Issue 87

March/April 2006

Contents

news

Unique Roman tombstone may leave UK

"No synthesis of British prehistory is right"

Neolithic road is unique

Bottle message is dry

The dead make way for iron age warrior

In Brief

features

When Rome left Britain: the Bosnian perspective
Buckles and Bosnia - Stuart Laycock has a dark vision of early historic Britain.

Telling the story of the people who made London
Archaeology in London: Peter Rowsome reviews a year of new publications.

Boudica: a queen in search of a husband
Finding Prasutagus: Amanda Chadburn deciphers iron age coins.

on the web

Recommended websites

letters

Views and responses

CBA news

Headlines from the CBA office.

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

news

Unique Roman tombstone may leave UK

An extraordinary Roman tombstone found last November in Lancaster, featuring a mounted trooper holding a sword and the head of a man he has just killed, may go abroad if the money to keep it in Britain cannot be found. The stone, originally up to 2.5m tall, was excavated by the University of Manchester Archaeology Unit on the site of a proposed apartment block. The developer has sought valuation advice from Sotheby's.

In three larger and several smaller pieces and currently drying out in Preston Museum, the tombstone has not yet been conserved or properly studied, but specialists agree that it is of exceptional quality and design. An inscription dedicates it to a citizen of the Treveri tribe, known to have occupied an area where Belgium, Germany and France meet and said to have given Julius Caesar his best cavalry. Provisional reading gives the man's name as Lucius Nisus Vodvilleius or Vodvilltius. He served in the Ala Augusta, possibly a known unit with links to Lancaster and Chesters, and Domitia, perhaps his wife or daughter, dedicated the memorial. There are traces of red paint in the letters.

Above the trooper's head, featured in the upper triangular fragment, is a solar face reminiscent of the famous Medusa head from Roman Bath. The beheaded victim still kneels on the ground, holding his sword.

The site is astride a Roman road, and Roman cremation burials were excavated nearby in 2001. Evaluation revealed that 18th century cellars had removed many older deposits. Planning consent was granted subject to excavation of an undisturbed area, where the tombstone was then found.

Lancashire county archaeologist Peter Iles said, "Whilst we anticipated that this might be part of the Roman cemetery, we did not expect a piece of this importance".

Paul Holder, at the John Rylands Library, Manchester, says beheading war victims was accepted Roman practice, but this depiction of a man on horseback seems to be unique. An inscription found in Lancaster in the 18th century (now lost) also names a Trever who served in the same Ala, but despite being a Roman citizen, he was of lower rank than the horseman who had not taken citizenship. "He has a magnificent helmet", said Holder, "with a crest and plumes".

Chris Tudor-Whelan of Tudor-Whelan Property Holdings, owner of the stone, told British Archaeology that he hopes to recoup his archaeological costs by selling the artefact in New York. "Nobody's come up with the money [yet]", he said, "it's stuck there [in the museum] doing nothing". He said Sotheby's had valued it at "up to $100,000".

It is almost certain that an export licence would be needed for the tombstone, which arguably meets all three of the Waverly criteria governing the export of cultural objects.

"No synthesis of British prehistory is right"

In January archaeologists heard a highly regarded colleague call the rhetoric of public archaeology "confusing", teaching about ancient Britain out of date and the organisation of English archaeology "disastrous". In a landmark address at the London Society of Antiquaries, Richard Bradley, professor in archaeology at Reading University, said that when he began a new study of prehistoric Britain and Ireland, "field archaeology seemed to be out of control".

The audience agreed. Geoffrey Wainwright, former chief archaeologist at English Heritage, said this "needed saying". "We were wrong", admitted Timothy Champion, archaeology professor at Southampton University.

Bradley told a packed room that for decades there seemed to have been "two cultures" in archaeology: the recording of threatened ancient remains, and university research. Field archaeology was a business driven by development, he said, while academics worked in "a parallel universe", finding it "impossible" to keep up with excavations.

Television promised the public direct access to the past, "given sufficient technological resources and three days of over-acting". Yet raised expectations were "dashed by the excessive caution" of archaeologists who shied from interpretation and narrative, leaving the public "frustrated and puzzled" by management talk.

Bradley, with Reading University research assistant Tim Phillips, studied the results of commercial fieldwork, much of it published as "grey literature" - archived reports of limited circulation. His major work on British and Irish prehistory will be published by Cambridge University Press at a date to be announced. He now believes that his "pessimism had been misplaced":
• Using grey literature takes time and caution, but it is a valuable resource
• Researchers must talk to field staff as well those tending the historic environment records
• Fieldwork is more sophisticated than ever before, and its scale and ambition are unmatched
• Central southern England is atypical: the North Sea coast better represents the grand story: "No existing synthesis of British or Irish prehistory reflects the current state of play".

Responding, Champion said, "We were wrong. We have an obligation to teach our students what is right".

Bradley's research shows the means are there. "Why did we lack the confidence to realise this before?", he said. There was support, however, for the planning law (PPG16) that created the current system of commercial archaeology. Andrew Lawson, former director of consultancy Wessex Archaeology, described it as "a major triumph".

Bradley's full text will be published in a future Antiquaries Journal.

Neolithic road is unique

Archaeologists excavating Durrington Walls, the large henge near Stonehenge dating from c2500BC, have released further details of last summer's discoveries (News in brief, Nov/Dec 2005). Linking the enclosure's east entrance to the river Avon was a 10m wide "metalled road", resurfaced at least twice. Used only by foot traffic, it is said to be the first of its kind seen in neolithic Europe. It was flanked by ditches, allowing Sheffield University archaeologist Mike Parker-Pearson to call the track an "avenue", by analogy with that at Stonehenge. Durrington Walls's avenue, says Parker Pearson, "leads to the henge in the direction of the midsummer sunset".

Considerable interest also lies in what are now said to be four houses (stake holes of one excavated in 2004 were not then understood). Such houses are extremely rare. The largest is 4m×4m inside, with a central hearth covered in broken Grooved Ware pottery. It originally had walls of vertical wattle panels plastered with daub quarried from nearby pits. A chalk floor of a smaller house was also found.

Bottle message is dry

Archaeologists excavating a prehistoric ceremonial site in Scotland found a message from their predecessors - in a bottle. Unlike William Cunnington, who 200 years ago left port at Stonehenge for his successors, one of the antiquarians had an interest in temperance: this was a mineral water bottle.

Richard Bradley and Amanda Clarke of Reading University began a programme of fieldwork at Broomend of Crichie, Aberdeenshire, last year, to increase understanding of the structure and chronology of the henge monument, thought to have enclosed a stone circle and been connected by an avenue of stones to a second ring. Features found include slots that may be part of an earlier timber structure, three stone sockets and up to seven cremation burials close to the megaliths.

Early antiquarians frequently left tokens in their excavations, coins being a popular memento, and several modern archaeologists are known to have followed the practice. The Broomend bottle, however, is thought to be unique.

The vessel stood upright in the antiquarians' backfill, containing shards of window glass wrapped in a sheet of the Penny Free Press & Northern Advertiser. The glass was inscribed with the names of Charles Dalrymple, his two colleagues and the local farmer, with the date of their excavation, November 22 1855.

George Dalgleish, principal curator of Scottish History at the National Museums of Scotland, identified the bottle as a fizzy water "torpedo", designed to lie on its side to prevent gas building up and forcing out the cork.

Bradley said, "It's typical of Dalrymple that he should have used a soft drink bottle, as he is known to have lectured to the Total Abstainers in the north-east".

The dead make way for iron age warrior

Archaeologists are calling an unusual stone-lined grave found in Dunbar, East Lothian that of a prehistoric warrior. Crouched at one end of the cist with a spear and sword, the warrior was not the first in the grave: the bones of another adult had been pushed to the other end when the body was but partly decomposed.

Last autumn AOC Archaeology Group excavated the site of Dunbar's Empire Cinema, to be developed by Castle Rock Housing Association. It was a former medieval burgage plot, so historical remains were looked for to add to those found in earlier work. "Awell preserved iron age warrior grave", says project officer Mike Roy, was "quite unexpected".

The cist was built with large, irregular sandstone slabs. Amostly disarticulated skeleton, with a small pin, lay at the east, but positioning of ribs and vertebrae suggests some flesh still remained when the body was moved. The secondary burial lay in the western part of the cist, with an iron sword under and parallel to the back, an iron spearhead by the knees and a pin. The cist was resealed with three large stone slabs.

Roy says he knows of only four other such iron age graves in Scotland. One was excavated in 2003 at Alloa, Clackmannanshire, where a sword, spear, copper alloy pin, glass bead and two toe rings accompanied the body. Conservation revealed that the pin had secured a garment or shroud of white or cream linen. Two graves were found at Camelon, Falkirk, the more recent of which yielded a sword, two spearheads and a shield boss; this cist held parts of two skeletons. A fourth grave containing an inhumation and a weapon was reported in Fife.

It is hoped analysis of the Dunbar remains will reveal the age, sex and relationship of the two people, when they died and more about the objects placed with them.

In brief

Scottish planning bill

Communities minister Malcolm Chisholm has described the planning (Scotland) bill as "a once in a lifetime opportunity for reform... bringing communities into the planning process at the earliest stages". The Council for Scottish Archaeology is concerned that the bill ignores the threat to archaeology and heritage posed by development. In January a "cultural rights" policy was launched, with legislation to encourage local authorities to see that everyone in Scotland can "access cultural activity", which might include "information about the local area's cultural heritage". CSA director Eila Macqueen told British Archaeology that despite this, the planning bill contains no provisions to make historic environment records services statutory. Two Scottish local authorities, East Dunbartonshire and Dundee City, have no such services. This is reflected, says Macqueen, in fewer new excavations in these districts, where known sites may be overlooked in development proposals.

University museums

The University of Manchester's "aspirational mission" is to be "one of the leading universities in the world by 2015." CBA president Nick Merriman, who becomes museum director in March, should be at home. His goal, he told BA, is to give Manchester "the most interesting university museum in the world". Universities, he says, "push boundaries, are radical and sometimes they fail - their museums should be like that". UK universities have 90 registered museums and hundreds of unregistered collections, many of great specialist value. They now realise these museums can inform the public, students and sponsors about new research. Current Manchester exhibitions include Mark Dion's surreal office (Briefing Mar/Apr 2005).

World's best flint found 60,000 years ago

Norfolk Neanderthals used high quality flint for their butchery knives, Paul Craddock, former scientist at the British Museum, has revealed. When the museum was analysing flint from neolithic mines (2000BC), they found Neanderthal handaxes from Lynford (60,000BC) were made from the same world-famous Grimes Graves floorstone. It is thought the flint outcropped on the surface.

Stamps with teeth

On March 21 the Royal Mail launches stamps featuring extinct ice age mammals, with attractive and accurate woodblock engravings by AndrewDavidson. With details you will not find on the stamps, the animals are: giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus), which DNA research has shown to be related to fallow deer; sabre tooth cat (Homotherium latidens) - a jaw dredged from the North Sea has been dated to 28,000 years ago; woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) - a specimen found in Whitemoor Haye quarry, Staffs in 2002 had plants stuck in its teeth; woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) which survived in Western Siberia up to 9,800 years ago; and cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), 21 of whose genes were recovered last year from a c43,000 year old tooth.

Phase 2

The revelation that 32 bits of flint take humans back 200,000 years in northern Europe - in effect adding 40% to its history - dominated our last issue, from the cover ("The past is bright, the past is orange", said one reader) to our longest ever feature. It was a new venture for the magazine, asking leading specialists to review research that is complex and revolutionary, changing the face of our ancient past.

It was worth the effort. Less happy stories are circulating that muddle the archaeology. To echo our report, small flake tools from Pakefield, Suffolk have been dated to 700,000 years old. The first handaxes (as from Happisburgh, Norfolk, featured in the photo on page 21 of Jan/Feb) remain at little more than 500,000 years old. This matters. There are behavioural implications in the differences between flakes and handaxes. Excavation and research continue, and we can expect more revelations: but in this dramatic field where evidence is so thin, it is critical to be rigorous with what data there are.

In January scientists led by Soojin Yi published research in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing chimpanzees to be genetically closer to us than other great apes (gorillas and orangutans). As our feature explained, the old term "hominid" for early humans has already been replaced by "hominin", recognising the close relations between chimps and humans. Jane Goodall told us that no archaeologist had worked at the Gombe chimp reserve in Tanzania (May/Jun 2005). It now seems chimps will join the genus Homo.

As modern society needs fast to learn respect for great apes, so archaeologists should treat them and their ancestors with as much interest as they show to hominins. After all, chimps too make tools.

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