Letters: British Archaeology 114, September / October 2010

More ways to pursue the past

Star Letter

Simon James

Adam Parker paints a grim picture of the plight of the would-be archaeology PhD (Letters, Jul/Aug). Things are certainly tight in universities and doubtless will get tougher, but funding opportunities for top applicants do continue; my own school has offered several PhD studentships this year. Many of our other students successfully fund themselves through part-time doctorates, either campusbased or via distance learning (DL). Part-time study, and in particular DL, are now as important to our delivery of archaeology training as traditional fulltime degrees, although these modes, which provide additional routes for newcomers and working professionals to advance their careers, did not really feature in James Doeser's article on university archaeology (May/Jun 2010). So, while funding opportunities are getting more elusive, there are now more ways for people to pursue their ambitions in archaeology than there were in the past. Nil desperandum...

Simon James, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester

To battle in bowler

Tom Lethbridge's sketch in his 1954 letter to Cyril Fox (feature, The buried gods of Gogmagog, May/Jun) actually shows one of the warriors from the upper register of the iron age Certosa situla from Bologna (an elaborately-decorated metal vessel) – but wearing a bowler rather than a helmet (hence Lethbridge's jocular comments). It may be worth asking why he chose to depict the figure he "found" in 1954 in this way? Indeed the sketch (on the right of the illustration, opposite a figure from the situla) could therefore be construed as self-mocking.

Last word on Sutton Hoo

Parker Pearson, van der Noort and Woolf have restated their belief that Sutton Hoo might have been part of the Saxon kingdom of Essex, and not East Anglia (Letters, Jul/Aug). The argument – which depends partly on the nature of the "ordinary" artefacts in the exceptionally rich graves – was not convincing when first published 17 years ago, and subsequent publications and finds have not strengthened their case.

I am happy to query the widely-accepted identification of the occupant of the ship burial in mound I as Rædwald. But I see no reason why a king of Essex should be installed in his place. The archaeological argument for this is flawed. It depends on analysis of distribution maps which were incomplete in 1993 (for example, Parker Pearson and colleagues omitted imported artefacts in cremation burials in East Anglia, and princely burials east of the Rhine in central and eastern Europe). The analysis now needs extensive revision in the light of recent cemetery publications, especially those of Sutton Hoo itself and Ipswich in Suffolk, and Mucking in Essex, as well as metal detector finds.

The distributions they discuss relate to several different times: much of the evidence deployed dates to the period before the Sutton Hoo mound burials. Furthermore, a distinction must be made between the later fifth to mid sixth centuries AD – when regionality is apparent in Anglo-Saxon burials – and the later sixth and seventh centuries – when it is not.

In order to identify specifically "Essex" material culture, we would need to have large numbers of finds from Essex. But there are few Anglo-Saxon burials there, especially away from the Thames, and hardly any contemporary with Sutton Hoo, apart from Prittlewell. There is an almost empty area between Ipswich to the north-east and Chelmsford to the south-west, forming a fairly convincing border. Fieldwork by John Newman has shown that around Sutton Hoo and from Ipswich up the Gipping valley to Needham Market, there are fairly dense distributions of sites both of late fifth to late sixth, and of late sixth to early eighth centuries; whereas north-east Essex remains underpopulated.

Metal detector finds confirm this. A recent search on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database for cruciform brooches, yielded 199 examples in Suffolk, including a number along the river Orwell, south-west of Sutton Hoo. By contrast, in Essex as a whole there were six of these brooches. Cemetery finds of the same brooch type also show a different balance: at the largest cemetery in Essex, Mucking II, only five of the 125 brooches were cruciform. Whereas at Morningthorpe, Norfolk, 24 of the 95 graves with brooches had cruciforms. Snape and Boss Hall, Ipswich, on either side of Sutton Hoo, both have typically "Anglian" dress-fastener types, cruciform and annular brooches and wrist-clasps.

They describe leaf-shaped spearheads as an Essex type. However, leaf-shaped blades are widely but thinly distributed across southern England, including East Anglia, and at Mucking, in Essex, there are in fact slightly more angular than leaf-shaped blades. The significant and unusual feature of the Sutton Hoo spears is that there are six in one grave, of a variety of forms: two angular, two narrow leaf or "lanceolate", and one with a central rib. Hardly any other Anglo-Saxon graves have more than one spearhead, and amongst rich graves elsewhere in Europe multiple spears are also rare. This looks like an instance of the unusual character of Sutton Hoo mound I, with an eclectic mix of finds from many different regions of Britain and Europe.

Looking for regional affinities for the assemblage in mound 1 Sutton Hoo does not work, because by that time the clear regional patterns apparent a century before had disappeared. There are fewer furnished burials, and finds of the same types occur across England. There is not an "Essex" or "East Anglian" type of material culture to which Sutton Hoo might be affiliated in the late sixth-early seventh century. And the clear and obvious message of the assemblage, is that its occupant belonged to a supra-regional elite.

In the eighth century, not only do we have Bede's account as at least evidence of the situation in his own day, placing the king of East Anglia at Rendlesham (near Sutton Hoo), but the distribution of pottery made in Ipswich shows a dense concentration in Suffolk and Norfolk, with riverine and coastal incidence beyond that region. Ipswich was at the southern edge of the territory which it served as a production and distribution centre. Sutton Hoo was within that territory, on the East Anglian side of Ipswich.

For the periods before and after the burial in mound 1, it seems clear that the archaeological evidence points to a territorial boundary south of Sutton Hoo. This makes it a priori likely that the boundary was in the same place in between. Essex man this was not.

Round in circles

The recent introduction of a megalithic feature south-east of Grantham sheds new light on the perennial mystery of causewayed camps, henges and stone circles of neolithic and bronze age Britain.

The feature lies in the middle of the roundabout on the A52, and echoes its circular form. The individual stones are crudely carved, but make the roundabout more readily identifiable as something to be negotiated rather than transgressed. Surely we should now consider whether the ancient stone circles are in fact to be seen as traffic control devices. Since the extensive neolithic forest clearances and the introduction of farming are likely to have led to elevated population levels, this must have resulted in congestion as peoples moved across the fertile lands of the centre and south.

One can readily imagine problems as rights of way became sources of conflict. Henge monuments are likely to have been an initial introduction, subsequently augmented by stone circles which were visible from a greater distance and gave charioteers more time to slow down. This is possible evidence for a highlycentralised society in which the prestigious elite were able to express their status through increasingly elaborate traffic control features. Neolithic local authorities strove to out-do each other, leading to tense stand-offs between rival styles.

This highlights the importance of considering trans-period cultural analogies when interpreting prehistoric sites. Conversely, since the local council put these stones in the roundabout only for decorative purposes, perhaps stone circles were built because they looked nice in a context where, let's face it, there wasn't much else to do until the Romans arrived with a more imaginative range of leisure pursuits.

Living archaeology

British Archaeology 113 (Jul/Aug) referred to previously published articles on work by students from Bristol University (News). These centred on the remains of Long Kesh, a transit van and urban regeneration. The same issue contained details of another exciting research activity – studying the transient area of Bristol. A common feature seems to be that the people whose lives and activities were the subject of research are still alive and walking about, available for interview.

Tunes from the tomb

Grateful Dead may have played outside the Great Pyramid of Giza (feature, Preservation by record, Jul/Aug), but in 1976 Nik Turner, on being sacked by Hawkwind, recorded himself playing flute inside the pyramid's king's chamber. These recordings were used on his Xitintoday (Nik Turner's Sphynx) album of 1978; the tracks were based on the Osiris legends and Book of the Dead passages. Can any musicians out there top that?

Archaeology? Sienna Miller's reply to the question in the New Statesman (31 May), "If you weren't an actress, what would you be doing?"

Issue 114

Sept / Oct 2010

news

features

MAIN FEATURE: Happisburgh

The obscure ownership of archaeological material

Finding Boudica's Last Battlefield

The Lost Anglo-Saxon Church of Westbury-on-Trym

Finding Private Mather

Archaeology: What Is It For?

The Varmints Show

science

on the web

Mick's travels

CBA Correspondent

letters

features

THE BIG DIG: Links of Noltland

MAIN FEATURE: Digging for (Invisible) People

Dig for Shakespeare

The Varmints Show

news

on the web

letters

letters

More ways to pursue the past

Star Letter

To battle in bowler

Last word on Sutton Hoo

Round in circles

Living archaeology

Tunes from the tomb

CBA web:

British Archaeology

CBA Briefing

CBA homepage