 chalk-cut pits approximately 2m deep (Entwistle & Bowden 1991 :26), although with some notable variety in depth (Barrett et al. 1991 :92), with a 3m entrance causeway (Entwistle & Bowden 1991 :26). After excavation, the site was left exposed so that the arrangement of pits can be seen. The site is located on a low hill and is close by part of the Dorset Cursus, and also a Peterborough Ware site in Chalkpit Field (Barrett et al. 1991 :105) (the field to the south-east of the field the henge is in). As well as being close by to other archaeological sites, the henge is close to the source of the River Allen, especially to a Pleistocene river cliff marking a paleochannel (Entwistle & Bowden 1991 :26). The section of the Cursus at this point is known to have been reused, and also would be most visible as it travels over the river cliff (Barrett et al. 1991 :105).

Figure 5: Wyke Down Henge looking south-west May 2012. Pits show as green circles in a ring against the chalk. Photo copyright P Bragg.

Investigation History

Year	Investigation type	Investigation Details
1983-1984	Excavation and environmental analyses	Excavated by Bradley, Barrett and Green, the pits were found to have been cut and then recut at a later stage and then a central pit cut where the axes of the monument cross. Among the finds were carved chalk objects in the primary cuts, and grooved ware in the secondary cuts.

Chronology and Current Interpretation

The initial pits that were dug silted up again quite quickly and from all sides (i.e. no evidence for external bank collapsing) (Barrett et al. 1991 :92). Brown (1991) suggests that the nature of artefacts found in this primary fill indicated that in the early stage of the henge, the deposition was pragmatic, rather than with any ritual/symbolic overtones. The environmental samples from this first phase indicate that the area was open but with the possibility of denser woodland nearby, with the evidence consistent with the environment external to the pit not just recording an internal micro-environment (Entwistle & Bowden 1991 : 26).

Figure 6: Outline plans of the Wyke Down hence monument, showing the distribution of deposits belonging to the primary phase. (Source Barrett et al. 1991 Fig 3.20)

The pits were then recut (more shallowly than the original) and material from these has been radiocarbon-dated to 2190 ± 80 bc (BM 2396) and 2200±50 bc (BM 2397) (Barrett et al. 1991 :92). These recut pits also contained grooved ware pottery and at the time of this deposit, environment conditions were more shaded: suggestive of scrub rather than woodland cover (Entwistle & Bowden 1991 : 28) and that the monument was left untended (Allen 2000 :48). The final stage was the insertion of a central pit, with a deposit that has been dated to 1510±90bc (BM 2394) (Barrett et al. 1991 :96).

Barrett et al. (1991 :105) require that the henge be interpreted as an enclosure rather than the alternative of a causewayed ring ditch (an example of which can be seen excavated in Fir Tree Field) but reject the (then-commonplace) interpretation of the pits as a communal and collective cremation cemetery. They point out that cremated remains were a small fraction of the total deposits, and were in a secondary phase and therefore not consistent with the original design and purpose of the monument.

Bibliography

Allen, M.J., 2000. Soils, Pollen and lots of snails. In A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 Years on a Chalkland Farm. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd., pp. 36-49.

Barrett, J.C., Bradley, R. & Green, M., 1991. Landscape, monuments, and society: the prehistory of Cranborne Chase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, A., 1991. Structured Deposition and Technological Change among the Flaked Stone Artefacts from Cranborne Chase. In J. C. Barrett, R. Bradley, & M. Hall, eds. Papers on the Prehistoric Archaeology of Cranborne Chase. Oxbow Monograph 11, pp. 101-133.

Entwistle, R. & Bowden, M., 1991. Cranborne Chase: The Molluscan Evidence. In J. C. Barrett, R. Bradley, & M. Hall, eds. Papers on the Prehistoric Archaeology of Cranborne Chase. Oxbow Monograph 11, pp. 20-48.

Green, M., 2000. A Landscape Revealed: 10, 000 Years on a Chalkland Farm illustrate., The History Press Ltd.

Green, M. & Allen, M.J., 1997. An Early Prehistoric Shaft on Cranborne Chase. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 16(2), pp.121-132. Available at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111%2F1468-0092.00029 [Accessed May 20, 2012].

Leave A Comment, Written on May 6th, 2012 , Certificate Year Two, Field Trip Tags: environmental, mesolithic, neolithic

<< Older Entries

archaeo.log is proudly powered by WordPress and the Theme Adventure by Eric Schwarz
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

Categories

Tags

Friends

Links

Meta

Introduction

Introduction

Fir Tree Field ‘Shaft’

Site Overview

Investigation History

Chronology and Current Interpretation

Wyke Down Henge

Site Overview

Investigation History

Chronology and Current Interpretation

Bibliography

Notes from a field