Letters: British Archaeology 118, May / June 2011

Listen to the past

Star Letter

Simon Parfitt

I have just heard an interview on the BBC with John Robertson MP (chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy), who stated that nuclear power plants in Britain are safer than those in Japan, because we aren't affected by earthquakes or tsunamis.

One of the biggest tsunamis in the Holocene devastated the eastern coast of Scotland. It was initiated about 8,000 years ago by the Storegga slide, a massive underwater landslide on the margin of the Norwegian continental shelf. Although most geologists believe that this part of the continental margin is now stable, there are other areas of sea floor in the same region that could collapse in a similar fashion, resulting in powerful tsunamis.

The Somerset coast was inundated by a tsunami in 1607 (see Simon Haslett in Archaeology in the Severn Estuary 13, 2002). In 1755, a tsunami initiated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake offshore from Portugal, reached Britain's south-west coast.

The Severn and Scottish tsunamis have been traced archaeologically. We have a nuclear power station on a geologically mobile coastline at Dungeness, with archaeological evidence for a succession of major flooding events in the recent past. The ill-fated Mülheim-Kärlich reactor in the Rhine valley, Germany, was constructed in a basin prone to earthquakes with potentially active volcanoes whose effects have been seen archaeologically.

Nuclear power is here to stay, but are politicians and planners consulting with archaeologists about tsunami and flooding events, and changes in coastal geomorphology? Are there contingencies for tsunami flooding of UK nuclear power plants?

Simon Parfitt, Natural History Museum, London

My tower's a tipple

There may be a more prosaic explanation for the medieval "tower" at Portskewett associated with the Kings of Gwent ("Digging for history", Mar/Apr 117, not online). The Cotswold Archaeology website provides a vital clue in describing this thick-walled structure as having "a narrow passage which showed evidence of burning".

What I believe we are looking at is a rather fine example of a medieval not indicate height; they are there to keep the heat in. The walls of the attached room are also typical of these structures.

So, I think the noble historic image of surveying the landscape from a tower, should be replaced by the more characteristic one of lounging around the manor house drinking ale!

A simple history of Britain

In BBC2's A History of Ancient Britain, the cult of the presenter is tediously manifest, with more shots of Neil Oliver posing dramatically than time spent on useful content. In a one hour programme covering the whole of the lower palaeolithic in Britain, surely every minute should be devoted to content? This was summary taken to its furthest extreme. The impression was given that there was only one "ice age", instead of the vastly varying climate prevailing for the last million years or so. The evidence for humans in what is now Norfolk/Suffolk more than 800,000 years ago (feature, Sep/Oct 2010, no 114), was not even mentioned. We were treated to a glimpse of one Acheulean handaxe from Swanscombe, and Neanderthals were conflated with Homo heidelbergensis.

The second episode again simplified to an alarming degree. The impression was given that all Mesolithic groups hugged the coastline, but what of Star Carr and other inland sites, or recent discoveries that indicate that the hunting-gathering population was not entirely migratory but built "houses"? The "discussion" of the early neolithic as an era of cultural invasion ("collision" and "conflict" were the verbs employed) by farmers from the continent, while the benighted Mesolithic population watched their forests felled before their eyes, all seemed far too simple, and there's the essence of the dumbing down issue. Complex situations and subtle nuances are seen as less relevant than the presenter undertaking diving exercises. Will there ever be an approach which might appeal to a post-GCSE audience?

• See also Science, Sep/Oct 2010, no 114 for more on Star Carr and the dangers to the finds.

Keeping the roof on

I found the item regarding the future of many local heritage services and museums (Britain in archaeology, Mar/Apr 117) to be most disturbing, even if an unavoidable fact of life in today's economic climate. The future does not seem to be very bright for our past. However, all is not lost, as we are finding here in Sittingbourne.

We have a fine 13th century Court Hall building, one of only two of its kind to survive in Kent. It has been owned by the local council since 1948, but has always ranked low in its priorities, so that it now needs major repair and restoration. I could foresee the council demolishing the buiilding on the grounds of it being unsafe and in danger of collapse, despite it being listed. Local feelings were running high, so I proposed forming a group of friends to raise money for the restoration, and re-open the building as a museum – as it once was.

The council accepted the proposal: they get to keep the building whilst someone else funds it. The group is still very much in its formative stage, but the future is looking good. I think perhaps this is one way ahead for our local heritage services.

Miss-representation

Since at least the publication of Woman the Gatherer (Frances Dahlberg, Yale 1981), academic research has challenged androcentric views of hominid/human behaviour. It is therefore disappointing to see the illustrations on pages 15 and 16 of the latest issue of BA ("10 big questions", Mar/Apr 117), which present an antiquated view of gender roles. Perhaps one of the "big questions archaeology must answer", is whether we have got beyond stereotypical views of humanity in the past 30 years?

Alan Sorrell's work dates from a period when such views prevailed [1950s], but is this an appropriate context to use such material? We see no excuse for the representation of Happisburgh [portrayed in 2010].

Perhaps you should publish an article discussing the misrepresentation of gender roles in human evolution/archaeology.

Thomas Dowson, Joe Flatman, Paul Graves-Brown, Carolyn Graves-Brown, Yannis Hamilakis and Sarah May

I am interested to see the letter to the lord chancellor regarding the archaeological investigation of human remains (a cause which I support). I notice that out of the 42 signatories, including 40 "leading British professors of archaeology", there are only three women ("Dear Lord Chancellor", Mar/Apr 117).

Purple cast

I am sure that I cannot be the only person to be intrigued by the picture bottom right of page 31 ("Return to La Cotte", Mar/Apr 117). The evocative purple cast over the photo, the reverential poses of the diggers and the pre-Raphaelite beauty in the bottom right-hand corner dressed in a manner quite unsuitable for scrambling around the cliff or for actually digging – creates a most mysterious impression.

Snowballs

I was fascinated with Andrew Young's suggestion that grooved timbers and balls were used to move Stonehenge's and other monumental stones ("The one with archaeological evidence to support it", Mar/Apr 117). How does it compare with rails, rollers and a cradle? Was it difficult to groove the tracks with stone axes, or wasn't this tried? With no sleepers between the tracks, how stable, accurate and friction-free was it on soft or uneven terrain? It would seem easier to have a track of roundwood timber, rollers and a cradle than grooves and balls. Less precision would be required, and more levers could be used. Balls would be more fun though, when you needed a break you could play boules or fetch with the dogs. But not so telegenic?

Having completed 59 years of almost non-stop excavation, I have enjoyed working through more than 40 severe winters. In 1963 we worked through 10 weeks of frozen snow. In Germany in 1956 one night, we experienced 47 degrees of frost. At such sites we could move heavy weights across frozen ground with little effort. Perhaps megalith builders had a "stone moving season", in January and February! The ground is frozen hard reducing friction by 90%, there is no sweltering heat, vegetation is low and labour is not needed in fields.

Closer to God

A leper hospital outside the city of Winchester in Anglo-Saxon times (feature, Mar/Apr 117) suggests an awareness of contagion or infection. When the missionaries under Augustine of Canterbury came to England, they would have considered cure of the sick part of their duty, and needed premises in which to care for them. Initially, one presumes, wooden structures would have served for infirmaries, as for churches, but we have o record of these. However, we do have churches like Brixworth with strange "aisles" (porticus) leading out of the nave with no other access. It is very difficult to see how these could have had any liturgical significance, and they were unlikely to provide for altars for the priests' daily masses – that came later.

However, we know from the New Testament (John 5:2) that "there is in Jerusalem... a pool... which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralysed". If the clergy and religious communities of Anglo-Saxon England needed somewhere to nurse the sick, then the "porticus" in the safety of the church was the place. There, as in the medieval hospitals (eg St Mary's, Chichester) the sick could be cared for and they could hear the mass.

Fear of contagion may have driven the sick out of the church, and ultimately out of town. As St Mary Magdalen's, outside Winchester, is Anglo-Saxon, it would be interesting to know if there is evidence of a larger settlement nearby. Otherwise this would be a very early example of exclusion from the conurbation on medical grounds. The rebuilding programme which resulted in the Old Cathedral may have been a factor. One wonders if there is any significance in the eastward, downwind situation, preventing infection.

Create and share

As a fellow editor I would wholeheartedly endorse everything you said in "7 steps to a good archaeological photo" (Jan/Feb 116, not online). I wish more university archaeology courses included such practical information.

I would also like to recommend the Open University short course T189, Digital Photography: creating and sharing better images. This did more for me than reading books, as it is interactive and involves constructive criticism of photos taken by others in your group (and sometimes gazing in awe at what others can achieve).

In popular culture, archaeology's star has rarely risen so high. But politicians behave as if it were unloved... It is further evidence of Westminster's distance from the national bloodstream.
Jonathan Jones comments on cuts to the Stonehenge project, Guardian June 2010. English Heritage has announced that building at the new visitor site will start in the year of the 2012 Olympics.

Issue 118

May / June 2011

Contents

news

on the web

letters

features

THE BIG DIG: Gough's Cave, Somerset

6 Threatened Sites

Overthrowing Egypt's Past