Issue 99

March / April 2008

Contents

news

Was missing body a Dutchman in Scotland?

Can international support save antiquities scheme?

Phase 2

features

Stonehenge: now what?
With the tunnel scheme scrapped, BA asks about the future

The wreck of the SS Mendi
John Gribble tells the story of forgotten war labourers

Stanway
Philip Crummy and colleagues report on an elite cemetery at Camulodunum

on the web

Recommended websites
Seriously good free texts, and new Welsh date index

letters

Views and responses

CBA correspondent

Campaigns, comment and communications from the CBA
Mike Heyworth introduces a new initiative to promote archaeology in the community

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

news

Was missing body a Dutchman in Scotland?

News has been released of some remarkable pots excavated in 2005 near Kilmartin, Argyll & Bute. They date from over 4,000 years ago, and suggest Scottish contact with Holland, Ireland and Yorkshire in the copper and early bronze ages. The pots, which had been buried in graves, are the latest finds in a large complex of burials and ritual structures excavated at Upper Largie in advance of gravel quarrying over the past 25 years.

The larger of two graves contained three Beakers, a type of ceramic found across much of north, west and central Europe. It is very rare to find more than one pot at once, but the style of these adds to their interest: they are of early, international type (known technically as epi-maritime, cordzoned-maritime and all-over-cord respectively), whose closest parallels are from the Netherlands; charcoal radiocarbon dated to 2570–2280BC confirms this early dating.

The only other artefacts were two pieces of flint, one of which, says Alison Sheridan of National Museums Scotland, is a continental Beaker-style hollow-based arrowhead. Bone does not survive in the sand and gravel, but excavation director Martin Cook of AOC Archaeology Group says the archaeologists have no doubt that a human body had been laid in the pit, which measured 3.2m×1.8m. The crushed state of two of the pots suggests they had been placed in a wooden coffin, which had collapsed, bringing down a layer of stones placed above – another Dutch parallel: as is a ring of closely spaced posts, standing within a ditch about 5.5m in diameter, that enclosed the pit. Just to the south were four larger pits that also held posts.

At a later date (shown by its cutting through the ring ditch) a second grave was dug, in which was placed a Food Vessel pot of unique design. Sheridan says the upper part is of Irish style of c2150BC: but its four feet are a Yorkshire characteristic. "This pot", she says, "encapsulates the external contacts of the early bronze age Kilmartin valley elite". Stuart Needham, a leading bronze age specialist, says the earlier pots "perfectly represent the skein of long-distance connections that was rapidly established in the pioneering Beaker phase, across sea and land to the continental mainland".

Previously excavated ceremonial structures in the area include an early neolithic cursus monument and a timber post ring 46m across (News, Nov 1997). The 2005 excavations were sponsored by quarry operator M&K McLeod Ltd.

Can international support save antiquities scheme?

In December we revealed that Roy Clare, chief executive of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, planned to force staff cuts at the Portable Antiquities Scheme, to help accommodate a reduced MLA grant (News, Jan/Feb; www.britarch.ac.uk/news/pas.html). Shocked supporters of the PAS responded by mounting a strong campaign. Tim Schadla-Hall, reader in public archaeology at UCL Institute of Archaeology, said British Archaeology had been "hugely helpful and influential".

James Purnell, until January 24 secretary of state at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, received concerned letters from around the world. The Archaeological Institute of America told him that, "during this period of continual warfare and destruction of cultural property", the PAS is "one of the few viable models for archaeologists" for the "protection of the common heritage that we all so greatly value". The American Numismatic Society said the scheme "is viewed with genuine admiration around the world".

As we go to press, two Downing Street e-petitions have garnered 2,350 signatures (petitions.pm.gov.uk) and an early day motion in parliament has been signed by 159 MPs. Tim Loughton MP, who launched the EDM, said this was the most effective lobbying campaign he had known: one MP had been written to by 15 constituents.

Sixteen leading British archaeology professors wrote to Purnell to counsel against the diversion of resources "away from recording finds towards outreach activities", and suggested that a better home for the PAS than the MLA would be the British Museum: as did Colin Renfrew in the Guardian online comment is free (Lost or found? Dec 17). Discussions are underway between British Museum director Neil MacGregor, Roy Clare and arts minister Margaret Hodge. Clare has said he will freeze the PAS budget. In a parliamentary debate on January 22, Hodge confirmed that the PAS "has to seek its efficiency savings... out of their administrative budgets". The cuts, however, can result only in a lower quality service. They will lead to the loss of four or five posts, says PAS director Roger Bland, and reductions in staff travel: regional finds liaison officers will be able to visit the British Museum's central unit (for example, to bring in treasure cases) only twice a year; his work with metal detecting clubs across England and Wales will be curtailed. "There is no slack", he said.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the MLA's head of museum policy, likely to be advising Clare, believes the PAS serves only a minority ("detectorists"). In An Introduction to Museum Archaeology (Cambridge University Press, November 2007, p106), Hedley Swain writes that "a large amount of public money" is being spent on "a very small and particular part of the general public", and "unstratified and often unprovenanced metal finds"; the scheme, he adds, openly condones "a hobby that is still on occasion used to damage archaeological sites". Most archaeologists would object to all these claims, which ignore the wider benefits to society of the knowledge and engagement opportunities the scheme creates. Bland tells ba that in 2007, 26% of finds reported to the PAS were not recovered with metal detectors.

After reading our report, a concerned detector user, Corinne Mills, wrote to Clare. He replied, "We have... pointed out to the magazine that their version does not tally with the words actually used, and heard by others". We quoted Clare precisely; the editor has had no communication from him since the story was printed.

Phase 2

An article by Kathy Tubb on unprovenanced antiquities (Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 18, 2007), prompts strong comment on the Schøyen collection's Aramaic bowls (Jan/Feb, feature). Neil Brodie (Archaeology Center, Stanford University) says UCL's failure to publish its report on the bowl's provenance (they are thought to be from Iraq) is "blocking academic research into a subject with... serious social import", putting the university into "a shameful and embarrassing position". He notes Schøyen seems to have purchased most of the bowls at a time of looting after the 1991 Gulf war, and that looting proceeds are known to fund insurgents. Ricardo J Elia (Department of Archaeology, Boston University) adds that "No informed and honest person can deny that collecting causes looting [and] that looting causes destruction of the archaeological record".

In February 2006 we reported that the owner of land on which a carved Roman tombstone had been found in Lancaster, hoped to sell it in America (News, Mar/Apr). We told the Times's Dalya Alberge, who ran a major story. International interest ensued, with a strong local campaign, and in November 2006 it was announced that Lancaster had acquired the stone (News, Feb 2007). This and more, mostly accurately, is told in a new, copiously illustrated guide by Stephen Bull. Triumphant Rider: The Lancaster Roman Cavalry Tombstone is published by Lancashire Museums (£5, ISBN 9781874181477).

In a News piece about the Society for Medieval Archaeology (Jan/Feb), a photo caption wrongly credits excavations at Bishopstone: the Sussex Archaeological Society led the project with the University of Kent and Gabor Thomas, now at Reading University. Apologies

Joyce McQueen: If you could live and work as a designer in any era, which one would it be? Alexander McQueen: Let's stick to the past... I'm thinking cavemen and loincloths. The fashion designer is interviewed by his mother, Guardian 2004

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