British Archaeology 98, January/February 2008

The archaeology galleries at Amgueddfa Cymru–National Museum Wales, Cardiff have been spectacularly redesigned, with a focus on the relationship between past lives and the present. Lead curator Mark Redknap says the team set out to humanise the stories. "Archaeology is a great spur to creativity", he claims, pointing to contemporary music, art and animation throughout the displays.

Opening the day after this magazine is published, on the museum's ground floor (previous displays were on two levels on a higher floor), Origins: In Search of Early Wales features many famous antiquities from the first hominins' arrival to the end of the middle ages. The 230,000-year-old teeth from Pontnewydd Cave – Europe's most north-westerly neanderthal remains – are put into context in a "skull wall", and the Capel Garmon iron age firedog stands as "a masterpiece of Celtic blacksmithing". Amongst recent finds is an early Roman bronze cup with leopard handle from Abergavenny. The late first/second century ad bronze vessel hoard from Manorbier, Pembrokeshire is seen for the first time.

The "Red Lady of Paviland" appears in what is thought to be the first exhibition in Wales of these internationally significant ice age remains, loaned for a year by Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The male skeleton was excavated in 1823 by William Buckland, who glossed over the evidence for its extreme age and implied it represented a Roman prostitute. Later recognised as western Europe's oldest known ceremonial burial, it has now been radiocarbon dated, in results announced in October, to around 29,000 years ago – significantly taking the burial back into a period of warmer climate than previously thought. Some of the accompanying artefacts are also on display.

Redknap, who arrived at the museum in 1988 and is curator of medieval and later archaeology, tells British Archaeology that feedback from surveys and focus groups showed that people wanted a thematic approach, but also were confused without a clear time-line. The result differs from the new artefact-led ancient Europe galleries in the British Museum (News, Sep/Oct) and the purely thematic displays in Edinburgh's Museum of Scotland, and extends the latter's contemporary references.

New work has been commissioned from Mary Lloyd Jones (inspired by neolithic rock art), Sean Harris (animating prehistoric artefacts: "I entered a cathedral", he said of the museum, "and it became a playground") and photographer Daniel Salter. David Nash has loaned a wooden sculpture as counterpoint to early medieval stone crosses. Cardiff composer Simon Thorne has contributed a questioning piece about singing neanderthals. "We hope", says Redknap, "that visitors will discover something captivating about themselves through the past. We would like to make them want to know more".

Popular scheme threatened: culture change needed

In the week that it emerged the government was soon to announce that the £510m Stonehenge roads and visitor project was to be scrapped (arts minister Margaret Hodge told British Archaeology, "The tunnel was never affordable – I'd have killed it off years and years ago"), the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council said it planned to shed the Portable Antiquities Scheme's central unit, effectively initiating the scheme's end.

MLA chief executive Roy Clare said the pas's core staff of five, headed by Roger Bland in the newly-formed Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum, was "inefficient". Clare told British Archaeology that the taxpayer would benefit if the "headquarters and academic collation" were run in a more "corporate way" within the MLA.

Clare is facing a cut of 18% over the next three years in the MLA's central grant of £16.6m from which the PAS currently receives its total budget of £1.3m. Speaking at the launch of the PAS's annual report on November 22, Hodge said Clare has "the difficult task of ensuring the backroom functions don't cost as much as in the past".

Quite what those functions are was not made clear. The PAS has 37 Finds Liaison Officers (FLOs) working across England and Wales, enthusiastic but poorly paid archaeologists who advise the public and record archaeological finds. They depend on the central unit and five finds advisors for everything from legal advice to specialist identifications. Angie Bolton, FLO for Warwickshire and Worcestershire, told British Archaeology that they could not do their job without the central unit. "We need the expertise of the finds advisors", she said, "we need the database". Asked if the scheme would fall without the central unit, she replied, "Definite, yes. It will fold".

The news about Stonehenge and the PAS came weeks after chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling extended funding for the Department for Culture Media and Sports from its current £1.688bn, to £2.221bn in 2010/11, widely seen as a success for the new secretary of state James Purnell. But while arts and sports celebrated, heritage got no mention – despite an expensive and praised heritage protection review awaiting confirmation (News, May/Jun).

Then on October 19 English Heritage heard that its grant in aid will rise from its present £123.7m to £130.7m in 10/11. Below inflation, and small fry – since 97/98 its real-term funding has fallen by a total of £109.8m – but EH was delighted with even this small improvement. At the launch of Heritage Counts 2007 on October 31, Purnell wowed his audience with his apparently genuine support for the historic environment.

Repeated initiatives, often prompted by demands for accountability from Purnell's predecessor Tessa Jowell, have demonstrated the substantial public support for heritage – which in surveys is regularly placed ahead of sports and arts (not least in the DCMS's own Taking Part). It seems we may have a culture secretary of state we can trust: but if he is to fulfil his promise, that recognition of heritage's significance – Stonehenge and the internationally-admired Portable Antiquities Scheme included – needs to reach all opinion-formers in politics, arts and culture.

Cultural icon: Phil Harding or Jonathan Ross?

Phil Harding

Wiltshireman, born 1950.
Team member, Channel 4's Time Team since January 1994, for 188 programmes to date. In 2007, had 14 of 17 broadcasts in the weekly C4 top 30 with a peak of 3.01m viewers.
Says: "I'd give my left leg to have an iron age roundhouse in my garden!"
They say: "The greatest archaeologist in television history" (Guardian).
Investment: shareholder in the Hop Back Brewery.
Proper job: project officer, Wessex Archaeology.

Jonathan Ross

Londoner, born 1960.
Presenter, BBC1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross since November 2001, for 176 programmes. In 2007 to date, had three of 23 broadcastsin the weekly BBC1 top 30 with a peak of 4.48m viewers.
Says: "Abi Titmuss? She's been tied to more bed posts than DavidBlunkett's dog!"
They say: "The sleazy, selfindulgent, foul-mouthed... man who had the potential to be one of our most brilliant broadcasters" (Daily Telegraph).
Investment: owner broadcast production company Hot Sauce.
Proper job: Jonathan Ross.

Roman governor in Scotland

A large piece of a second or third century AD Roman tombstone was found at Carberry, near Inveresk in September. This first such discovery from Scotland since 1834 was made by an enthusiastic fieldwalker, Larney Cavanagh and his 10-year-old son Tyler. The red-brown sandstone slab, 1m across and weighing 340kg, had apparently been ploughed up and dragged to the edge of a field.

An upper panel, mostly missing, shows a naked and dead man, with a horse's hoof and a rider's foot: the remains of a common scene of a Roman cavalryman riding down a barbarian. The lower panel bears a six-line inscription translated as "To the shades of Crescens, cavalryman of the Ala Sebosiana, from the detachment of the Equites Singulares, served 15 years, his heir [or heirs] had this set up".

The Sebosiana, raised in Gaul under Tiberius, served in Germany and Italy before coming to Britain in the early 70s, and is recorded at sites in northern England on inscriptions, lead sealings and tile stamps. The commemorated trooper was probably stationed at the Inveresk fort. This is the first record of the Equites Singulares, the governor's mounted bodyguard, in Scotland.

Bones of our forefathers

Published for the first time, this is a transcript of Emmeline Fisher's manuscript buried at the centre of Silbury Hill in 1849 (see next story). A revised version of the poem was printed in 1854; the main changes were to lines 13–14, which then read "Could tell of thee! Could say how once they fanned/The jealous savage, as he paused awhile". Both versions, with full preambles, can be read here online at www.britarch.co.uk/ba/ba98/fisher.shtml.

Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill, Aug 3rd 1849:
Bones of our wild forefathers, O forgive, If now we pierce the chambers of your rest, And open your dark pillows to the eye Of the irreverent Day! Hark, as we move, Runs no stern whisper through the narrow vault? Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale, With backward beckoning arm? No, all is still. O that it were not! O that sound or sign, Vision, or legend, or the eagle glance Of science, could call back thy history lost, Green Pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed Time! O that the winds which kiss thy flowery turf Could utter how they first beheld thee rise; When in his toil the jealous Savage paused, Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair, And scanned the growing hill with reverent gaze, – Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe To join the chant prolonged o'er warriors cold. – Or how the Druid's mystic robe they swelled; Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing The solemn sacrificial ashes bore, To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn, Or where the peasant treads the Churchward path.

Secrets of Silbury poet revealed

A "time capsule" buried at the centre of Silbury Hill in 1849 and recovered by the BBC in 1969, but never fully published, contained a manuscript poem. British Archaeology can reveal that its author, Emmeline Fisher (1825–64), was closely related to William Wordsworth, who admired her work, and that it has now emerged that a second copy may survive.

Silbury, the monumental neolithic mound in Wiltshire whose origin has been newly dated to c24–2200BC, was tunnelled by antiquarians in 1776 and 1849, by the BBC in 1968–9 and, reopening the BBC passage, by English Heritage in 2007, following falls caused by the earlier works. The newest opening has allowed the first full archaeological recording, and sustainable repairs are being made as we go to press: the collapses were seen to be even more substantial than suspected (feature, Jan/Feb 2005).

The 1849 capsule, a stoneware jar, contained 21 items including inscribed plaques, coins, an almanack, a newspaper, a bible meeting poster and a manuscript account of the dig. It was deposited by Richard Falkner, a local antiquary, on September 25.The poem was in an envelope, on which its contents are described, sealed with red wax (as were five other packages); the handwriting seems to be Fisher's. All items are now in the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, except the jar whose location is unknown.

Emmeline's mother was Wordsworth's first cousin. When asked to write a new national anthem for Victoria's coronation, he passed the request to "Emmie", "an inspired Creature" then aged 12, who dashed off five verses. The queen sent Emmeline a writing set, but the anthem was not used. Fisher, who lived in Wiltshire, continued to write and publish poetry throughout her life.

The full Silbury poem has only once been printed, without comment, in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine five years after it was written. This differs in several small details from the handwritten version, which is transcribed opposite. Both are dated August 3.

While researching this story, the editor was contacted by Guy Smith (through Ros Cleal, Avebury museum curator and the writer Jenni Mills) who remembers finding an "ode" to Silbury in an old book, probably from the London area, when he was 10 years old. Watching the BBC broadcasts at the time, he showed the manuscript to the Silbury archaeologists (almost certainly before the discovery of the 1849 capsule). "It was unbelievably exciting", he says, "they took me into the tunnel". Inspired by the site's early outside broadcast vans, Smith went on to become a television producer. The location of his document, which could be a Fisher copy of the poem but is unlikely to be the one now in Avebury, is not known.

Medieval archaeology comes of age

The Society for Medieval Archaeology, established at the initiative of key practitioners such as Donald Harden, Rupert Bruce-Mitford, John Hurst and David Wilson, is celebrating its foundation 50 years ago in 1957. Awareness of the importance of medieval archaeology grew with regeneration after the second world war, which led to large-scale excavations in historic cities including London, York and Southampton. The fledgling discipline unusually combined archaeological and historical methods, leading to collaborative work with history, art history, geography and placename studies. Archaeology uniquely emphasised "history from below", using material evidence to study the medieval "everyman", rarely present in elite documentary sources.

Pioneering approaches to the medieval countryside included landmark excavations at the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy, Yorkshire (1952–90), while other studies focused on moated and monastic sites, castles and nucleated and dispersed settlements. The complexity and huge quantity of medieval data led to the emergence of specialist research groups on settlement, vernacular architecture, pottery, finds, castles and church archaeology.

The society promotes study of the fifth to 16th centuries ad, publishing an annual journal (sally.foster@scotland.gsi.gov.uk) and a monograph series (www.maney.co.uk/series/smam), and sponsoring conferences, fieldwork grants and academic prizes. Medieval archaeologists today favour an integrated approach to studying landscapes, exploiting environmental and ecological approaches in combination with gis and geophysics. Particularly through the study of burials and material culture, medieval archaeology has engaged with archaeological theory to move beyond the "medieval everyman" to consider how gender, age, ethnicity, class and religion construct individual social identities.

Free access to a digital archive of volumes 1–50 of Medieval Archaeology is shortly to be launched through the Archaeology Data Service (ads.ahds.ac.uk). The Society's new website carries details of conferences, prizes and research grants (www.archaeology.org). On May 3 2008, a workshop will be held at University College London called Looking to the Future. All are welcome.

In brief

Scottish archaeology online

The Archaeology Data Service and the Council for Scottish Archaeology have scanned every issue of Discovery and Excavation in Scotland from 1947 to 2001, for free online access (ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/library/des/index.cfm). DES, a complete yearly record of archaeology in Scotland that has developed from a nine-page typescript to a 150-page illustrated journal, is thought to be unique in Europe. The first issue notes excavations by, amongst others, Gerhard Bersu, Ian Richmond and (at seven sites) JK St Joseph. The most recent five volumes are available to CSA members in print form.

Valuing archaeology

"York is widely known to be one of the richest archaeoligical [sic] sites in the world." Despite this shaky start, the York Archaeological Trust sold up to five lots on eBay to spend a day digging at Hungate, "on a one to one basis with a qualified archaeologist", for £200 each. The auction was arranged by the Association of Independent Museums, and proceeds were to be shared between YAT and AIM.

Lichens tell story of lost habitats

A project researching Britain's lost biodiversity, run by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is looking for historic lichens. The study aims to reconstruct poorly-known patterns in lichen communities present before the devastating effects of the industrial revolution. Lichens are powerful indicators of environmental change, and the information they reveal can help in the restoration of modern degraded environments. Early timberframed buildings (especially wattle) are a good potential source of lichens: a 16th century ash pole from Sussex preserved an assemblage of four different genera absent today in Sussex, but typical of open woodland in clean-air regions of Devon and Cornwall. If you know suitable thatch, timbers or wattles, please contact Rebecca Yahr at r.yahr@rbge.ac.uk.

Orkney mesolithic radiocarbon dated

A charred hazelnut shell from Long Howe, Tankerness has been dated to 6820–6660BC, the first date for mesolithic activity in Orkney. The shell was in a pocket of soil preserved beneath the bronze age burial mound.

Phase 2

Continuing the trail of artefacts that may or may not indicate bronze age trade linking Britain and the Mediterranean (Phase 2, Nov/Dec), reader David Clegg has a story from the Whitby Gazette dated Nov 27 1936, in which Frank Elgee pleaded for information about a Cypriot copper dagger supposedly found near Egton, Yorkshire. His dilemma was typical: there seemed no reason to dismiss the find, but it had been given to him by someone who said it had been given them by someone whose friend had found it when herding sheep – only the first of the three men still being alive.

Making History, the exhibition at the Royal Academy, London of antiquities and their eccentric and sometimes brilliant advocates (Briefing, Nov/Dec and earlier passim), has done well, says Christopher Catling in the Society of Antiquaries' newsletter. "The RA has a success on its hands", he writes. However, this is "partly... due to the number of visitors who gain free access by virtue of being a Fellow of our Society, or a Friend of the RA. In terms of free visits, this has been one of the most successful exhibitions the RA has ever mounted". Let's hope they bought the wonderful catalogue – this issue's editor's choice (Books).

The Mary Rose Trust has asked the Heritage Lottery Fund for £21m, having failed in 2006 to win £13.5m (feature, Sep/Oct 2006). The money is for continuing conservation of artefacts and the ship's hull, and a proposed newmuseum. "If there is no funding", said chief executive Admiral John Lippiett, "then there will be no Mary Rose".

Mick Aston went to the Hebrides in the last issue, and visited a broch at Dun Bharabhat on Lewis (Nov/Dec, p37) – not the Dun Bharabhat broch noted in More travels (p39), which is actually on Great Bernera.

In Ian Bapty's Offa's Dyke feature (Nov/Dec, p25) a digital file of a good photo of a ditch section dug by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust in 1976 was corrupted, and the left end transposed to the right. Sorry.

The government might begin by properly funding one of the great historic identifiers of the British Isles: not Stratford's Olympics, but Salisbury's Stonehenge.
Tristram Hunt after the launch of History Matters, Guardian.

British

Archaeology

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Issue 98

January / February 2008

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