Issue 73

November 2003

Contents

news

Early Christian graves insight at Anglesey dig

Archaeologists fingered by Orwell

Carpenter's tools found-3,000 years later

Shipping news

Tor tower story

Camp sites

Couch archaeology

In Brief

features

Lasers at Stonehenge
Tom Goskar shines new light on ancient carvings

Invisible paintings
Bruno David studies Aboriginal art with digital technology

Raunds
Frances Healy & Jan Harding on one of the UK's largest digs

Enamelled bowl
Exclusive details of a significant new Roman find

letters

Copperas, chess board, steam power, TV, ancestors

issues

George Lambrick on a modern place for volunteers

Peter Ellis

...doubts if many of us could light the fire that started it all

books

Figuring it Out by Colin Renfrew

After the Ice: a Global Human History 20,000-5,000 BC by Steve Mithen

Early Medieval Settlements: the Archaeology of Rural Communities in North-West Europe 400-900 by Helena Hamerow

CBA update

favourite finds

A Roman silver cup and a lady in a basket. The amphorae that reminded Tony Rook of bombing-up.

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

Industrial bread

From Ms Gwenda Smith

Sir: How should I go about ordering a back copy of BA? Here in rural Vermont we have the remains of a copperas works ('The Forgotten Chemical Revolution', August 2002) that was started up in 1809 at the time of the trade embargo preceding the War of 1812. It became one of the country's leading producers and ran until 1882 or so, by which time copperas [a chemical used as a dye fixative] was available as a by-product of the steel industry . The site is in the process of being wiped out by the US Environmental Protection Agency in the name of a cleanup, much to the distress of those of us who feel it is an important national historic site.

US federal regulations evidently require that a certain amount of ferrous sulphate be added to flour at the mill as a way of combating anaemia. In meetings about our copperas, I used to ask the audience whether they had eaten their copperas for the day, which seemed to get their attention, given that it is currently associated with environmental 'pollution'.

Yours sincerely,
Gwenda Smith
Strafford Historical Society Strafford, VT USA
10 August

Back issues of 'British Archaeology' (though several are sold out) can be obtained from the subscription address on page 3.

Vanishing point

From Mr Quentin Hawkins

Sir: Dr Alex Woolf (Letters, July) argues that while Britain's population has been increasing since late prehistory, the number of prehistoric people from whom we are descended is small, because in a traditional society one quarter of the population do not have children who survive to adulthood.

If 25 per cent of each generation have no children, if we go back 20 generations to Tudor times, just three people in every 1,000 would be the ancestors of people alive today. From the time of the Norman Conquest, just two people in every 100,000 could be our ancestors. Could this be true?

No, probably not. A simple formula of 0.75 raised to the power of so many generations makes sense only if the 75 percent of people in each generation who have children have just one per couple. Yet we know that large families were commonplace in times past.

If we assume that the 25 per cent of people in each generation who do not have children have siblings who do have children, which may not be far from the truth, then we can infer that quite a high proportion of the prehistoric population of Britain may have been our ancestors.

Yours sincerely,
Quentin Hawkins
Selhurst
19 July

Mary rows

From Mr Keith Horsfield

Sir: The so-called plotting board shown in your photograph ('The Mary Rose', July) is a chess board. A grid of squares has been crudely scratched on the end of a wood plank. The size is right for a square board of 8x8, but it is not possible to be sure of this because of decay. Alternate diagonals have been indented by a punch to make the classic chequerboard pattern. The associated navigation tools, dividers and protractor, are beautifully made precision instruments, and to suggest that these were used on such a crude board is at least an insult to the craftsmen who made them.

That no chessmen were found is no surprise, as the board was obviously made in an emergency and would have been used with men made from whatever materials were available, perhaps paper or parchment.

May I suggest the Mary Rose Trust asks three archaeologists who play chess to review this interesting artefact, and convey their opinions to your excellent Journal?

Yours faithfully,
Keith Horsfield
Carnforth
20 July

Perhaps a game between the two camps would settle this? Challengers, chess-playing amateur or professional archaeologists or historians, should send their written case for the board (maximum 300 words) to the editor. He will make up the competition rules, and if there is sufficient interest will select the match venue and 'British Archaeology' will announce the result.

Television hokum

From Mr Ron Wilcox

Sir: The re-enactments at the end of the recent Channel 5 film 'Stonehenge' were pure imaginative hokum. Do the public not deserve better archaeology programmes than those currently on offer, almost all poorly researched and poorly put together, which present archaeology as a study in which common sense is not a necessary qualification?

Yours sincerely,
Ron Wilcox
ronwilcox@archtext.co.UK
11 August

Parish workers

From Mr Brian Robinson

Sir: As an interested layman, I should like to make some observations after reading James Symonds' excellent article ('Beyond the Industrial Revolution', September). I have dabbled for some years in my family history, most of it centred on the Bolton area in Lancashire. Parish Registers generally exist back to Tudor times, and whilst a valuable resource for family historians and genealogists are under-rated for more serious study.

Marriage Registers in the 18th century generally bore the signatures of the happy couples. Their grandchildren in the same parishes did not sign, but only made their mark. Clearly in the simpler days children had time to be taught the basics of the three 'R's, no doubt by the parish clergy, but with the changes in society those children had to labour for the family. Literacy only returned with the late 19th century Education Acts.

In my family's case Marriage Registers and early Censuses show 'miner' was prevalent where before 'weaver' had been.

Yours sincerely,
Brian Robinson
Brentwood
13 August

Odd cars?

From Mr Mark Ryan

Sir: The caption for the picture of the Little London Works in Symonds' excellent article states the depiction is 19th century. Judging from the motor vehicles clearly shown I would perhaps place the drawing's date to nearer 1920?

Keep up the good work.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Ryan
Christchurch
3 September

Anna Badgcock, excavator of the Little London Works, comments that the illustration is from an undated promotional publication, in which the artist may have attempted a retrospective view: trains and cars seem from different eras.

Steam power

From Mr Chris Harvey

Sir: Reading Symonds' article reminded me of a conversation at a European Aerospace Bearing meeting in Paris. I helped restore and run the Crofton Beam Pumping Engines on the Kennet and Avon Canal, where we pointed out that Watt's contribution to steam power was the separate condenser and the (subsequent?) application of steam rather than atmospheric pressure to the top of the piston. I explained this to the leader of the French delegation who had not heard of Newcomen, but who said "Ah yes, like Papa Papin!". I'm ashamed to say I hadn't heard of Papin!

How quickly did the change in powering most 'industrial' activities by water (and wind) to steam occur? Just because steam-powered mills become possible doesn't mean they instantly take over. The premises of the 18th century Frenchay Iron Company, for example, became a flock mill and latterly a sheet-metal ducting fabricators and a vehicle spraying enterprise. There were about 30 mill sites along the Bristol Frome and its tributaries. I've heard the Frome called 'a stroppy little river', but even so the horsepower that could have been extracted by each mill must have been limited. Ever larger steam engines, and presumably economies of scale, meant more machines and more people employed in any one mill. Equally, I'm sure the smaller 'old technology' water mills in some industries would have tried to carry on by finding niche markets of more specialised products - stressing quality, for example.

That the late Victorian Empire could be administered, raw materials used (some would say exploited) and goods sold back to colonies, must be bound up with the development of ways to turn heat (fire) into mechanical energy to power factories, ships, trains and later road vehicles and aeroplanes.

The Romans and other earlier empires seemed to reach a growth limit, and I wonder whether a lack of speed in communications (in spite of good Roman roads!) and the inability to derive power from other than muscles, water and wind had anything to do with it. We now have a sort of global 'empire' in that technology can penetrate to every corner (not that everyone enjoys a fair share). The many inventors of the external and internal combustion engines, from Hero through Christiaan Huygens, Papin, Newcomen, Watt, Otto, Diesel, Parsons to Frank Whittle have a lot to do with that.

Yours sincerely,
Chris Harvey
Bristol
12 August

Correction

Several wrote to say that Creswell Crags (east Derbs/west Notts) are not, of course, in the Peak District (mainly north Derbs) (BA September).

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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