Archaeological Society
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THE EASTBOURNE NATURAL HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Founded 1867 Autumn Newsletter No 100 September 2019 The artefacts above were all found by Monika Buttling-Smith and Jason Sandy when mudlarking on the Thames foreshore. Come to learn more at our meeting on 25th October. EASTBOURNE NATURAL HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY President: Lawrence Stevens ENHAS Acting Chairman John Warren Hon. Treasurer & Membership Secretary John Warren 49 Prideaux Rd Eastbourne BN21 2NE Tel: 01323 731792 [email protected] Hon. Secretary & Newsletter Editor Helen Warren M: 07811 480292 [email protected] Other committee members: Rob Davies, Sheena Dine, Neil Richardson and Alison Selmes For general enquiries Email: [email protected] A Message from the Editor Welcome to the100th issue of the ENHAS Newsletter! Thanks to all who have contributed over the years. In this edition there is a summary of Kim Hunnisett’s Butts Brow Report 2016. Let me know if you would like the full report emailed as a PDF. On pages 6 - 7 you can find out more about our committee. Also included in this issue is the Bullock Down walk. Page 3 is a plea for help! As you know it has not been an easy time for ENHAS over the last few years but things are looking up. Our Autumn and Spring programme is more or less arranged although we need members to volunteer for the Christmas meeting and someone to speak after our AGM in April. From time to time I send out emails to all on my membership mailing list. Please ensure that you have completed and returned the GDPR form allowing me to use your contact details. If you did not receive an email about the meeting on 27th September then you are not on my list! I welcome articles for the Newsletter. The next issue will be on out on 13th December at our Christmas meeting, copy date 27th Nov. With all good wishes, Helen Warren [email protected] Can You Help? Sadly, due to personal reasons, both Corinne and Spencer Betts have resigned from the ENHAS committee. This leaves the committee short. The Society is not able to function properly without more on the committee with members taking a more active part. For example, at our recent meeting we were not quorate as out of the seven on the committee only four were able to attend. Please consider joining the committee, we really are a friendly lot! Meetings are about five times a year and are held at our house in Prideaux Road at 7.30 in the evening. We are looking for members with ideas, expertise or simply enthusiasm who can work with a team. We are all volunteers but there is only so much we can do and we need more help. For almost a year now we have been without a Chairman. John Warren is standing in as “pro tem” but this is not ideal as he is also treasurer and membership secretary. We would welcome a new Chairperson for ENHAS. Or can you help at the meetings, e.g. setting out the chairs, serving refreshments or setting up the microphone or projector? Please talk to any of the committee if you are interested in helping in any way or Email: [email protected] . On another matter, our Christmas meeting is on Friday 13 December - not the fourth Friday of the month! It is traditional for the speakers to be ENHAS members at this festive meeting. It would be good to have four members giving talks on archaeological or natural history matters that interest them. Could you talk for ten minutes? If so, please contact one of the committee. Don’t let the date put you off! The complete report on the Jevington Church Field excavation has yet to be finalised. At present we are waiting for analysis of the glass and metal finds although the report on the flints is finished. Once Steve Corbett has all the reports he will write up the final report. It is hoped that in the future ENHAS will be able to continue research in Jevington village looking at historical records and digging test pits in gardens. Which brings me on to this... Would you like to be part of a future project that could involve researching historical records, taking part in excavations and recording finds,? Do you have expertise that you could share in leading a dig or running a workshop? If so, contact Neil and let him know your thoughts. Email: [email protected] Lastly thanks for reading this. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you can help in any way. Helen Warren T: 01323 731792 M: 07811 48029 3. Butts Brow 2017 Report Kim Hunnisett has now written up the report which I am happy to email as a PDF, all 49 pages! However, here is my summary. The excavations were conducted by volunteers from ENHAS between Friday 21st July to Sunday 23rd July 2017. The excavation ran alongside the community and research excavation conducted by Heritage Eastbourne at the Beehive Plantation, Butts Brow near Willingdon, Eastbourne. The Beehive Plantation excavations focused on a sub-circular earthwork consisting of an internally banked ditch which was also externally banked in parts. Excavations of this site in 2016 produced an assemblage of thirty sherds of pottery within the ditch fill dated to between 3750 – 3550 cal. BC, meaning that this earthwork is contemporary with, or even predates the nearby Combe Hill causewayed enclosure. The main objective of the ENHAS excavation was to determine the function of a number of earthworks within close proximity to the Beehive Neolithic enclosure and how they related to this monument. The dating of this monument is based on evidence from excavations conducted in 2016. Initial objectives were to investigate three earthwork features, believed to be bank and ditch features by excavating a section through each of them. A fourth trench (23) was opened on the second day of excavation to investigate another possible ditch feature between trenches 21 and 22. In trench 21 a feature was interpreted as a ditch and it has been proposed that this forms part of an outer ditch of the Neolithic enclosure. However, the limits of the excavation mean that it is difficult to conclude that this feature is part of a ditch and could instead be a discrete pit feature, possibly the result of flint extraction from the clay-with-flints deposit. In trench 22 a feature has been interpreted as a cross-ridge dyke and many of these linear earthworks are typically found on the South Downs. Trench 23 again showed a possible ditch. There was a layer of tabular flint in its base which appeared to have been partially removed on the western side. During construction of the ditch, the excavated material appeared to have been predominantly deposited on the north side of the ditch to form a bank. The number of finds from the ENHAS excavations were small with most of the assemblage recovered from trench 21a and b. Most was worked flint with a small amount of pottery from the primary fill of Trench 21. Two very small sherds of pottery with four further fragments of possible pottery were found within trench 21a. These sherds were very abraded with a coarse fabric that was dark grey in colour with moderate poorly sorted sub-angular flint inclusions. This pottery has similarities to the pottery found at the Beehive Neolithic enclosure which was attributed to the Early Neolithic (3750- 3550BC). 4. The earth work in trench 21 provided the greatest potential for a connection to the enclosure and has been tentatively interpreted as an outer ditch. This is difficult to confirm with the limited investigations .The presence of clay-with-flints in trench 21, as well the north end of trench 23, could be significant as there is evidence for the use of these surface deposits for producing flint axes, particularly towards the latter end of the Neolithic on the Sussex Downs. These deposits provided a good quality source of both nodular and tabular forms of flint which were used to produce flint tools, particularly axes. There is debate about the function of causewayed enclosures, however one argument is that they acted as gathering points for dispersed groups to exchange precious objects and in- crease social bonds. Many of these sites, including Combe Hill causewayed enclosure, have deposits of whole, broken or fragmented flint axes which appear to have been intentionally deposited within the enclosure. The deposition of broken and fragmented axes may hold some ritual significance. An example is the intentional destruction of axes and their burial along with burnt human bone in pits at the causewayed enclosure at Etton in Peterborough. The finds associated with causewayed enclosures could account for the lack of finished tools or axes during the ENHAS excavations, and that this was a possible site of extraction and production of flint objects to be exchanged or deposited elsewhere, potentially at the causewayed enclosure on Combe Hill. It is clear that the landscape surrounding the Neolithic monuments at Combe Hill and Butts Brow has been a focal point for people throughout prehistory and beyond. The favourable locations of these two enclosures on an elevated ridge providing a panorama of the coast to the east and the Weald to the North would have been advantageous for the prehistoric inhabitants of this area. Equally, the elevated position of this location and its monuments would have been highly visible from the surrounding landscape, signifying their importance to a society for whom ritual ideology dictated all aspects of daily life.