Brace yourself for a top-drawer example of archaeological journalism taken from a newspaper leader headed ‘Brown’s loony Henge scheme will have us stone broke’. This seething rant about the Stonehenge tunnel project surely takes some beating: ‘All it will do is make the view prettier for tourists and please a handful of beardies whose main love is for rocks in the middle of nowhere… Just imagine how that £192 million digging up Salisbury Plain could be better spent. How many grannies with new hips, so they can walk to the shops unaided? How many kiddies freed from cramped and crumbling classrooms? How many more coppers on the beat? …And the green beardie-weardies are certain not to be happy with whatever scheme the Highways Agency comes up with. Why? Because these nutters are never happy, that’s why! Even before the plans are finalised the bunny-huggers are demanding a longer tunnel – a tunnel that avoids even more piles of old rock’. Thank you English Heritage chief beardie-weardie David Miles for that clip from the Daily Sport.

Enigmalith

For the benefit of those not subscribing to the BritArch email list, the ‘Enigmalith’ is a pebble-sized stone found by Mr John J Williams of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with what appears to be a manmade electrical component embedded in it. The Enigmalith has featured in recent issues of UFO Magazine and Fortean Times and there is a website dedicated to the mysterious artefact: ‘Rock with Embedded Manmade-Like Electrical-Like Component Revealed! Where did this mystery rock come from? What was/is its purpose? Is it of Alien or UFO origin? Was it made by an Advanced Lost Civilization? Is it a Healing Stone? Or a Crosse ‘God Stone’? (clear photos & much more below!)’. The interesting website includes amongst other things Mr Williams’ doleful report on the 2003 International Skeptics Conference held last year in his hometown: ‘…I posted dozens of my free flyers on the free CSICOP [Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal] table… and for several hours, picketed the Conference. Each day, I also drove by the Conference four times just to see if anyone else was also picketing it. Apparently, I was the only one there demonstrating support of UFO/alien and lost advanced civilization viewpoint.’ Wild Archaeology thrillseekers should point their browsers at www.tscglobal.com/enigmalith.htm

Oo arr

Delegates at the recent Institute of Field Archaeologists’ conference in Liverpool touched on the dodgy standard of some archaeology on television. Among the various carry-ons under discussion were on-screen trenches not meeting health and safety requirements and diggers being advised by programme makers to get agents. Apparently the team behind one particular series (think ‘hot young archaeologists’) wanted the farmer on whose land they were about to dig to greet the arriving archaeologists. The farmer refused, so instead of revising the script a camera assistant was dressed up in suitably rustic garb and acted out the part of the recalcitrant son of the soil.

Silbury fool

‘Slopes of Silbury Hill set to become mecca for ski enthusiasts’. Top marks to Nigel Kerton’s April Fool’s Day spoof for the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald: ‘There could be a bit of a clash at solstice times when the new age travellers come to celebrate and the lovelies are here in their Lycra ski suits’. But did the apparently light-hearted piece contain a more serious subtext? ‘English Heritage is likely to have strong objections, but if these take as long to be lodged as it’s taking to fill in the huge hole that appeared in the monument four years ago, the skiing facilities will be up and running before it reacts.’ I say!

Druidical cup

Travelling through border country recently Spoilheap was attracted by a headline in the Monmouthshire Beacon: ‘Druids through to cup final’. Apologies to Monmouthshire readers who probably find nothing amusing in the fact that it turns out the Druids are of the brawny, scary rugby football type rather than the brawny, scary robe-wearing type for whom Glyn Daniel didn’t much care. Another dream dashed…

No wheels

After the TV screening of One Million Years BC (how many now ageing male archaeologists thought their careers would bring Raquel Welch and dinosaurs?) came news from Idaho. ‘It looks’, said diving attorney Mark Jones on finding a logboat in a lake, ‘like Barney Rubble’s car with no wheels’.

Send your unwanted archaeological rubbish to spoilheap@britarch.ac.uk

CBA web:

British Archaeology

Jan/Feb 2005
Mar/Apr 2005
May/Jun 2005
Jul/Aug 2005
Sep/Oct 2005
Nov/Dec 2005
Jan/Feb 2006
Mar/Apr 2006
May/Jun 2006
Jul/Aug 2006
Sep/Oct 2006
Nov/Dec 2006
Jan/Feb 2007
Mar/Apr 2007
May/Jun 2007
Jul/Aug 2007
Sep/Oct 2007
Nov/Dec 2007
Jan/Feb 2008
Mar/Apr 2008
May/Jun 2008
Jul/Aug 2008
Sep/Oct 2008
Nov/Dec 2008
Jan/Feb 2009
Mar/Apr 2009
May/Jun 2009
Jul/Aug 2009
Sep/Oct 2009
Nov/Dec 2009
Jan/Feb 2010
Mar/Apr 2010
May/Jun 2010
Jul/Aug 2010
Sep/Oct 2010
Nov/Dec 2010
Jan/Feb 2011
Mar/Apr 2011
May/Jun 2011
Jul/Aug 2011
Sep/Oct 2011
Nov/Dec 2011
Jan/Feb 2012
Mar/Apr 2012

CBA Briefing

Fieldwork
Conferences
Noticeboard
Courses & lectures
CBA Network
Grants & awards

Issue 77

July 2004

Contents

news

features

letters

opinion

spoilheap

books

CBA update

tv in ba

science

my archaeology