Issue no 46, July 1999

Finds made by members of the public are now answering major historical questions, writes Simon Denison

Two years ago, the Government set up a scheme to encourage members of the public to report their discoveries to local archaeologists. And the result? Finds are now flooding in. Thousands upon thousands of them. Prehistoric axes. Iron Age coins. Roman dress fittings. Saxon jewellery. Medieval tools. You name it. And they are still coming.

The scheme's first annual report, published this spring, noted 13,500 new finds recorded in the first year. The overall figure must be double that now - not least because the original six areas operating the scheme (Kent, Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, West Midlands, Norfolk and the North-West) were supplemented by another five earlier this year (Dorset and Somerset, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Suffolk and Wales).

Many of the finds are metal - as you'd expect, given that so many finders are detectorists - and nearly half are coins. Few are spectacular in themselves, as anything made of precious metal counts as `treasure' and has to be reported by law. Some remarkable objects, however, have turned up. This March, a farmer went to a finds day at Hull Museum with a gold-and-garnet Anglo-Saxon pectoral cross he'd found on his land 30 years earlier - an extremely rare and valuable piece. He had no idea what it was.

The point of the scheme, though, is not so much to see and record individual jewels, but rather to help build up an overall pattern of past activity across the country. The scheme's main aim is to help answer archaeological questions through the detailed mapping of finds and findspots - and the signs are that it is already beginning to do so.

In North Lincolnshire, for example, finds made by members of the public are shedding new light on the extent of Viking settlement during the Danelaw period, according to Kevin Leahy, the scheme's `liaison officer' for the area. The traditional view was that Viking invaders took political control of eastern England with no significant folk-movement from Scandinavia. Now, though, concentrations of Viking finds are known to match the pattern of Scandinavian place-names. Moreover the low quality of the finds strongly suggests a large popular migration.

`Typical finds are nasty cheap little brooches,' Mr Leahy said. `These are not the kind of brooches you bring over to impress your English girlfriend. A woman would only wear a thing like this if it was part of a culture she was born into.'

Exactly the same sorts of brooches have been found in Denmark, he added. `These things we're finding are not copies. They are the real stuff. It has been an absolute revelation. These are definitely signs of people coming over.'

Nearly 3,000 finds were reported in the area during the first year, and Mr Leahy describes a `constant stream' of people coming in to North Lincolnshire Museum to see him, clutching their discoveries. An assistant, Marina Elwes, sits all day drawing or photographing the finds. Less important material - including most coins - are merely listed with a map reference, and measured. There is no time to draw everything. Records are finally placed in the local Sites and Monuments Record.

North Lincolnshire, however, like Norfolk, has a long history of good relations between local finders - mainly detectorists - and archaeologists. In other areas, the scheme has had to work harder. In the North-West, for instance, with no history of dealings between the two communities, only 475 finds were reported in the first year.

Nick Herepath, the area liaison officer, says that `not many' people come voluntarily to see him in Liverpool Museum. Instead, he does the rounds of detector-club meetings, held monthly in pubs or social clubs, mingling with detectorists and asking them to show him their discoveries.

`I record the finds on a form, photograph them at the meeting, and pull out a map to ask where they were found,' he said. `It is a hit-and-miss approach, and I know I miss a lot of finds.'

The atmosphere at club meetings is rarely hostile but few detectorists are keen to have their finds recorded, he said. `You have to prise the information out of them.

A lot are prepared to pull the object out of their pocket to show you, but then they want to put it back. They can't really see the point of recording and they don't think they get much out of the scheme.'

Many, he added, aren't interested in what archaeologists can tell them about their finds. `When that's the case, there's very little you can do about it.'

His words indicate how far there still is to go before archaeologists and detectorists can work happily with one another across the country. The thousands of finds reported in the scheme's first year are extremely welcome - a major achievement - but they nonetheless amount to only a fraction of the finds made annually by detectorists in England alone - estimated at 400,000 by the CBA/English Heritage report Metal Detecting and Archaeology in England, published four years ago.

Showing our metal

Richard Hobbs describes the background to the new reporting scheme

THE PORTABLE Antiquities Scheme, introduced to complement the Treasure Act of 1996, has meant that archaeologists and detectorists are now working more closely together than at any period since the metal detector first appeared 30 or so years ago.

A decade and a half ago, the idea of any sort of productive relationship between archaeology and metal detecting was more or less unthinkable. Relations were particularly soured by events which took place at the Roman temple at Wanborough, Surrey, in the early 1980s.

The location of the site was revealed at a Treasure Trove inquest in 1983 (a practice which coroners are now recommended to avoid) and this led to large-scale illegal detecting, and the removal of vast numbers of coins and other artefacts which subsequently appeared on the antiquities market. The damage to the site was extensive with huge holes dug into the archaeological strata, and much of the vital context information was lost forever.

The events at Wanborough sent shock waves through the archaeological world. Like the minority of football hooligans in the same decade whose behaviour stigmatised all football supporters, the actions of a few nighthawks led many archaeologists to believe all detectorists behaved with scant regard for our heritage and were purely driven by financial motives.

More or less in tandem with these events, but receiving no comparable media attention, positive developments were taking place in Norfolk. The late Tony Gregory was forging strong relationships with his local detector groups, attending their meetings and recording their finds. Gregory recognised the potential of metal detectors and the skill of their users as a valuable archaeological tool.

At the time, he was excavating at the Iron Age and Roman site of Thetford, and used local detectorists to survey the site prior to excavation. He also used detectors to locate metal objects in context, which were then excavated using traditional digging techniques.

The potential of liaison was also recognised in London during the 1980s, where the Thames Mudlarks were assisting the Museum of London with rescue excavations during the construction boom in the city. According to the museum's Geoff Egan, this often uneasy alliance revolutionalised our understanding of the material culture of medieval London.

Archaeologists in the city had to deal with incredibly complex stratigraphy and deposits often metres thick, and were under enormous pressure to excavate them in as little time as possible. Until co-operation was established with the Mudlarks, only a fraction of the metalwork within the deposits was recovered.

Richard Osgood looks at the nature and causes of war in Bronze Age Britain

Over recent years, prehistorians have been strangely reluctant to acknowledge the existence of war in late Bronze Age Britain. This must always have seemed odd to Greek and Mediterranean historians, for whom the Bronze Age is the `age of heroes' symbolised by the semi-legendary Trojan War.

As evidence around the Mediterranean supports, to some extent, the palace-based culture and warrior society of the late 2nd millennium BC depicted in Homer's Iliad, how could we ever have imagined that northern Europe was populated at the same time by ever-peaceful communities engaged in nothing but ritual, agriculture and trade?

The archaeological evidence for war in the British late Bronze Age (c 1200-700BC) is, in any case, strong. We have weaponry which seems to have been used in combat. There are hillforts, once regarded as purely Iron Age in date, whose origins are now known to lie in this period. In addition, we have human skeletons with weapon injuries in spite of the fact that late Bronze Age human remains are scarce.

Warfare was not even new in this period. Mesolithic human remains are known with microliths - arrowheads - stuck in their bones. One particularly gruesome Neolithic skeleton from Denmark, now on display in the National Museum in Copenhagen, has a projectile in its nose and an arrowhead in its spine. Evidence of burning, arrowheads and victims have been found at the English Neolithic enclosures of Crickley Hill in Gloucestershire and Hambledon Hill in Dorset.

If war is endemic to human society, as I believe, what were the most likely causes for war in late Bronze Age Britain? One motive could have been competition over natural resources or trade goods. The production of bronzes, salt, and other prestigious goods required static facilities, which in turn required defences against raiding. Many of the early hillforts were built to dominate passes and protect trading routes - primarily rivers - and areas of production.

There may also have been conflict over land. Division of land is well attested in the late Bronze Age, with linear boundaries constructed often on a massive scale. An example is the great Quarley linear boundary in Hampshire, excavated by Prof Barry Cunliffe in 1995. Territories became established, probably representing different rival groups which no doubt at times came into conflict with one another.

Other likely motives for war range from the quest for prestige and trophies, to fighting over access to women.

There is little doubt that war could be carried deep into an enemy's territory in the Bronze Age. Warriors, like traders, were able to use rivers as long-distance pathways. Several sturdy boats of the period have been excavated - for example on the Humber foreshore at North Ferriby and at Dover. Rock carvings from the late Bronze Age in Scandinavia depict warriors on boats, some apparently engaged in combat.

Moreover, not far from the North Ferriby boat, a collection of carved wooden figures were recovered earlier this century, which appear to be warriors originally armed with clubs and round shields, standing on a boat. They were radiocarbon dated to the late Bronze/early Iron Age. Is this a contemporary model of a raiding party?

Another new aid to mobility was the horse. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, horse trappings are increasingly common in the archaeological record. Some were deposited in hoards, such as those at Dinorben hillfort in North Wales, others in rivers, like the phalerae (small boss-like decorations) from the Avon at Melksham in Wiltshire, which had been ritually stabbed with a sword or rapier.

Skeletal evidence suggests the horses of the period were more like a modern Exmoor pony than a strapping cavalry charger, suggesting that warriors fought as mounted infantry rather than as full cavalry in the modern sense.

It is now accepted that many prehistoric fortified sites in Britain had their origins in the late Bronze Age. Examples include Dinorben, controlling the trade routes to Ireland and its gold, and the Breiddin in eastern Wales; Rams Hill in Berkshire, Mam Tor in Derbyshire, and Eston Nab in Yorkshire. Defences could be quite formidable with timber-laced ramparts and ditches.

The 4th century was the Golden Age of Roman Britain, argues Guy de la Bédoyère

In 1945 the Third Reich lay in ruins. Eighty years before, the Confederate stronghold of Richmond, Virginia, lay devastated. In both cases, less than ten years separated cheering optimistic crowds from piles of rubble.

Why then, do we often treat late Roman Britain as a time when the population self-consciously meandered towards the end, hemmed in by relentless barbarians? Despite the well-established view that Britain's wealth was at its height in the 4th century, attention often seems more focused on the potent and portentous image of decline.

In our egalitarian age, the great villas have taken second place to studies of the wider rural context and, along the way, they have come to be seen as almost irrelevant, sidelined to the world of antiquarian and elitist tastes.

But the villas are the most conspicuous surviving hallmark of their age. In the late 3rd century, by which time Britain had been Roman for 250 years, their numbers started to increase steadily, while the towns embarked on decades of stagnation. A few villas became extravagantly large. Their characteristic features, such as mosaics and lay-out, are reflected in lesser versions throughout the hierarchy of 4th century rural housing.

We know nothing about the owners apart from what these houses tell us. But they plainly belonged to a caste whose classicized tastes dictated fashions throughout Romano-British society. These people's ostentatious display of wealth and their choice of decorative motifs define their age for us.

This is a phenomenon we should all be able to recognize. The elite are largely responsible for creating, or at least enabling, aspects of their culture which distinguish their period from any other. Thus 17th century England is, for us, the world of Cromwell, Charles II, Newton, Van Dyck, and Wren. It was, of course, also a time when most of the population lived lives of thankless toil on the land, but such a perception cannot help distinguish the 1600s from other ages.

In the Southern States of the USA in the early 1800s an exceptional set of circumstances allowed a small number of families to become fabulously wealthy. They dominated the economy and society, and even national politics. When these conditions were threatened they embarked on suicidal secession. Simultaneously they presented themselves to the world as would-be sophisticates, modelling themselves on European aristocrats and spending enormous sums on their homes and possessions. To the rest of the USA, and to much of Europe, the South appeared backward.

None of this explains 4th century Roman Britain but it illustrates how a culture, enjoyed by a tiny proportion of the population, defined its world and looked far away for its model.

It is easy for us to treat the Roman world as something of a whole, unchanging across space or through time. Yet, by the 4th century there was significant nostalgic zeal for the age of Augustus of the 1st centuries BC/AD, lucidly expressed by writers such as Augustine, Ausonius, Jerome, and Sidonius.

This late adulation for Augustan Rome was manifested in an Empire-wide custom of using classical motifs and mythical themes as a backdrop to life and as a reflection of cultured sophistication. Christian zealots like Augustine and Jerome grudgingly admitted the beauty of Virgil compared to the coarseness of clerical writings. Ausonius and Sidonius modelled their own literary efforts on poets like Virgil and Ovid.

The uncertainties of the age provoked an interest in better times. Britain was insulated from the worst privations of the period and her elite made the most of it. They seem to have thrown in their lot with a succession of highly unsatisfactory imperial usurpers, presumably because independence seemed the best way to maintain their positions of power and wealth instead of letting British resources and troops sink without trace in the chaos on the continent.

Evidence for the attitudes of Britain's wealthy villa-owners consists largely of 4th century mosaics, wall-paintings, and spectacular treasure hoards of plate and jewellery like those found at Mildenhall and Thetford. Pavements like Lullingstone's, and the great Orphic floors of the period, show that Britain's elite created a classicized Britain to fit their own age. Much later Nell Gwynn would pose as Diana, and James II as a Roman emperor, for much same reason.

This does not mean that Britain was populated by an upper class of philosopher villa-owners. As Ausonius wrote, to surround oneself with learning is not the same as being learned. But Britain, or at least her elite, had not only embarked on a metaphorical Golden Age but indulged herself in a confident literal expression of prosperity through ostentation and display.

Oddly, there was a remarkably specific beginning to this period which gives an unexpected resonance to R.F. Haverfield's description of the 4th century as a Golden Age. In 286 the rebel Carausius established himself as emperor in Britain, holding sway until 293 when he was murdered by his associate Allectus. Allectus himself was defeated by the emperor Constantius I in 296, and Britain was returned to the Empire.

Carausius was a propaganda genius. His regime was wholly Roman in theme and he captured the spirit of the age. His prolific coins brandished Roman virtues, promising that Rome would be restored, after the cavalcade of disorder of previous decades in Britain.

Carausius issued a silver coin bearing a messianic legend adapted from a part of the Aeneid by Virgil: expectate veni, `come, long-awaited one'.

Two of his so-called mint-marks, one of which appears on this coin, have now been shown to be abbreviations of two contiguous lines from Virgil's messianic poem, the Fourth Eclogue. They announce, `The Golden Age is back, now a new generation

is let down from Heaven above'. There is no comparable explicit textual reference to Latin literature on any other Roman coin of the West.

The message shows the kind of world that existed in Roman Britain. Carausius needed the support of the elite and it is highly significant that he appealed to their classical aspirations. He made no gesture towards any nostalgia for Britain's pre-Roman tribal origins. Had it counted for anything he would have done. This was also a time when new pagan temples were being built in the countryside, often remote from towns and settlements but still within the orbit of the villas. Although distinctly British gods were occasionally venerated at these temples, it was always in a classicized idiom owing much more to traditional Roman pantheism.

This strange contradiction represented another Empire-wide movement. Part of late-Roman society, and often the educated older families, were determined to cling on to the pagan certainties of Rome's imperial past and rejected the Christianization of the Empire.

This reached its highest expression under the emperor Julian who removed anti-pagan laws and presided over the bickering Christian sects in the 360s. The occasional appearance of Christianity in Britain is often ambiguous and seems to belong more to a pagan tradition of pantheism than the radical exclusivity of the new cult.

The extraordinary treasure from Thetford belongs to the very end of the 4th century. The assemblage of jewellery and spoons included cult items associated with an obscure Latin woodland god called Faunus. He survives in the writings of Horace but is virtually unknown outside late 1st century BC Italy. It is almost as if he had been revived by a particular community like a piece of vintage literary machinery.

Of course, this world did come to an end. Britain's cyclical flirtation with usurpers wore out imperial patience. A combination of economic, social and military circumstances destroyed the disposable wealth of the villa owners and removed the hierarchy in which their symbols of prosperity and success were meaningful.

But the Thetford and Hoxne buried treasure hoards show that they clung on to their riches to the end. They had every expectation of recovering them and carrying on. The Golden Age endured almost until the last moment of Roman Britain.

Guy de la Bédoyère is the author of several books on Roman Britain. His latest, The Golden Age of Roman Britain, has just been published by Tempus at £25.00.