Issue 82

May/June

Contents

news

Another early garden pot

Hunters respect white magic

New body to promote endangered Roman wall

Leicester lion is rare import

Sea finally takes defences

Gold rings still unexplained

In Brief

features

Bodies - who wants to rebury old skeletons?
New sensitivities change attitudes to ancient human remains

Carrowmore - Tombs for hunters
Göran Burenhult describes excavations at Irish neolithic tombs

on the web

Recommended websites

letters

Heritage Crisis?
Views and Responses

CBA news

Headlines from the CBA office.

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

letters

Heritage crisis?

The government has had an interesting relationship with English Heritage, where restructuring and cuts threaten to undermine its responsibilities to archaeology. Tessa Jowell, it is said, thinks heritage "too middle-class". As we went to press, her essay on heritage value was due. Reports and comments (below) provide background. Here the culture secretary defends her record, and shadow arts minister Hugo Swire and senior British archaeologists present an alternative view.

Efficieny Savings

From Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP

Your leader in the Jan/Feb edition questioned my commitment to the historic environment and to English Heritage. You are mistaken.

My policy on the historic environment was set out clearly in A Force for Our Future (December 2001). This described a new vision to put the historic environment at the heart of national life. Since then, together with English Heritage, we have made significant progress on a number of important projects, including the Heritage Protection Review. I intend to publish an essay shortly on the government and the value of the historic and built environment to complement the one I wrote last year, Government and the Value of Culture.

I have also been able to allocate an additional £16m to English Heritage over the next three years. This figure includes £12m for investment in English Heritage properties and to repair Apethorpe Hall which we have recently saved for the nation. This is more than many of our other sponsored bodies received this time.

Like all public bodies, English Heritage has been asked to identify efficiency savings over the next three years. I am pleased that, as part of this, it has so far identified £14m which will enable it to absorb the effect of inflation over this period. Our priority, of course, is to ensure the public gets the best deal for its investment.

English Heritage employs over 300 archaeologists, and gives archaeology grants of more than £5m a year. By integrating its archaeology and historic buildings and areas departments, English Heritage will ensure a more holistic approach to the study and conservation of the historic environment. Furthermore, through its Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, Defra has boosted funding for archaeological work by £9m, also distributed by English Heritage.

Through my department's support, the Portable Antiquities Scheme will be able to encourage the reporting of finds throughout the next three years.

Against this background, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would question my commitment to the historic environment.

Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, secretary of state, Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Embodiment of histroy

From Hugo Swire MP

Labour has slashed heritage funding since 1997. English Heritage has had its funding cut repeatedly, and faces continued cuts until 2008. The Heritage Lottery Fund [HLF] is £800m worse off under Labour.

Conservatives believe Britain's heritage is the embodiment of its history. As trustees of that heritage, we are honour-bound to preserve it for future generations and encourage everybody to enjoy it. We will place heritage at the heart of public policy, and ensure it is a matter of priority across government.

Unlike Labour, we guarantee that heritage will continue to be a major beneficiary of lottery funding. It is only the Conservatives who can guarantee that hundreds of millions of pounds of vital lottery funding will to be used to protect Britain's heritage. We also want to see more HLF grants for the restoration of cathedrals, churches and other places of worship.

The lack of adequate everyday maintenance is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the heritage sector. Much of our heritage could be better preserved if a simple programme of skilled maintenance was adhered to. We will establish a government-led Heritage Maintenance Review, and ensure there is a greater recognition of heritage issues in local authorities.

Archaeology in Britain has never been so popular; we have an opportunity to capitalise on that interest to preserve our archaeological heritage for future generations. There is a role for government in encouraging and promoting this, and the need to protect British archaeology requires the cooperation of many departments, in particular Defra and ODPM.

Archaeological concerns will be a priority across government. We will, for example, review the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act with Defra.

During the election we will be announcing more detailed heritage policies, including measures to protect British heritage overseas.

Hugo Swire MP, shadow arts minister

Massive concern

From Lord Redesdale

There is a belief that there has been a real terms cut in English Heritage's budget, with a vast number of extra obligations put on them, such as the responsibility for marine archaeology, for which they received only £1m. We will raise this issue with the government after the election. There is massive concern in the sector over the lack of expertise: most archaeologists appreciate that the jobs are not there.

Lord Redesdale, secretary All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Committee

Time to campaign

Richard Bradley, in his piece on Silbury Hill ("A public commitment", Jan/Feb), noted that the jobs of those responsible for the fieldwork were under threat. This is indeed the case: English Heritage's archaeological landscape investigators have been cut from 12 to seven. Like many other university-based archaeologists, we hold the fieldwork of the archaeological staff in English Heritage in high esteem and view job losses with great concern.

This loss should be seen in a wider context. Despite "spin" on the public expenditure settlement announced before Christmas, there has been a real cut in government funding for archaeology in England and Wales.

The decline is real. It represents a failure by archaeologists to muster political support, despite archaeology's wide and increasing public popularity. If we want to change this we must campaign politically on a national level. Now is the time to write to mps and parliamentary candidates. We must make them all aware of the broad public support for archaeology and draw to their attention the decline of funding for archaeology and the damage that this will do. Until archaeology has a strong presence in all politicians' postbags, they will continue to feel able to treat it as irrelevant to 21st century Britain.

Martin Millett, Laurence professor of classical archaeology, Cambridge University; Tim Schadla-Hall, Institute of Archaeology UCL; David Hinton, Southampton University; Colin Haselgrove, Leicester University; Graeme Barker, Cambridge University; Martin Carver, York University; Tim Darvill, Bournemouth University; Matthew Johnson, Southampton University; Marilyn Palmer, Leicester University; Rosemary Cramp, Durham University; Anthony Harding, Exeter University; Roberta Gilchrist, Reading University.

Revenue cut, not boost

From Editor

The figures in Tessa Jowell's letter (above) need a little elaboration.

The secretary of state gave English Heritage an additional £16m for the period 2005/06–2007/08. As she points out, £12m of this is designated for capital works. Under government accounting rules, however, works to heritage assets and archaeological work are not generally counted as capital, so this £12m cannot be used towards them. That leaves £4m additional revenue funding over three years. Adjusted for inflation, this is a £14m real terms cut in their revenue.

"Over 300 archaeologists" also needs qualification, as this describes matters before English Heritage's recent modernisation programme. The total included not only the entire former Archaeology Department and the former Historic Buildings and Areas Research Department, but also the field monument wardens and ancient monument inspectors who advise the public and archaeologists outside English Heritage. Omitting managers and administrative staff, there are now about 100 EH staff engaged in fieldwork, survey and analysis. These teams embrace aerial photography, archaeological science and buildings and archaeological survey, and the Greater London Archaeology Advisory Service. There are also 50 field monument wardens and ancient monument inspectors, and 50 staff working on archaeological strategy.

Editor

Charles Clover, Daily Telegraph Oct 16 2004

Ms Jowell initially considered the costcutting option... [of] hiving off English Heritage's houses and historic monuments... But it was pointed out that the National Trust is...most unlikely to accept a single property as a gift without an endowment.

The review [set up by Jowell] is now understood to be looking at what savings could be achieved by all the bodies [concerned with the protection of listed buildings] by joint working...

Tessa Jowell, at launch of Heritage Counts, Dec 6

I will publish a mini-manifesto on the arts, heritage and culture before the next election, to mark the new year with a lively debate. Are there too many heritage bodies? They must be more efficient, and collaborate more widely and more imaginatively.

Neil Cossons, chairman of EH, at the same event

If you sideline our heritage, you sideline the nation's soul.

British Archaeology editorial, Jan/Feb 2005

So, Tessa Jowell, what makes you think we can do without English Heritage?

Richard Brooks, Sunday Times Mar 13

Jowell... is threatening to dismantle English Heritage... [after] a series of bitter rows between the government and English Heritage, including one over its attempt to derail plans by John Prescott... to demolish thousands of Victorian homes... Under Jowell's suggestions, to be outlined in a pamphlet... just before Easter, the National Trust could become by far the country's most important custodian of historic buildings... [the essay says] the heritage world is "too middle-class".

Tessa Jowell to Neil Cossons, Mar 14

I am sure you were as astounded and infuriated as I was to see the piece in the Sunday Times yesterday...

I have no plans to close the organisation, nor have there been any "bitter rows" between us. Nor do I plan to hand control of your historic sites to the National Trust or anyone else. English Heritage is the lead body in the sector and does superb work in promoting and protecting our historic and built environment.

As you know, the issue of structural change was discussed – and ruled out – last year. I have no plans to revisit this decision. It is, however, quite true that I believe that the heritage world could be...more powerful...if they spoke with one voice...

Simon Thurley, chief exec of EH, to staff Mar 15

One of the outcomes of Power of Place was the creation, five years ago, of HEREC (Historic Environment Review Executive Committee). This is a body led by English Heritage, consisting of 13 individual heritage organisations who speak collectively on the historic environment and produce an annual audit of the state of the historic environment, Heritage Counts. There is a similar network of heritage voluntary organisations...called Heritage Link.

Look and learn - Star Letter

From Philippe Planel

Hilary Daniels (Letters, Mar/Apr) invites someone to explain the purpose of the In view column to her. So here goes. It raises issues which go to the heart of the role of archaeology in contemporary society, or so it seems to me. The first of these is public access to archaeology.

Time Team's Phil Harding recently spoke to a packed school hall in a small town in the West Country. The enthusiasm of the audience made clear a huge public thirst for archaeology. Equally clearly, his audience was rather different from those that attend lectures and events put on by the very active county archaeological society. For many people television archaeology is the only archaeology they know and therefore it is of considerable interest to examine how archaeology is presented on television. Archaeology is, after all, to some extent funded by the taxpayer.

Secondly, like it or not, television influences the way people construct their identities. (Hilary Daniels might have noticed that the church, the squire and the Queen's speech do not have the influence they used to.) A notion of the past has always acted as a cornerstone in constructing identities – from the creation myth of traditional societies to the modern notion of "heritage". In view very ably analyses the various kinds of past which are mediated by television.

As a continuing education archaeology tutor, television archaeology brings me students who take an Alevel in archaeology, eventually join the county archaeological society and even go on to degree courses. The CBA news article "Lobbying for archaeology" (Mar/Apr) mentions how tenuous the opportunities for archaeology to thrive are. Mick Aston talks about the importance of building bridges between "them" and "us" and the powerful role of the media in doing so – another reason for In view. In asking that the column confine itself to merely advertising forthcoming programmes, Daniels seems to have missed the point.

Philippe Planel, Honiton

From Chris Tripp

The comment attributed to Mick Aston that "archaeologists in the academic world have lost their ability to communicate" misses the point (In view, Mar/Apr). As there was never a "golden age" of public involvement, it is more a matter of starting to communicate, as he has done so well.

Developments in mass communication mean that a possibility exists, as never before, to engage as many people, as would want to, in their heritage.

Archaeology programming must be relevant. This is only possible if the public are also actively involved. Let us have new faces to bring enthusiastic and exciting archaeological projects into the living rooms of Britain; the people of Britain themselves.

Archaeologists will need training in the workplace, with the support of the profession, the media, local and national government, and the colleges, funded by them and the various heritage bodies. Museums and units around the country, still too little in number, employ community archaeologists full-time. Look at the article in the same issue ("Not just batter puddings") to see how community archaeology projects are having a profound impact on the recording of archaeological sites.

So let's bring in these people whose heritage it is. Let's have the story of the multiple cultures of the past told by the people who are laying down the latest archaeological layers today for future generations to find. Academic archaeologists, field archaeologists, community archaeologists and the public working in partnership. Because the past is not another country.

Chris Tripp, Brockley

From John Burrows

I wish to support Hilary Daniels. We do not want to read about TV programmes we saw/missed in the past. We would welcome details of archaeological programmes to be shown in the future. And can I remind you that there is also an ancient device called the radio which many of us still use. True archaeology on the radio is a rare event. How about a campaign for more.

John Burrows, Cheltenham

Early bird

From Heather Edwards

The day after receiving the Jan/Feb British Archaeology I went into one of my local charity shops. The first thing that caught my eye was a near perfect 1946 copy of Jacquetta Hawkes's Early Britain; complete with green dust jacket. How shall I classify this rare find?

Heather Edwards, Penrith

Hadrian's shelter

From Bull Putnam

Your piece on Spadeadam brings back memories ("Digging up the space age", Mar/Apr). I was a newly appointed lecturer in archaeology at Weymouth in 1968, and took my first students on a field trip to Hadrian's Wall. It was a very different place to what it is today – mostly a matter of knocking on farm doors to ask to see features which are now presented as heritage sites. It was usually free, except for the bridge at Willowford where we had to pay sixpence.

At Birdoswald we were examining the turf wall east of the fort. Suddenly there was a fearful roar and a glance to the north showed a boiling cloud of steam rapidly rising into the air. We had no idea what it was, and assumed some terrible disaster, to the extent that we sheltered behind the stone wall and waited for the blast to reach us.

It was not till we returned to the Youth Hostel at Once Brewed in the evening that we heard all about the top secret rocket research establishment that had so startled us.

Bill Putnam, Dorchester, Dorset

Fire did not burn stone

From Neil Redfern

We have the following observations on your article [on the Fylingdales engraved stone, News Mar/Apr].

The fire did not come into contact with the stone – it was buried at that time. If it was in a fragile condition then we would have taken different action.

Apart from asking people not to openly discuss its location and context, the only decision on publicity, taken jointly with other partners including nymnp and Defra, was to hold off until completion of the first phase of the restoration works and until we had secured the Defra Special Project.

No decision on the final location of the stone has been taken. The laser scan has achieved an extremely detailed record and could be used to manufacture very accurate images or replicas, suitable for both study and display.

Neil I Redfern, inspector of ancient monuments English Heritage Yorkshire region

Museum come clean

From Sean McGrail

The prehistoric Ferriby boats and the early medieval Graveney boat are not the only ancient boats that have been dispersed from the National Maritime Museum (Spoilheap, Mar/Apr). When I moved from the museum's Archaeological Research Centre upstream to Oxford in 1986, the nmmhad a unique collection of 15 or so excavated boats or parts of boats, ranging in date from 2000BC to AD1200. I understand that, in addition to the three Ferriby boats and the Graveney boat, others have been given to museums or returned to their original owners: these include the Kentmere extended logboat (to Windermere), the Lough Errill logboat (to Cambridge), and the Wood Quay medieval ship timbers (to Dublin). But where are the Brigg sewn plank boat of 800BC, the boat remains from Caldecotte, West Mersea and East Rea, and the timbers from Henry v's Grace Dieu?

Furthermore, each of these Greenwich acquisitions had an associated archive and some had scale models, all of interest to researchers. Have these been transferred with their parent boat, or are they still at Greenwich? I suggest that the National Maritime Museum should now publish the whereabouts of each item in its former archaeological collection, including associated archives and models.

Sean McGrail, Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Southampton University

Anglo-Saxon sailors

From John Haywood

The belief, prevalent among nautical archaeologists, that seafarers did not use sailing ships much before the Viking age is surprising given the reliable literary evidence. The letter of the Gallo-Roman Sidonius Apollinaris to which Edwin and Joyce Gifford refer in "Fit for a king" (Jan/Feb), for example, contains an explicit statement that Saxon pirates used sailing ships, written c473, around 150 years before the Sutton Hoo ship was buried. As Namatius, his correspondent, was an officer in the Visigothic fleet stationed in the Garonne to ward off Saxon and Herul (a Jutland tribe) pirates there is little reason to doubt that Sidonius knew what he was talking about. The earliest reference to the Germanic peoples of the North Sea coast using sails dates to AD70, in the works of that obscure Roman historian Tacitus.

Nautical archaeologists, alas, see the development of northern European shipbuilding as a linear process culminating in the Viking longship.Any evidence which challenges this neat progression is ignored. This is as blinkered in its way as it would be to see biological evolution as a process which culminates with human beings and ignore the millions of other species of animals and plants. The development of shipbuilding and seafaring in northern Europe was almost certainly more complex and diverse than they would have us believe.

John Haywood, Lancaster

Small quarries

From Neil Campling

I have to object to your comment on Eric Houlder's photograph of the Thornborough henges (Letters, Jan/Feb). You state "In this photo... considerably more of the original landscape survives than today". Wrong. Within the limits shown, only c6ha of land have been quarried since the photograph was taken. Yes, another 76ha well beyond the photograph have been quarried in the 1990s, but Houlder's photograph shows much the same landscape as today. In fact, there is less open water now than shows in the 1978 photograph area.

Neil Campling, principal archaeologist North Yorkshire county council

Strange rock

From Nigel MacBeth

I very much liked John Schofield's Opinion (Mar/Apr) regarding graffiti and I agree whole heartily with his statement "that they should always be recorded". I have been photographing graffiti since my art college days. This is on top of a hill called The Cloud, between Macclesfield and Leek, taken about 20 years ago in a snow storm: I've always been curious about how the marks were made and possible date.

Nigel MacBeth, Ipswich

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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