C ONTENTS

1 Contents 2 Editorial 3 From the Chair David Jennings 4 From the Finds Tray 6 Registered Archaeological Organisations: a review Tim Howard 7 News from IFA – Conference, website and SALON 8 The Diggers Forum and Invisible Diggers 9 Inclusive, Accessible Archaeology Tim Phillips page 13 10 Ancient monuments and archaeological areas: a magistrate’s decision Roger Thomas 11 Funding and training: bursaries for graduate trainees and other IFA initiatives Kate Geary 12 Taking down the fences: promoting prehistory at English Heritage Jonathan Last 13 The Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual project in Wales Matthew Ritchie page 18 14 Palaeoenvironment, the historic environment and wildlife conservation Elizabeth Pearson 15 Welcome to the Ice Age: the National Ice Age Network Jenni Chambers 16 The Heart of Neolithic Orkney: World Heritage Site Research Agenda Sally Foster 18 Going grey: Prehistory and the potential of grey literature Richard Bradley 20 New Iron Age finds from Warwickshire Stuart Palmer page 20 21 Three Iron Age farms in Northamptonshire, or is it one? Andy Mudd 22 A very special place: prehistory in the Dee valley, northeast Scotland Shannon Fraser 24 Iron Age buildings, burials and metal-working at Knowe of Skea Ness, Orkney Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson 26 A community approach to prehistoric rock art Tertia Barnett 28 Northern Lights: Shetland’s prehistory Val Turner 30 Bronze Age lowland field systems in Southern England Dave Yates 32 A ritual landscape at Boscombe Down Andy Manning 34 Prehistoric flints: an undervalued resource? Chris Butler 35 Prehistoric artefacts and the Portable Antiquities Scheme Sally Worrell 36 Building materials for the archaeologist Michael Nevell page 26 38 Science pages: Dating Scotland’s past: the National Museums’ of Scotland C14 dating programmes Alison Sheridan 41 Jobs in British archaeology 2004 James Drummond Murray 42 New (prehistoric) books reviewed 43 Reviews 48 New members 49 Members news

Spring 2005 Number 56 1 Prehistoric Britain proved another popular topic for this TA brings you news of the recent action on the The Archaeologist, especially with Scottish colleagues, disciplinary side, our new Diggers’ Forum Group, a who have been forthcoming on a range of proposed bursary scheme for workplace trainees, From the Chair significant projects. These include a programme of new ways to support and promote Registered C14 dating that proved that wooden items in the Archaeological Organisations, and an introduction National Museum of Scotland are some of the to the e-newsletter we now offer IFA members in David Jennings earliest equipment in Europe, World Heritage Status conjunction with the Society of Antiquaries of for spectacular sites on Orkney, and Shetland’s London. Our Annual Conference in Winchester was vibrant research activity. In England in particular the best attended that we have known for many we see some of the fruits of developer-funded years and had the added glamour of a ministerial archaeology. Richard Bradley sets out a few of the visit in addition to many excellent archaeological provisional results of his survey of grey literature presentations. Apart from not being able to use the This year’s annual conference at University College and how this is changing interpretation of some new conference facilities we expected, one Winchester was an excellent show case for the monument types, compilation of data on lowly field downside of otherwise fine Winchester hospitality diversity, strength and vitality of IFA and its systems reaps unexpected dividends, and routine was short opening hours in the bar. Next year we membership. The conference theme was evaluations in the Midlands come up with more are planning on holding the conference at appropriately focused on working in historic towns, than expected in Northamptonshire and Edinburgh, and Scottish colleagues assure us that although as you might anticipate, sessions also Warwickshire. For English Heritage, new Prehistory such a disaster would never happen there. covered a wide range of other subjects. tsar Jonathan Last describes how prehistoric archaeology will be promoted, and Matthew Ritchie Martin Biddle delivered a suitably thought- is able to report on Cadw’s successful survey of provoking opening address, sparking debate, and prehistoric funerary and ritual sites. on the second day proceedings were opened by a Alison Taylor speech from Tessa Jowell, Minister for Culture, Tessa Jowell, Peter Hinton and Life within IFA has already been busy this year, and [email protected] Media and Sport. This latter event represented a Paul Light (Principal, University significant ‘coming-of-age’ for the Institute and the College, Winchester) at the sector, demonstrating the incremental and Winchester conference progressive steps that have been taken to move the Photograph: Nick Davis historic environment and archaeology up the political agenda. The Minister’s general message was positive and presaged the release of her essay on the historic and built environment, Better Places We continue to reappraise and amend our to Live. procedures: changes are being drawn up to increase the effectiveness of our disciplinary procedure It is fashionable to be cynical regarding the political following last year’s amendments to the RAO response to the archaeological sector, however, if complaints process. In the meantime we continue to this stance is too stringently upheld, we lose our regulate standards and investigate lack of capacity for a genuine dialogue with government compliance both individually and corporately. that can create the better future for both archaeology and archaeologists. The Diggers’ Forum is now up and running and needs further active support to assist with our At the time of writing the outcome of the election is initiatives in relation to pay and conditions, so Milling around at Winchester (the unknown, but the central message is clear – incisive, please get involved. Finally, we remain in building in polythene should have constructive and persistent engagement by IFA with constructive dialogue regarding implementation of been a new conference facility) government is critical to the future of our past. the Valletta Convention and development of an Wherever possible this lobbying needs to be accreditation scheme for professional practice. undertaken in conjunction with other heritage Notes to contributors bodies; as Tim Howard says (p6), we need to take a As ever, our vision is cast over a wide horizon – you

Themes and deadlines Contributions and letter/emails are always welcome. EDITED by Alison Taylor, IFA, leaf out of the book of other professions and speak would expect nothing less given the current state of Short articles (c. 1000 words) are preferred. They SHES, University of Reading, with a common voice. the profession. Therefore progress seems slow, with Summer: Working in historic towns should be sent as an email attachment, which must Whiteknights, PO Box 227 our goals constantly distant mirages; but this is deadline: 15 June 2005 include captions and credits for illustrations. The editor READING RG6 6AB Our agenda remain consistent with previous unduly negative, and with enthusiasm to slake our Autumn: Working with finds will edit and shorten if necessary. Illustrations are very statements of our ten-year plan. However, it is thirst we will gradually refine image into reality. So deadline: 15 September 2005 important. These are best supplied as originals or on DESIGNED and TYPESET by worth re-stating some key issues occupying let’s stick at it! CD, scanned at a minimum of 500kb. More detailed Sue Cawood Council’s thoughts. As many will be aware from Notes for contributors for each issue are available from subscription renewal literature, attracting new David Jennings the editor. PRINTED by Charlesworth membership is a critical to our plans, so again I Chair, IFA

Editorial would ask everyone to assist with recruitment. [email protected]

2 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 3 FROM THE FINDS TRAY Illustration by Jo Richards

Iron Age find from Devon The Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded this important finds dated to the IFA Finds Group La Tène period. Shaped like a The summer meeting, on ‘Buildings mushroom, it is a cast copper Yearbook 2005 errata Archaeology’, held jointly with the alloy decorative stud, with Tim Francis, IFA Hon Legal Advisor Buildings Archaeology Group, will be on ‘trumpet voids’ decorating the Tim Francis has now moved to Gaston Whybrew Thursday 9 June 2005 at Mortimer Wheeler Archaeology World Report magazine top surface. Some have remains of red enamel still in place. Solicitors, Westwood Park, London Road, Great House, LAARC, London. It will be This bi-monthly magazine aims to introduce the world of It will go on display in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum Horkesley, Colchester, CO6 4BS tel 01206 274153. followed, probably in October, with a field archaeology to the public and the academic alike. The as part of the ‘Objects of Desire’ exhibition, which will He is still available to offer free legal advice to IFA practical session in York or Leicester. If you first three issues include recent archaeology from Antarctica, highlight archaeological objects, including treasure, recently members (up to 30 minutes, on archaeological or have ideas for future meetings (sessions on Rock art in South Africa, Japanese Jomon period sites, and acquired by the museum. JD Hill, British Museum, thinks we non-archaeological matters) by phone or personal glass and residues have been suggested) the archaeology of second world war military earthworks in should look to the Continent for a parallel for this lovely visit. If further legal action is required discounted please let us know. As usual the AGM will Europe. IFA members can receive the first three editions for artefact; so more research will be carried out. rates (10%) will apply be slotted in before lunch. Again, the £8 (postage and packaging free). We would also like to hear Nicola Powell committee will be looking for new if you would like to contribute or to subscribe. Finds Liaison Officer, Devon members so if you are interested, contact Hon Secretary, Archaeology World Report, 2 White Well Farm Cottages, Llancarfan Lane, Bonvilston, Vale of the Hon Secretary. We will be looking for a Library of unpublished fieldwork reports Glamorgan, CF5 6TQ, tel: 01446 781585 new Treasurer and Membership Secretary. It is widely recognised that archaeological [email protected] research is hampered by difficult access to Nicola Powell http://www.geocities.com/archaeologyworldreport/ fieldwork reports. ‘Grey literature’ has limited nicola.powell@exeter.gov.uk Karl-James Langford circulation and is often invisible to the Hague Convention news research community. This new electronic A briefing on UK progress towards ratification of the 1954 Hague library delivers a growing number of such Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of reports to researchers. It brings together Armed Conflict and its two protocols was held at DCMS in March, unpublished reports supplied to the ADS Photograph credits organised by the British Red Cross in association with DCMS and from larger fieldwork archives which may Listing is changing Your Editor allowed the previous Yearbook FCO. Lord McIntosh re-affirmed the Government’s intention to contain additional data, for example the On 1 April DCMS handed administration of listing and cover illustrations to be reproduced on p 11 ratify these important treaties, as announced last May, but there Channel Tunnel Rail Link archive, with others scheduling to English Heritage, and some new procedures of the 2005 Yearbook and directory without would need to be primary legislation. This delay is unfortunate, as submitted through OASIS. Reports so far came into operation. There will now be more consultation with further acknowledgement, whereas I should UNESCO has organised a first meeting of ratified partners in available were contributed by AOC owners before their property is listed, and they will receive have thanked Wessex Archaeology, October and the fact that Britain is not yet a party may affect its Archaeology, Canterbury Archaeological more information about its historical importance. Work is in Archaeoptics Ltd and Hampshire County ability to influence decisions on institutional matters. However, Trust, Geophysical Surveys of Bradford (GSB), progress towards a unified register of scheduled ancient Museum Service for their excellent images. Britain could still attend as an observer and join in discussions. Hereford and Worcester County Council, monuments, listed buildings and historic parks, gardens and Other presentations from Chris Whomersley (Foreign and MoLAS, Oxford Archaeology, Suffolk County battlefields. Free leaflets about proposed changes are available Commonwealth Office), Patrick Boylan and Major General (retired) Council Archaeological Services, ULAS and from customers@english- Tony Rogers (University of Cambridge) explained the background Wessex Archaeology heritage.org.uk, or can be to the Convention, benefits of ratification, and practical implications downloaded from www.english- Contact: Catherine Hardman for the armed forces. It was recognised that manuals and education heritage.org.uk. ([email protected]) For OASIS contact Mark for military personnel are essential, and IFA and other Barratt, ([email protected]) archaeological bodies offered their help when required. They also http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/library/ offered to develop a capacity for immediate response in the event of future conflicts, to help avoid debacles like Iraq. A further meeting Arnos Vale cemetery, Bristol – greylit/ to discuss practical implications of ratification is scheduled for later part of the new list © English William Kilbride this year. Heritage Archaeology Data Service [email protected] Meanwhile, it was reported that, at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague, a retired Yugoslav senior officer was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for the 1991 Yugoslav army bombardment of the Old Town of Dubrovnik, despite his argument of military necessity.

4 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 5 Registered Archaeological Organisations: News from IFA a review Alison Taylor

Tim Howard, a practising Barrister since 1981, especially where universities are involved in made the (rather strange) decision that he would fieldwork, as John Hunter described in TA 55. Annual Conference 2005 IFA has now joined SAL in the venture, making the like a career in archaeology, and so embarked With regard to pricing, the RAO committee has service available to all IFA members who want to R on the Oxford University Diploma in fixed annual registration fees for exclusively Well over 400 archaeologists were drawn to receive it, setting out to cover the activities of IFA Professional Archaeology. As part of this course educational or curatorial organisations at £105 – a Winchester to enjoy a conference on the theme and its members (in particular its RAOs), and he had a three month placement with IFA, with timely riposte to those who dismiss the scheme as ‘Working in Historic Towns’. The key note paper by ensuring that our members and the rest of the world an IFA money-making exercise. However, there is Martin Biddle included a challenge to archaeologists know what we are doing. One intention is to gather the remit of assessing the impact of the RAO no such thing as a free launch. Effective (especially curators) working in a developer-funded early news of discoveries by RAOs and give them scheme and how it can be improved and administration and policing (which are central to world to match the research objectives of earlier the right sort of publicity, but publications, promoted. any effective scheme) involve a significant work. The speech by Tessa Jowell also created conferences, public events etc can all be promoted. investment in time and money. interest, though perhaps not as much controversy as The dual purpose therefore is to serve our His broad conclusions are that it is a worthwhile feared. In between there were at least 3 parallel membership by providing them with information scheme that needs careful consideration in order to Great strides have been taken in overhauling the sessions for 3 days, covering issues that included the and news, and also by publicising their activities. A expand membership in curatorial and educational Complaints Procedure (TA 55), introducing clear problems of working on road schemes, how to deal Stories can be emailed by any IFA member, whether sectors, and more promotion both within and benchmarks for registration (with a system to with archaeological archives, results of recent work in on the circulation list or not. We do hope you will outside the profession. IFA must also demonstrate prevent ‘serial defaulters’ from registering) with our smaller towns, post-medieval burials and (most use this e-newsletter to keep each other and the its will and capacity to enforce standards in order to revised guidance notes. Procedural reform has been popular of all), some of the outstanding discoveries wider world in touch with developments within the build confidence, but the main thrust should be allied to a renewed resolve to ensure that IFA does of 2004. There will be write-ups of some sessions in archaeological community. encouragement of continual improvements. RAOs not shirk firm action in appropriate cases. Central to the summer issue of The Archaeologist, and papers should be widely inclusive and should personify the operation of the Register is the issue of trust submitted will be published on the IFA website. To add yourself to the email distribution, email the core values of the whole sector. which is fundamental to any professional [email protected]. To send news, comments relationship. The Institute must be able to rely upon etc, email Chris Catling at [email protected]. If The RAO scheme, since its inception in 1996, has information given by organisations, and those that SALON-IFA: you don’t have a personal account, why not ask O been open to all organisations involved in provide false information will be removed from the A free new membership service your employer or a friend to receive it for your archaeology, but the accent has been on the Register. attention? commercial sector. Tim has been involved in talks The current SALON (Society of Antiquaries of with ALGAO over how IFA can move forward with Everyone agrees on the need for professional London Online Newsletter) is a popular news that organisation, for traditionally curators have integrity, but those who oppose the RAO scheme service provided by the Society of Antiquaries of Website resisted application of common standards. and IFA membership should ponder the London (SAL) and sent to the email boxes of all However, now local authorities are using IFA alternatives. If the need for regulation is agreed, but Fellows (FSAs) who want it, 25 times each year. IFA’s website, www.archaeologists.net, re-vamped standards and RAO registration to improve and the objection is to the IFA and those who run it, the Edited by Christopher Catling, it covers by CBA last autumn, is now carrying more news maintain the quality of planning-related work, it is objectors are missing the point. It is not obligatory governmental consultations and new legislation and information than ever before, and we want to crucial that they sign up to the same rules. Local for members of a profession to like each other. The (actual and proposed), news and reviews of keep it as data rich as we can manage. We see the government archaeology services are under bonhomie of the Bar is often superficial but this conferences, books, discoveries and TV site as an important part of IFA’s publication pressure and a clear mark of professional standing rarely prevents the profession uniting in pursuit of programmes, job vacancies, deaths, issues of programme, hosting many IFA documents and can only be beneficial, whether in the Council common interests. Lawyers do not under-cut each controversy within heritage, and other items that publications (some duplicated in print, some only Chamber, the Inquiry room or at the information other and they consistently speak with one voice in either relate to its Fellows or to their interests. The available digitally) and with useful links to a desk. furtherance of professional interests. A fragmented readership extends beyond Fellows to those in growing number of other archaeological archaeological profession plays into the hands of government departments, the press and other organisations. If you have news, papers, or other So far as the educational world is concerned, IFA is insincere politicians and unscrupulous developers. decision-makers. It is therefore valuable in items you are willing to share, send them to not seeking to regulate teaching, but that does not Without IFA, securing a fair deal for the profession spreading news, forming opinions, and generally [email protected], and I will try to mean that professional regulation has no relevance, would be all the harder. expressing views from the heritage sector. include them.

6 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 7 INCLUSIVE, The Forum THE INVISIBLE DIGGERS Research into the reality of Second Meeting – 19 February 2005 ACCESSIBLE, Professional Contract Archaeology There was excited apprehension prior in the UK to this meeting. Having made progress ARCHAEOLOGY last October it was important to maintain that momentum to establish In 2002 I left full-time commercial archaeology to Tim Phillips the basic remit of the Diggers’ Forum. work on a PhD at the University of Southampton. To avoid becoming purely London- My aim was to document issues within the based we are committed to holding the profession as seen by those at the coalface. I Diggers’ next meeting outside London and will believe this project will illuminate serious issues The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA 1995) and encourage formation of regional groups. that need to be addressed. My methods combine its amendment the Special Educational Needs and ‘unstructured’ interviews with an online survey Disability Act (2001) is now in force, with legislation Healthy and Safety and other sociological research tools. that requires employers and educational institutions Surveying at the Some site staff reported avoidable accidents but to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that Silchester Field where stringent H&S had been applied and extra When asked how long they intend to stay ‘disabled persons are not placed at a substantial School (Dept of PPE required, this was not always appropriate and within commercial archaeology, 31.85% said disadvantage in comparison to persons who are not Archaeology, actually made the working environment more they are trying to get out now or in the next disabled’. Archaeology therefore faces quite a University of unpleasant. We will examine the current situation year or two, 42% of these being aged 26-30. The challenge, as Archaeology Labour Market Intelligence, Guidelines will be produced to promote good Reading) and insist that adequate, but balanced and impression is that a large number of graduates 2002/03 revealed that just 0.34% of professional practice, and publications through international appropriate, H&S be a priority for all employers. enter the profession, only to remain until failure archaeologists are disabled as defined by DDA 1995, journals will address academic and professional Training to secure promotion or improved pay drives as are 3% of volunteers. audiences in archaeology and disability studies. The Many units were making the right noises, but them elsewhere. When asked what they hated archaeological community will be involved through failing to deliver. The Diggers’ Forum will most – Pay; Quality of management/staff; bad The problem starts in the universities, so Roberta training events, national conferences, newsletters cooperate with other bodies to ensure that weather; ‘incestuous’ relationships; All or none Gilchrist at Reading has been awarded funding and on the web. initiatives, such as the one recently announced by of the above; 19% of the 26-30 year olds planning from the Higher Education Funding Council for IFA, are targeted appropriately. to leave said quality of management/staff; 29% England (FDTL5), for developments in teaching and What the project now needs is more stories and case said Pay and 52% ‘All of the above’. learning concerning Archaeology and Disability in histories from individuals with disabilities, whether IFA Council collaboration with the Inclusive Environments they have succeeded in archaeological careers or The Forum will ensure that representation of site 37% believe that a rethink is needed to prevent Research Group (Reading), and with Bournemouth been forced to give up. I am particularly interested staff and finds specialists is increased within IFA future crisis, and 35% believe it is already in University. IFA, CBA, English Heritage and Oxford in those who have been disabled during (especially Council, a key to genuine improvement in our crisis. However, of the latter group only 21% are Archaeology are all supporting this project. if because of) their career, and what their experience working lives and the credibility of IFA. currently trying to get out of the profession, has been. Such disabilities may be something as Furthermore, we will work with Prospect in which supports the image of a dedicated The aim is to widen participation by challenging the common as a bad back that stops active fieldwork support of its proposed National Pay Agreement. workforce. 28% of under-30s are IFA members; stereotype of archaeology as a field discipline that (just quantifying this will be enlightening for our Keep an eye on our page on the IFA website for any 16% can’t afford to join; 15% feel the IFA isn’t excludes disabled participants. The dual issues of profession), or may be a perceived disability that in more news and information about membership – relevant to them; 7% would never join, but 31% disability and transferable skills will be addressed fact enhances other skills. This includes registered http://www.archaeologists.net/diggers. We hope would consider it. In comparison, 33% of 31-40 in archaeological fieldwork teaching, but awareness disabled and physical or mental disabilities that to see you at the next meeting. year-olds are IFA members and 32% would of disability issues throughout the profession must could impair working (details on our website). consider joining. be raised. Paul Everill If you have a story to tell I would love to hear from Secretary, Diggers’ Forum For a fuller report and the opportunity to I began the survey in collaboration with IFA by a you before the end of June when this phase of the contribute opinions and experiences visit questionnaire to 48 Registered Archaeological project ends. www.invisiblediggers.net. Organisations to assess the situation within the commercial sector. Working with specialists in Tim Phillips Department of Archaeology, Inclusive Environments (directed by Geoff Cook), Project Officer University of Southampton, we are now analysing and characterising Department of Archaeology, University of Reading Avenue Campus, Highfield, archaeological activities, skills and environments. A Whiteknights, PO Box 227 Southampton, SO17 1BJ range of field activities will be addressed, including Reading RG6 6AB [email protected] excavation and recording, field survey, instrument survey, environmental sampling and processing of Phone 0118 378 8293 artefacts. Through controlled testing and field trials, Fax 0118 378 6718 Archaeological experience within survey respondents. we will develop a self-assessment tool kit for Email [email protected] Note the dramatic drop after 5 years. physical and psychological abilities. Website www.hca.heacademy/access-archaeology

8 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 9 10 mgsrts equivalentofTA (magistrates’ theApril2004issueof In instructed tostopwork. MrandMrsSmithacceded being committed, andthatthecontractorsshould be and MrsSmith thatacriminaloffence waspossibly had beenpartly removed. The inspectoradvisedMr of amedievalbuilding, thefoundationsofwhich damage hadalready occurred totheburiedremains Heritage inspectorvisitedand observedthat unauthorised workswere takingplace. An English Shortly afterwards, EnglishHeritagelearned that wet autumnweather. start quickly, toget the earthmovingdonebefore that MrandMrsSmithhadpushed fortheworkto invisible buriedremains. There issomeevidence avoid visiblefeatures butitdidaffect alarge area of Smith, theearthmovinginvolvedwasdesignedto started. Apparently attherequest ofMrandMrs did notrequire planningpermission,sowork landscape architect. Heconsidered thatthework In mid-2002,MrandMrsSmithengageda affected thescheduled area. monument consent(SMC)foranyworkswhich reminded them oftheneedtoobtainscheduled to construct anornamentalpond.TheFMW were planning tolandscapesomeoftheirlandand (FMW) visitedtheSmiths,theymentionedthat When anEnglishHeritageFieldMonumentWarden above theground. from buried remains ofwhichnotraceisvisible archaeological importanceofthemonumentderives settlement withditchesandbanks.Butmuchofthe monument consistsoftheremains ofamedieval Archaeological Areas Act (AMAAA)1979.The scheduled underthe Ancient Monumentsand land theywere aware that partofthelandwas When MrandMrsSmithpurchased ahouseand CASE SCENARIO thanks toitsEditor. withgrateful kind permissionofTheMagistrate, decision byaDistrictJudge.Thispieceisreproduced by the sentencetheywouldgiveonconvictionto a fictitiousancientmonumentsoffenceandtocompare Magistrate buried sites.The our heritage,explainingthelegislationthatprotects Thomas (barrister, formerlywithEnglishHeritage) ANCIENT MONUMENTSa magistrate’sdecision Ancient monumentsandarchaeologicalareas: (English Heritage)wrote apieceonProtecting & The Magistrate, ), invited itsreaders tostudy Anna Winstanley and Roger RHELGCLAREAS ARCHAEOLOGICAL damage irreparable? Ifso,how importantisthe want answered before passingsentence. Was the There are numerous questions, whichacourtwould unwelcome restrictions. to dosoinorder toavoidexpenditure or may bethatacourtcouldfind hedeliberatelyfailed elementary stepsbefore startingthework andit at theveryleastgrossly negligentinnottaking reinforce withappropriate sanctions.MrSmithwas property carriesobligations,whichthecourt must with EnglishHeritage.Ownership ofsucha could havebeenavoidedhad MrSmithchecked monument. However, damage wasdoneandit works were plannedtoavoidthevisibleparts ofthe totally cavalierinhisapproach astheearthmoving was scheduledunder AMAAA. MrSmithwasnot of purchase of theproperty thatpartoftheland consent wasneededandhadknownfrom thetime Smith knewin2001thatscheduledmonument factor concerningtheoffences seemstobethatMr conviction istotallyirrelevant. Here therelevant plea andotherpersonalfactors.Theprevious the meansofdefendant,timeliness assess itsseriousnessbefore goingontoconsider second taskistoanalysethefactsofoffence to the magistrates’courtorCrown Court.The not allcommunitypenaltiesare availableineither sentence (2),butasitdoesnotcarryimprisonment, way (1),there istheoptionofcommittingfor £5000, onsummaryconviction. As itistriableeither indictment orthestatutorymaximum,currently case itisanunlimitedfineonconviction unusual offence isthemaximumpenaltyandinthis The firstthingtoestablishwhendealingwithan District JudgeStephenDay’s response SENTENCING CONSIDERATIONS insurance) datingto1984. has oneprevious conviction(fordrivingwithout 1979.MrSmith offence unders.2ofthe AMAAA pleaded guiltyinthemagistrates’courttoan protected orarchaeologically sensitive.MrSmith realise thatthearea affected byhislandscapingwas only toapplyvisiblefeatures, andthathedidnot Mr Smithsaidhehadunderstoodthescheduling The inspectorinterviewedMrSmithundercaution. which hadbeenexposed. archaeologists ontothesitetorecord theremains to thisdemand,andsubsequentlyallowed The Archaeologist Roger Thomas guilty plea(3). allowed ineither-way casesfollowingatimely after themaximumreduction of50%thatmaybe could dramaticallyalterthat.Thatfigure isreached costs, buttheanswertoquestionsIposeabove guilty pleawouldbeintheregion of£2500plus comfortably off, mystartingpointafteraprompt required todoso,andassuming thatheis the factthatMrSmithstoppedworkswhen gain byignoringtherestrictions? Taking accountof plea entered? Whatbenefit,ifany, didMrSmith Mr Smith’sincome? At whatstagewastheguilty site? Whatwoulditcosttorestore thesite?Whatis Spring 2005 Number 56 development issues ingeneral. training, CPD, accreditation andcareer professionals’, professional standardsforhistoric environment role isto‘implementstrategies todevelopandpromote development ofrecognised career structures. My but alsoprovide thebuildingblocksfor These are significantachievementsinthemselves, coach-mentoring canbefound onIFA’s website. for onlinerecording ofCPDandamanualfor (www.chnto.co.uk/development/nos.html), apilot Occupations Standards forarchaeology and others.Thishasincluded developingNational with the Archaeology Training Forum, CHNTO inpartnership reported oninitiativesbytheIFA standing ofarchaeologists. Various standards and toimprove theprofessional and inparticularIFA, foritisameanstoraise Training isamajorissuefacingBritisharchaeology her newjob,thisisfirstreport. Archaeologists Club. After lessthantwo monthsin leader oftheBangorbranch ofthe Young was Prospect representative forsixyears andco- Welsh research agenda.DuringhertimeatGAT, she 2003, shewas actively involved indevelopment of SMR. As chair oftheIFA Wales groupfrom1999to Devon County Councilin2003,towork ontheir Gwynedd Archaeological Trust beforemoving to Park, she spenttenyears asSMROfficeratthe archaeological assistant attheSnowdonia National standards. Priortothis,afteraninitialstintas responsibility forinitiatives relatedtotraining and Kate joinedthestaffofIFA inJanuary, withspecial IFAother initiatives and bursaries learning workplace Funding andtraining: and Iwillbeconcentrating on TA articles have [email protected] Kate Geary atthisexcitingtime. IFA Change isinthe airandIamdelightedtobe joining way whichisrecognised outsidetheprofession. document andaccredit theseskillsinaconsistent comparisons tobevalid,weneed tobeable technical skillsandexperience. Forthese with otherprofessions regarding qualifications, pay andconditionsisdependent oncomparisons inextricably linked.MuchofIFA’s worktoimprove Training, professional standards andpayare in touch. relating totraining andcareer development,doget the bursaries,CPDschemeoranyotherissues membership, soifyouwouldliketocommenton developments mustreflect theconcernsof initiative,these Standards. As withanyIFA archaeology, againbasedonNationalOccupational and ondevelopingapracticequalificationfor short coursesavailablethrough partneruniversities I willalsobeworkingonextendingtheprofessional detail howthebursarieswillwork. consultation andisnowmovingontoconsiderin The developmentproject hasincludedextensive identified skillsgapsinthearchaeological sector. available tofundtrainingwhichaddresses successful, around tenbursariesayearwillbe bid tofundworkplacelearningbursaries.If grant from the HeritageLotteryFundtodevelopa My immediatetaskistouseaproject development . ‘discount’inthesentencemaybegivenifadefendant 3.A 2.On convictioninaMagistrates’Court,themagistrates 1.‘Triable eitherway’meansthatanoffence canbetried Notes pleads guiltyatanearlystage. powers are inadequate. the offence tobesoseriousthattheirownsentencing sentences, sothemagistrateswilldothisiftheyconsider The Crown Courthasthepowertoimposeheavier can committhecasetoCrown Courtforsentencing. and jury).Thechoiceusuallylieswiththedefendant. the Crown Court(‘onindictment’,infront ofajudge either intheMagistrates’Court(‘summarytrial’)or

Kate Geary Kate Geary 11 The Prehistoric The dramatic pair of Taking down the fences: standing stones at Funerary Penrhos Feilw, promoting prehistory at English Heritage Anglesey. The Cadw and Ritual Project ‘Caring for...’ series Jonathan Last highlights potential in Wales problems (such as erosion around the Matthew Ritchie base of standing stones) and suggests mitigation strategies. For the last five years Cadw has been funding the © Cadw four Welsh Archaeological Trusts to record and As part of recent re-structuring (from 1 those funded through the grants programmes. This evaluate all prehistoric funerary and ritual sites in April) English Heritage now has Research includes promoting new discoveries, such as the Wales, one of a series of thematic pan-Wales surveys Palaeolithic engravings at Creswell Crags; enabling designed to assess the condition of the known Policy Heads by a mixture of periods and community participation, eg the rock art project archaeological resource through fieldwork. The themes. After just a few days in the job, described by Tertia Barnett (p26); and producing results will improve HERs and the Welsh NMR and Jonathan Last outlines his approach as the innovative syntheses from grey literature, like that will feed into management initiatives (eg agri- new Head of Research Policy for Prehistory. by Dave Yates (p30). environment schemes) and statutory protection. A similar survey of deserted rural settlements will be Almost all the sites listed in the 1882 Ancient ALSF has enormous significance for early prehistory published as a CBA monograph, while other Monuments Protection Act were prehistoric, partly a in particular, where discoveries have always been projects include Roman vici and road systems and reflection of megaliths being less costly to maintain intimately related to quarrying. New research set to prehistoric defended enclosures. than medieval buildings. Today prehistoric revolutionise Palaeolithic studies, like mapping archaeology has moved beyond a focus on submerged landscapes in the English Channel, is Initial challenges included formulating a common upstanding monuments to recognising the complemented by projects to promote the period survey methodology and reaching a consensus on significance of buried sites, environmental more widely, like the purchase of Boxgrove quarry terminology. Regular meetings between Cadw, Trust sequences and whole landscapes. This is reflected in and the National Ice Age Network (p15). project officers and RCAHMW ensure common the survey and excavation work undertaken by EH standards and easy integration. Interrogating HERs archaeologists and in projects funded by the Historic The properties on Pitt-Rivers’ original schedule and constructing a complete dataset (eg for stone Environment Enabling Programme and the remain key assets of which more could be made. circles) should now be simple. Approximately 7000 Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund Programme The best known, of course, is Stonehenge. In the sites will have been visited and recorded, with (ALSF). Project aims are often guided by research 1880s the landowner resisted the attempts of the completion due in 2006. Site recording is Further Cadw-funded subprojects will arise from frameworks, which EH also facilitates; as well as the government inspector to raise stones and install accompanied by management recommendations the Survey, both typological record enhancement regional frameworks which cover themes (eg policemen, though a fence was not long coming. where appropriate and follow-up scheduling will and individual site conservation schemes. One submarine prehistory), landscapes (eg Avebury) and Today the aim is to remove fences, along with the extend into 2007. Environmental advice and analysis has already occurred: rescue excavation and periods. roads and other modern clutter. Although focusing is provided by the University of Wales, Lampeter. consolidation of a burial cairn in the Brecon on one site risks obscuring the diversity of our Beacons, where accelerated erosion was caused by Increasing public awareness and access to the prehistoric heritage, the improved experience of Information has been disseminated through various visitor numbers. Brecon Beacons National Park and historic environment are key elements of English Stonehenge will offer tremendous opportunities to media. Short notes are included annually within Cambria Archaeology (Dyfed Archaeological Trust) Heritage’s strategy for the next five years, which convey the appeal of prehistory to new audiences. Archaeology in Wales (published by CBA Cymru), undertook to record and consolidate sensitive areas focuses on a ‘virtuous circle’ of understanding, As well as opening up the landscape we also need with longer discussions in local journals. A booklet, valuing, caring and enjoying. Today, with only a to open people’s imaginations. Caring for Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Monuments, Many new sites have indeed been identified during marginal role in the national curriculum, bringing aims to educate and enthuse the public (particularly fieldwork, and this records-based descriptive survey prehistory into the virtuous circle will require better (For details of recent EH-funded projects, see: owners and occupiers of monuments) and describes is geared towards comprehensive enhancement of education, publicity and access. Many themes in http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/admisremote/ appropriate conservation and management HERs, providing a description of the archaeological prehistory resonate with present-day concerns, from ACOnline/HOME.asp) measures. resource in the form of a standardised ‘snapshot in long-term histories of environmental change to time’. biographies of individuals like the Amesbury Further avenues for outreach include the education Archer, perhaps the original economic migrant. The Jonathan Last sector. Consultation demonstrated a demand for Matthew Ritchie challenge is to translate our research into stories that English Heritage wallcharts on regional and/or typological themes Assistant Inspector of Ancient Monuments engage and enthuse new audiences. Fort Cumberland which have a wide range of target age groups and Cadw, Plas Carew Eastney potential uses – and are cheap, can be widely Unit 5/7 Cefn Coed How can English Heritage help promote prehistory? Portsmouth PO4 9LD distributed and can link to the dynamic websites of Parc Nantgarw CF15 7QQ One way is to treat outreach as an integral element the Trusts. It is expected that other community 01443336077 of projects, both those undertaken in house and [email protected] based initiatives will be developed. [email protected]

12 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 13 WELCOME TO THE ICE AGE: Palaeoenvironment, the National Ice Age Network the historic environment Jenni Chambers and wildlife conservation The National Ice Age Network (NIAN) currently operates from the University of Birmingham and Elizabeth Pearson Royal Holloway (University of London), with further centres planned at Leicester and Southampton. These regional centres will act as It is not always obvious At Wellington Quarry, near Hereford, hubs for seminars, public lectures, artefact handling that wildlife conservation and protection of the understanding changing environments has been an sessions, and ‘Life in the Ice Age’ weekends. prehistoric heritage are co-dependent, but in important part of the archaeology, and through this lowlands areas, the most diverse information comes alluvial landscape a picture of late Palaeolithic One key objective is to assess the Pleistocene from peat bogs, relict waterchannels and alluvial environment to medieval agriculture is emerging. potential of quarries and ensure aggregate deposits, and river floodplains, features attractive to Here peat and alluvial deposits are consistently extraction sites with potential for Ice Age sediments environmental archaeologist, wildlife sampled, but in locations where human activity has National Ice Age Network logo. © NIAN 2005 and remains are actively monitored. This Herculean conservationists and local communities alike. not been demonstrated, this type of work does still task needs help from other field archaeologists, so Destruction of such sites, for example as part of a falls through the net at the planning stage. In here comes the sales pitch… many of you already flood alleviation scheme, may result from their Worcestershire alone there are miles of floodplain Sands and gravels that provide a wealth of invisibility on both the HER and databases held by containing a network of abandoned channels. It is information about Holocene archaeology are environmental agencies. Better collaboration clear that this should be reflected in the Historic remnants of Ice Age rivers and the meltwaters of therefore is essential. Environment Record in order to flag up the retreating glaciers, and contain many clues requirement for environmental work. The ‘environment’ within ‘historic environment’ has about the lives and environments of the earliest received much attention in areas like the Severn Even small peat bogs have their uses. Many are inhabitants of Britain. The National Ice Age Estuary, Somerset Levels, East Anglian Fens and the affected by flood alleviation or wetland restoration Network is an Aggregates Levy Sustainability Humber wetlands where a particular type of schemes which can have both good and damaging Fund (ALSF) funded initiative seeking to landscape is obvious. The West Midlands has so far effects. Recently, such schemes have affected peat strengthen contacts between archaeologists, benefited little from such research, but in deposits of Mesolithic date at Droitwich, and of geologists, Quaternary scientists and other Worcestershire there has been a concerted effort to Neolithic date in the Vale of Evesham. bring palaeoenvironmental work into the core of Archaeologists, wildlife conservationists, locals and specialists, quarry companies and the public, to archaeology, and look to the future for management planners alike may have an interest, but all may be create an inclusive and supportive network of of the resource and research. unaware of its existence. those interested in the Ice Age.

James Greig sampling Worcestershire Historic Environment and While in situ preservation is sometimes found, eg at for pollen at Archaeology Service is therefore working on an Boxgrove, Sussex and Lynford, Norfolk, it is more spend much of your time in or around quarries and Ice Age woolly Wellington Quarry enhancement of the HER. The first phase is an index common to find secondary context evidence that is so are ideally placed to assess their Pleistocene rhino, found by (Worcestershire of all environmental remains already recorded, plus durable enough to have survived dynamic potential. The National Ice Age Network would like quarry worker Ray Historic Environment key assemblages. It is hoped that a GIS layer will be depositional regimes, such as stone tools to help. We offer specialist advice on Pleistocene Davies at and Archaeology added which predicts where deposits of potential (particularly Acheulean handaxes) and large fauna. deposits, Palaeolithic archaeology, and the like, Whitemoor Haye Service) exist. Such assemblages dominate the British Lower and providing an ‘Ice Age infrastructure’ of knowledge (Staffordshire). Middle Palaeolithic record and demonstrate the and assistance. © Birmingham Ideally the Historic Environment, Biological and importance of monitoring extraction sites. Archaeology Geological centres should co-ordinate their work Monitoring also allows us to identify fine-grained We’ll be contacting units directly in the coming and engage with academic institutions to develop deposits within gravel sequences, which can months, but in the meantime please check out the research. The first steps are underway, but much preserve environmental data such as molluscs, Network’s website at www.iceage.org.uk, email us work is still to be done. beetles, plant remains and microvertebrates. Finds with any questions or comments at such as the Whitemoor Haye rhino provide an easy [email protected] and if we can be of any Elizabeth Pearson means with which to grab the public’s imagination, assistance just let us know. Worcestershire Historic Environment and but without good relationships between quarry staff Archaeology Service and archaeologists such discoveries would not be Jenni Chambers Woodbury Hall,University College Worcester possible. Of equal value are the day-to-day tasks of National Ice Age Network Henwick Grove,Worcester WR2 6AJ recording sections, field walking in pits, checking University of Birmingham [email protected] reject heaps and environmental sampling. [email protected]

14 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 15 Specific aims are to • define the scope of extant and desirable research The Heart of Neolithic Orkney: in and around the WHS • identify gaps in knowledge • outline the potential of the area to answer World Heritage Site research agenda research questions Sally Foster • encourage inter-disciplinary research into a broad spectrum of topics within the WHS and its wider context • encourage research which will contribute to preservation, conservation, management and interpretation issues • encourage research with wider methodological and/or theoretical applications.

The Agenda falls into seven parts The archaeology of Part 1 Agenda setting Background to the Site, context, purpose and methodology of research agenda. Orkney is a research field Part 2 Resource assessment Period-based assessment of the history of research in Skara Brae (House 7) of quite exceptional provides a unique Orkney and summary of the current state of knowledge, highlighting gaps. glimpse of domestic life richness, by international 5000 years ago (Crown Part 3 Research themes Adopting an approach that copyright courtesy of as well as national cuts across period boundaries, ideas for future research are discussed under two strands: Historic Scotland). standards. It is well artefacts, monuments and cultural identity; formation and utilisation of the landscape. served by this refreshing Part 4 Techniques Specialists describe what will work best in Orkney and what merits more appraisal. attention. Part 5 Research strategy Each research theme is Colin Renfrew subdivided into more specific fields, and sample research topics are identified. Specific research projects, with an indication of how these might be prioritised, are incorporated. Recent geophysical Part 6 Appendices Supplementary information, survey and trial including a summary of investigations at the excavation have WHS monuments, and archaeological produced evidence fieldwork undertaken in Orkney 1945-2003. The Heart of Neolithic Orkney was for dense prehistoric Part 7 Extended bibliography. activity around the inscribed by UNESCO in 1999, its title ICOMOS guidelines for World Heritage Sites (WHS) individual recommend there should be mechanisms to devise, This project was grant-aided by Historic Scotland, components of the applying to six discrete sites in West promote and co-ordinate research programmes in Orkney Islands Council and Orkney Heritage WHS, including a the area, an important task that has been carried out Society, with support from Orkney College UHI. Mainland, Orkney, in the care of the Neolithic settlement in Orkney with the contribution of many people between the henges Scottish Ministers through Historic and organisations, steered by Jane Downes of While stocks last, a free copy of this report can at Ring of Brodgar Orkney College University of the Highlands and be requested from and Stones of Scotland. Islands. [email protected] Stenness (Crown Tel 0131 668 8638 Visitors at Maeshowe: This is cutting edge research. I copyright courtesy These include the This is the first research agenda for a WHS in TCRE, Historic Scotland, Longmore House, research will help us to of Historic • chambered tomb of Maeshowe Scotland and the most up-to-date overview of Salisbury Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH, predict that it will be used quite better interpret and Scotland). • stone circle and henge at Stones of Stenness and Orcadian archaeology. The aim is to improve or can be downloaded from present the monuments nearby stone settings known as the Watch Stone understanding of Neolithic Orkney whilst www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/orkneyresearch. widely, far beyond Orkney, as a and their surrounding and the Barnhouse Stone attempting to cross period boundaries. The landscape, informing the • stone circle, henge, adjacent standing stone and approach is to consider how people have engaged Sally M Foster model of how such issues should work of the newly burial mounds at the Ring of Brodgar with the world about them through time, Senior Inspector of Ancient Monuments established WHS Ranger • settlement of Skara Brae identifying gaps in present knowledge. Historic Scotland be tackled. Colin Renfrew Service (© Sally Foster).

16 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 17 Excavation plan of the early Neolithic Hall at Claish, Stirling (published in Barclay, GJ, Brophy, K & Macgregor, G 2002 Claish, Stirling: an early Neolithic Going grey: structure in its context, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 132)

can now see that Neolithic cursuses developed in between some of the developments along the east prehistory and the Scotland before many were built in England. On coast of England and that of Ireland. In both the other hand, some of the traditions that began countries there has been an increase in discoveries potential of grey during the Neolithic continued much longer in the of Late Bronze Age settlements, and in lowland north, and also in Ireland where stone circles were England it seems as if coaxial field systems were still being built during the Late Bronze Age. a feature of the Middle and Late Bronze Age literature landscapes and then went out of use during the More settlements, different burials Early Iron Age. Few examples were then created Richard Bradley until the late pre-Roman period, and in between Early Neolithic settlements are now being found these phases other kinds of land boundaries, such quite plentifully overall, with many examples in as pit alignments, were apparently more important. Ireland and some in Scotland, though in England their remains are more ephemeral. In Northern The Iron Age and regionality Britain, a number of timber halls are recognised as During a recent project to look at new dating to this period. Fieldwork in most regions is In fact less is known about the Iron Age than is evidence for prehistoric archaeology also identifying Neolithic burials which are not generally believed for, like Ireland, large parts of deriving from developer-funded associated with the usual forms of monument. Britain were aceramic. The use of storage pits for Burial in single graves, however, may have been a human burials has been discussed in recent years, archaeology, Richard Bradley and Tim short lived phenomenon, and this particular way of but it is actually a regional phenomenon which Phillips visited all the English SMRs, the treating the dead seems to have been reintroduced occurs on both sides of the English Channel. Hill during the Beaker period. Again the evidence of forts, too, may be an impressive but peripheral Welsh Archaeological Trusts, National monuments alone is quite deceptive, and modern phenomenon compared with the rich open Monuments Record of Scotland and many excavation of large stripped areas is providing more settlements of eastern England. Recent work is of the commercial archaeology firms in evidence of Beaker flat graves. The distribution of showing that some of the largest forts in Ireland Early Bronze Age burials shows fewer biases were actually built during the Bronze Age and the Ireland. Richard talked to unit directors outside Wessex than before, with rich examples same may be true in Scotland. The geography of and field officers and Tim made copies of occurring now in areas such as Kent, the English prehistoric settlement is changing radically. selected extracts from all relevant reports – Midlands, north-east Scotland and the east coast of Ireland. Some were associated with mounds, but Data from a decade of developer-funded the so-called ‘grey’ literature. Richard is others were in flat cemeteries. preparing an account of British and Irish work is set to revolutionise the study of prehistory, and there is no doubt that the prehistory which makes use of this wealth Unexpected patterns, changing field systems same will apply to later periods, too. We of crucial but barely digested data. After a During the Middle and Late Bronze Age, the pilot study funded by English Heritage, their increasing scale of fieldwork means that features can now prove that good and useful work is that were often studied in isolation, such as burnt work has been supported by a grant from being done: the challenge now is to make it mounds, hoards and urnfields, are now being found more readily accessible to ensure that it is the Arts and Humanities Research Board. together and associated with settlement sites. Unexpected patterns can be recognised when we put to good use. It is obvious that accounts of prehistoric look at the data as a whole. For example, there are archaeology are severely biased by the distribution links between the areas known for Late Bronze Age Richard Bradley of published fieldwork. That is being redressed by ringworks, field systems and finds of metalwork University of Reading the results of contract archaeology. For example, we from rivers, and there may be close parallels [email protected]

18 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 19 Three Iron Age farms in Northamptonshire, NEW IRON AGE FINDS FROM WARWICKSHIRE or is it one? Stuart Palmer 3 Andy Mudd

It has become a truism that archaeologists now Excavations by Warwickshire Museum A penannular ditch with an eastern entrance had study landscapes rather than sites, and perhaps in Archaeology Projects Group in advance of been re-dug as many as six times, on each occasion the Iron Age this change of emphasis has moved furthest. Opportunities for excavation ahead of a new traffic island at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, encircling a larger area and gradually being terraced into the side of the knoll, until it enclosed an area large scale developments has given us an Warwickshire have revealed an Iron Age 20m in diameter. A large tree within the enclosed appreciation of just how crowded the landscape had settlement with unusual, possibly religious, area may have been the focus of this structure. become by this time. One example is the A43 road features. The central area contained pits and postholes scheme between Towcester (Northamptonshire) and cut through the Iron Age land surface. Two the M40 in Oxfordshire. roundhouses were apparently constructed in the local mass-wall tradition of turf-built walls. Close Three quite separate middle Iron Age sites turned by were large deep storage pits that had ended their up in a space of 500m within the road corridor Three middle Iron Age useful lives as rubbish dumps, some with evidence south of Towcester. Each had a different form, and sites lying in the path for episodes of feasting. possibly they were elements of the same settlement, of the new road. each with distinct social and economic orientations. Areas outside the One pit contained a near complete example of a Silverstone Fields Farm had two roundhouses, road corridor have highly unusual clay oven, deliberately dumped and many storage pits and a small ditched enclosure, been plotted from directly associated with a saddle quern and an iron apparently encircled by a fence. This contrasted geophysical surveys. Dump of oven fragments: the ‘involuted’ brooch. The oven has an integral plate or with Silverstone 2, 150m down the slope, which was © Northamptonshire integral plate is in the shelf, which has a large central aperture and an a large enclosure with just one house within the Archaeology foreground (photo outer ring of small air holes. Comparable excavated area, and few pits. Silverstone 3 was an Warwickshire Museum) fragmentary examples have been found at Danebury agglomerated settlement of unenclosed houses and Silverstone Fields Farm, where there was evidence and Gussage All Saints. Pottery from the site small enclosures, not bounded overall. The site of grain processing, whereas barley was more suggests it was occupied between the middle and included a deep-ditched enclosure similar to common at Silverstone 2. This may be related to use late Iron Age. Both saddle and rotary quern stones Northamptonshire ‘defended enclosures’ of this of barley as fodder, indicating a greater pastoral were recovered. There were also flint tools and period. component. Here the preponderance of cattle waste flakes, a single sherd of Neolithic Impressed contrasted with the dominance of sheep at ware and one Bronze Age sherd from earlier landuse. Finds and environmental samples show subtle differences suggesting different economic emphases. Silverstone Fields Farm. Were sheep linked to arable cultivation in the sort of symbiotic relationship Although many of the features excavated are Spelt wheat was the predominant cereal at suggested for some Wessex sites? Silverstone 3 consistent with those on other sites in Warwickshire, showed an intermediate position and there are some are atypical. Warwickshire sites generally suggestions the site started earlier and split into its produce rather impoverished assemblages arable and pastoral components later on. indicative of low-level material wealth. Was this site was a residence of a community with unusual Human remains were found at Silverstone Fields status, or a sacred spot? Farm. These comprised five infants buried at intervals within the ditch of the small enclosure. Stuart Palmer Ritual events of this nature may have served as a Warwickshire Museum Archaeology Projects Group means of social integration for these sites and the surrounding area. Silverstone Fields Farm – Iron Age pottery and prehistoric Andy Mudd work in progress flint tools (photo Warwickshire Northamptonshire Archaeology © Northamptonshire Museum) [email protected] Archaeology

20 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 21 The Chest of Dee, high in the Cairngorm Mountains: the newly Footpath works undertaken by the NTS: the lithic scatter, sealed under peat, discovered mesolithic site lies nearby. (Photograph: NTS) was discovered during this type of operation. (Photograph: NTS)

The River Dee rises in the heart of the and intellectual endeavour. Located in such a Cairngorms, meandering through its broad challenging landscape, the site allows us to rethink valley for some 130km before flowing into concepts such as remoteness, peripherality and mobility. the North Sea. Peppered with medieval strongholds, the valley is famous for its BUILDINGS OF THE FOURTH MILLENNIUM BC salmon, its light soils and its oak-woods, Recent investigations on the Crathes Castle Estate in from which cathedral roofs and great sailing lower Deeside shed light on changing lifeways in the late fifth/early fourth millennium BC. In 1976, vessels were built. But the importance of aerial photography revealed extensive cropmarks the Dee stretches much further back. on river terraces, including a pit alignment and a Recent discoveries on land held by the rectangular structure with rounded ends, some 9m National Trust for Scotland (NTS) are by 20m. Although sitting directly across the river from the Early Neolithic timber building of similar confirming that the earliest prehistory of scale at Balbridie, the Crathes structure was more Deeside really is rather special. aligned with subrectangular cropmarks thought to be early medieval. NTS trial excavations in 2004 MESOLITHIC IN THE MOUNTAINS have transformed the picture, revealing that the Mesolithic sites have often been found along the building (of Deeside oak) burned down between Dee, from a shell midden at its mouth to a lithic 3650 and 3950 cal BC, and that the pit alignment scatter 60km upstream. Occupation/activity sites dates to the same period. cluster on the gravel terraces, but this pattern is probably due more to the difficulties of identifying CROPMARK REASSESSMENT sites under the peat than to the seasonal and social The implications are considerable: the proximity cycles in early prehistory. It is only very recently of two such rare buildings and another major that occupation in mountainous areas has been contemporary monument presents an unparalleled recognised, an unexpected result of a historic opportunity to explore new frameworks for living landscape project established by the NTS at Ben as they develop in northeastern Scotland. Similarly, Lawers, in central Scotland. And in 2003, close to the need to reassess our assumptions of what Early the headwaters of the Dee, a scatter of worked flint Historic and Early Neolithic cropmarks actually and quartz was discovered as the result of footpath look like is now pressing. Further exploration of the repair works on the NTS’s Mar Lodge Estate. cropmark complex at Crathes may shed light on the relationship between massive timber buildings and PRESERVATION UNDER PEAT more ephemeral features associated with Early Sample assemblages of lithics from the riverside Neolithic Scotland. Thanks are due to Historic Scotland, Aberdeenshire and from pockets in the riverbank where the site (or Council and the Prehistoric Society, who have variously A VERY SPECIAL PLACE: sites) is eroding out from under the peat has shown DECORATIVE BIRCHWOOD AND GRAINS OF helped NTS to fund these research projects. that the artefacts are largely in situ, and that tool WHEAT making, use and repair all occurred here. A paucity Material evidence from the Crathes building is of Shannon Fraser EARLY PREHISTORY of flint cores and primary flakes suggests initial high quality: fragments of carbonised turned birch The National Trust for Scotland knapping was taking place elsewhere. Much of the wood, some with carved decoration, are an North East Regional Office flint is burnt, and charcoal is eroding out of the incredibly rare survival which complements the fine The Stables, Castle Fraser, IN THE DEE VALLEY, riverbank, a hint of remains of human activity ceramic assemblage. The cereals recovered include Sauchen, Inverurie preserved beneath the peat. bread wheat – extremely unusual in the Scottish Aberdeenshire AB51 7LD Neolithic but paralleled at Balbridie – and a grain of Tel: (0)1330-830214 NORTHEAST An early prehistoric human presence among the spelt, which until now has not been recognised in [email protected] mountain passes of the Cairngorms is extremely Scotland before the first millennium BC. One grain exciting, offering much greater understanding of the does not make a community supping bowls of SCOTLAND complex relationships between human communities zuppa di farro, but it strengthens the argument that and their multiple landscapes – landscapes physical what is happening at these large structures is Shannon Fraser and symbolic, of geography, time, distance, social something out of the ordinary.

22 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 23 Poverty of artefacts The burials had been interred successively within rubble overlying earlier buildings, and sealed by The interior of the building was also modified; the later buildings. With each new interment, some of original subrectangular plan was altered to oval, the preceding burials had been disturbed. One of the Iron Age buildings, burials and metal-working and subdivided by compartments lining the walls earliest had been placed within a stone cist and was and surrounding a central floor area which well preserved, but no sign of any kind of setting at Knowe of Skea Ness, Orkney contained a large hearth. The range of artefacts has been found with other burials. Most of the recovered from inside the building was extremely bodies had been placed on one side with the legs Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson limited, comprising no more than a few sherds of flexed towards the chest. pottery and worked bone objects, including a composite double sided comb, a spindle whorl, two Animal burials bone pins and a weaving sword with carved decoration, even though preservation conditions Some animal burials have also been recovered. One An Iron Age combined funerary and metalworking complex being excavated by EASE Archaeology were good. The lack of items such as quern stones in particular, of a cow, was immediately beneath the at the Knowe of Skea, an eroding site on the Island of Westray in Orkney, offers the rare potential and the very low numbers of stone tools stand in foundations of one small building. This was divided stark contrast to the usually rich and prolific nature into two cells, the largest of which contained a to investigate both funerary practice and the demographics of an Iron Age population. of Orcadian settlement sites. central hearth, and it was here that evidence of metalworking waste and a pin mould were found. Burials within walls Work on the site was a result of a survey of coastal Outwith the central building, excavation on the erosion, was commissioned by Orkney The eroding sea northern slopes of the mound has revealed a Archaeological Trust and funded by Historic complex sequence of buildings and burials, Scotland and Orkney Islands Council. The Knowe of Skea is a large mound on the highest including incorporation of articulated human point of a small tidal islet at the end of the Berst remains into the fabric of buildings during Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson Ness promontory, a prominent feature in the construction. The deposits here postdate EASE Archaeology landscape. Smaller mounds on the promontory are construction of the central monumental, building. Unit 8, Abbeymount Techbase thought to be earlier prehistoric funerary 2 Easter Road monuments. The site lies exposed to the Atlantic Well over a hundred burials have been uncovered Edinburgh EH7 5AN Ocean and is being eroded by the sea; during at the Knowe of Skea, approximately 60% of them stormy winter weather it is frequently inundated, neonates or children. Two adult burials have so far and archaeological deposits containing pottery, shell been radiocarbon dated: one and bone are visible in sea-cut exposures. providing a date range of between cal AD130-410, the Masonry building second between cal AD30 and 240 Samples have been The earliest building so far identified is at the centre collected for both isotope and of the mound. In its earliest form, it was DNA analysis and it is hoped subrectangular, with free-standing drystone walls of there will be funding to exceptionally fine masonry. There are currently no undertake a full suite of absolute dates available for its inception and very forensic investigations. few artefacts were recovered from the earliest phases. It seems unlikely that this building was Burial at Skea Ness, under excavation. Photograph: EASE used for settlement either at this or any later period. Archaeology It was in use over a long period of time and slowly evolved in size and shape before going out of use at some time after the seventh or eighth centuries AD. Passage added

Over its lifetime, this building was repaired and With the final skin of walling, an unusual passage- altered on numerous occasions. The original free type feature was constructed, leading from the standing walls appear to have been somewhat exterior of the building into a small chamber within unstable and were thickened with extra skins of the thickness of the wall. It did not give access into masonry added outside on at least three occasions. the interior of the building. This passage was very This created a more monumental facade, which in narrow and steep and would have been difficult to Building divided into cells, its final form would have appeared like a move along, suggesting it was not in regular use one with evidence of substantial round house or broch, especially when and was possibly of a symbolic or specialised metalworking. Photograph: viewed from afar. nature. EASE Archaeology

24 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 25 The Rock Art Pilot Project (RAPP) commissioned by raising. Five fieldwork teams have been operating English Heritage in 1999 stated that urgent action autonomously in Northumberland and Co Durham was needed. The Rock Art Management, Access, since January 2005, the first few months a trial Study, and Education Strategy (RAMASES) was period during which survey and recording developed, with six interrelated strands: recording; techniques, equipment, the communication strategy global context; conservation and management; and data quality were monitored and refined. These investigations; access initiatives. Five themes core fieldworkers will play key roles throughout the running through each strand are knowledge project and will pass on training to new recruits and creation; public participation; partnerships; visiting groups. widening access; global relevance. Capture in 3D National rock art archive New approaches to data capture, conservation and Recording all engravings and establishing a interpretation of rock art are being explored. In comprehensive archive is essential for future particular we are experimenting with 3D techniques programmes. However, systematic recording and such as laser scanning, remote sensing and monitoring of thousands of scattered sites demands photogrammetry, a unique opportunity to apply substantial manpower and expertise, so state-of-the-art technology to a neglected area Northumberland and Durham County Councils where physical context and 3dimensionality are have enrolled the local community to help. The crucial. Later on local people will organise project, funded by English Heritage, will run until exhibitions, demonstrations and interactive events September 2006. The volunteers will use a to engage a wider audience. standardised methodology which will be entirely non-intrusive, and a specially designed database, At the end of the project, we will produce the foundations of a new national rock art archive recommendations for future rock art programmes that will be accessible via an interactive website. across other regions, recommendations which will This will provide a fantastic resource for research, have been partly shaped by a cross section of the conservation, management and education, and will local community. This involvement will enrich raise awareness of British rock art at home and both the process and the outcome and provide a abroad. sustainable framework for the future of British rock art. Core fieldworkers from the community The response from the local community has been Tertia Barnett overwhelming. Fifty volunteers were selected as Rock Art Project Officer core fieldworkers, with a further 40 for data entry, Northumberland and Durham County Councils Prehistoric rock archive sorting, publicity, education and awareness- [email protected] art at its most impressive. Conditions for seeing it A community approach are not always good, and (left) English Heritage many sites are difficult to surveyors train volunteers get to. The project is to prehistoric rock art in landscape survey exploring new ways of techniques in capturing and presenting Tertia Barnett Northumberland. the engravings and their Photograph: Tertia Barnett physical setting in order to raise awareness and Although several thousand engraved panels of prehistoric appreciation. rock art have been documented, principally in northern Photograph: Tertia Barnett England, Scotland and Ireland, research and public awareness are still limited compared with other parts of the world. We have no clear understanding of its original purpose, negligible educational material and limited guidance on how it should be treated. More significantly, (far left) The volunteers have we lack an archive on which to base our research and to remained enthusiastic inform conservation and management programmes. This throughout the training and fieldwork programmes has serious implications for the growing numbers of sites despite the weather. threatened by neglect or bad practice. Photograph: Tertia Barnett

26 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 27 NORTHERN LIGHTS: Shetland’s prehistory Val Turner

Pictish engraving of Burnt mounds surrounded by a village in which the average I’d like to thank Hazel Moore, EASE and Steve a bear © Shetland Another focus of study has been burnt mounds. building still survives 2m high. The sequence of Dockrill, University of Bradford for mulling these Amenity Trust These are generally visible as mounds of 1 metre buildings has been the subject of an integrated thoughts over with me. or more, comprising fist sized, heated shattered dating programme (C14, archaeomagnetic and stone arranged in a crescent around a central optically stimulated luminescence and Val Turner trough of stone slabs. EASE has excavated two: stratigraphic information). This vast suite of dates Regional Archaeologist, Shetland Tangwick, North Mainland and Cruester, Bressay. has given us an absolute chronology for the Iron Shetland Amenity Trust Both mounds overlay industrial looking cells Age/Pictish periods through to the coming of the Garthspool, Lerwick which contained pottery. These underlying Vikings. It has enabled us to make sense of the Shetland ZE1 ONY Wheelhouse at Old structures had previously been hinted at in piered and aisled roundhouse tradition of the 01595 694688 Scatness prior to excavations of the 1970s at the Ness of Sound, Western Isles’ wheelhouses and how it relates to [email protected] consolidation © Shetland Lerwick and Griesta, Tingwall and during work the later wheelhouse tradition (c. 650AD) identified Amenity Trust by Bradford University at Trowie Loch, Nesting. by Hamilton at nearby Jarlshof (in Shetland we The pottery appears to be high quality tableware, have no Romans, so prehistory lasts until around and includes a cauldron with a bossed rim and AD850). another with skeuomorphic seams. Your average Shetland’s prehistory has long been Bronze Age pottery it is not. Now we can see the Wealth and exotica Bronze Age landscapes furnished with houses and A sieving programme is picking up small fragments overshadowed Orkney, which is easier to fields, we know that the burnt mounds are not of artefacts and exotica. Evidence of wealth runs get to and where sites are monumental in where people are living, but are perhaps where from the broch period to the Late Iron Age. Metal character. But, as the last ten years have they bathed, feasted or engaged in something working includes pins and brooches in copper alloy demonstrated, lack of modern farming in a smelly (eg tanning). and silver; beef cattle have been butchered with rural landscape, where upland sheep heavy iron cleavers yet to be found in the subsidies starts at sea level, means Shetland’s Coastal erosion is a major threat to Shetland’s archaeological record. A Pictish bear carving is an prehistory. Bayanne, Yell was one such site. accomplished piece of art. prehistoric archaeology is second to none. Excavation by EASE has demonstrated the full Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age landscapes sequence of evolution of architectural forms, from Not only has the archaeology been outstanding but can be traced for miles across the scattald Late Neolithic to the Middle Iron Age, with public understanding and ownership of the work (hill grazings) interspersed with unexcavated abundant stone tools, worked bone and middens. has been important. Hence we are facing the visible houses and field boundaries. The middens had specialised purposes: the challenge of consolidating the excavated site. At abundant steatite was dumped in one place, shell many sites reinterpretation is complicated by In recent years Shetland Amenity Trust has set the and bone in another. problems of understanding what is original, so we agenda for change and facilitated new research. not only record the buildings as found, but every This has been carried out by EASE (Environmental Brochs and smithies intervention, right down to every pinning we insert, and Archaeological Services, Edinburgh) and the At Burland, Trondra, an ancillary building to a and our work is entirely reversible. University of Bradford, with valuable input from broch (situated on an offshore holm) was a other academic institutions, (Stirling, Oxford, dedicated smithy used for both smelting and Christian babies Aberdeen, Glasgow). casting. Added to recent evidence emerging from New light was shed on early Christianity when Old Scatness, a good case can now be made for the Glasgow University excavated at St Ninians Isle, Improving soils in prehistory brochs controlling metal work. Shetland’s mineral primarily to discover what was left after excavations Excellent survival makes Shetland the obvious place wealth may have been its greatest asset in in the 1950s. Immediately south of the long cist were to unravel prehistoric agriculture. The University of prehistory. burials of five babies aligned east/west, with a Stirling has demonstrated how soil management Christian cross at their heads. Each was overlaid by Dominic Echlin of was a vital component of Shetland’s prehistoric Shetland’s Flagship Project has been Old Scatness, a small empty cist. Perhaps newly converted Elliott and Company economy. Plaggen soils were first located in Bronze an innovative partnership between Shetland Shetlanders were hedging their bets. conservation Age South Nesting, and subsequent work has taken Amenity Trust and the University of Bradford. engineers assessing the study of land management through soil Commenced in 1995 to examine a broch in its With projects on the drawing board and research the consolidation improvement both backwards and forwards in time. economic and environmental setting, it has agenda constantly evolving, Shetland’s archaeology plans © Shetland This work is still in progress. surpassed our wildest imaginings. The broch is is coming of age. Amenity Trust

28 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 29 Snow covered coaxial fields at Brisley Farm, near Ashford in Kent. Late Bronze Age RONZE AGE LOWLAND FIELD SYSTEMS paddocks and boundaries covered some of B the worst clay soils imaginable. in Southern England Reconstruction painting by Casper Johnson

Dave Yates

As Richard Bradley describes on page 18, the areas with heavier, less productive soils. advent of developer funded projects, especially those involving large area excavation, has changed They are found along the Thames, its estuary and our understanding of many aspects of prehistoric major tributaries. The Fenland was also important Britain. One outstanding example is the major phase at this time, although it is clear that the field of economic expansion that occurred in Southern systems are associated with the lower reaches of the England during the second and early first major feeder rivers (Welland, Nene, Great Ouse, millennium BC, accompanied by a fundamental Cam, Lark, and Little Ouse) rather than the wetland shift in regional power and wealth towards the itself. They also occur along the North Sea and eastern lowlands. Until recently we were largely English Channel coasts, including farming ignorant of the farming practices associated with settlements on the fertile loess of the Sussex coastal these dramatic changes, but now archaeologists plain, another region already known for its deposits Late Bronze Age ringwork have cut innumerable ditch sections, planned and of metalwork. at South Hornchurch, projected miles of boundaries and bagged countless Essex. The gridded land bulk samples tackling the largest form of CONSPICUOUS PRODUCTION slants away across a flat monumental construction in prehistoric Britain: In certain cases it seems that Middle Bronze Age tract of cultivated fields, Bronze Age field systems. field systems went out of use in the Late Bronze stockpens and trodden Age and that some Late Bronze Age systems were earth. Corralled overnight LARGE SCALE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY established in different positions from their the livestock await the In specific zones of Southern Britain, unwary project predecessors. There is little evidence that they were next drive to distant managers are only too painfully aware (financially) used or maintained far into the Early Iron Age. lands where they will be of the complexity of the Bronze Age landscape they More importantly, there is little to suggest that separated, exchanged might encounter. In a research project, funded by similar land divisions were newly established and sorted again. English Heritage, all the evidence of droveways, during the Early Iron Age. In lowland England the Reconstruction painting enclosures, coaxial and aggregate field systems creation of ‘Celtic fields’ may have lapsed for by Casper Johnson. throughout England has been pieced together. This several hundred years. The field systems may synthesis draws on the substantial body of grey represent a form of conspicuous production, an literature generated by field personnel. It reveals a intensification of agrarian endeavour best scale of regimented prehistoric landscaping without understood in relation to the maintenance and parallel to date in Europe. The research confirms the promotion of hierarchical social systems involved in sophistication and importance of large-scale animal exchange with their counterparts across the English husbandry (first flagged up by Francis Pryor in his Channel. pioneering Fenland research) and shows that Middle and Late Bronze Age field systems are SPIRITUAL REPLENISHMENT mostly confined to a region south of a line between Before the advent of commercial excavation there the Bristol Channel and the Wash. Not only are they were less than half a dozen known excavated world of farming lie scattered in the fields. For on soil enrichment - possibly signalling the confined to Southern England, especially the South lowland Bronze Age field systems in Southern example, waterholes not only provide continued participation of the dead. Unlocking the East; their occurrence is restricted to particular Britain. Now there are already more than 300. Their environmental evidence but may contain special intricacies of such potentially large-scale ‘sites’ enclaves in this area. This is less true of earthwork detection (and confirmation of zones of absence) is deposits including metalwork, animal bones, human requires development of new strategies and sites than of the lowland field systems discovered in one of the great achievements of developer funding. remains and token cremations. These features may sampling methodologies. excavation. The systems are commonly found on Two major challenges, however, have emerged. First have the same symbolic significance as storage pits the coast, along estuaries or beside major rivers and what is the best way to preserve (by record or in the Iron Age. Land, Power and Prestige (David Yates) covering all their tributaries, locations where people were well scheduling) such monumental constructions? the research findings will shortly be published by placed to participate in long distance exchange, but Secondly comes the realisation that such formally There are also indications of spiritual replenishment Oxbow Books. were vulnerable when social networks collapsed as gridded terrains are immensely complex in in these enclosed farmlands. Work in Cornwall and the Bronze Age came to a close. Some of these construction conventions, social meaning, phasing Cambridgeshire suggests that field shrines were Dave Yates regions seem to have been used so intensively that and incorporation of ritualised practices. Many incorporated and the discovery of human bones Department of Archaeology Bronze Age land divisions extend into adjacent answers as to how people engaged in the new within manure matrices suggests a special emphasis University of Reading

30 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 31 Aurochs remains within a rectangular pit © Wessex Archaeology

The barrow grave and the semi-articulated remains of the main burial © Wessex Archaeology The Early Bronze Age barrow, ring ditch and enclosure at the edge of the plateau © Wessex Archaeology

The pit circle © Wessex Archaeology afterwards the grave was reopened and the remains flint, bone and pottery that may represent placed A ritual landscape at Boscombe Down of a neonate and perhaps one or two young adults deposits. The presence of Grooved Ware and Early Andy Manning, Wessex Archaeology were interred. The articulated human remains of the Bronze Age Beaker and Collared Urn material show original burial were rearranged, with two that these deposits were made over a long period. fragmentary Beakers, a barbed and tanged arrowhead One rectangular pit contained the carefully arranged and part of an antler in the backfill of the grave. remains of a juvenile aurochs or wild cow with the Boscombe Down has yielded some major discoveries in recent Pit circle on a plateau limbs detached, the lower limbs being placed close years; the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen. But why A prominent plateau, which gradually falls into a A small shallow ring ditch, possibly a small to the head. dry valley further to the east, was partially encircled hengiform feature, lay a few metres south of the were those men buried there? The discovery of contemporary in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age by a barrow, close to the terminal of the enclosure ditch. Ritual landscape ritual monuments in the latest excavations has begun to provide shallow angular ditch with a possible external bank The tightly crouched burial of an infant had been It is within this ritual landscape that the Amesbury an explanation. and a series of short ditch segments and pits. More placed within the ring ditch, and the grave was Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen can now be significantly, a large pit circle, estimated to have filled with tightly packed flint nodules. viewed. They were not buried in isolation, but been at least 63m in diameter, occupied the crest of close to monuments, constructed in the Late Previous work had already identified a significant a plateau. Thirty-one pits spaced 3-4m apart were There were three other crouched burials and a semi- Neolithic or the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. ritual landscape in this future housing estate on the uncovered, most with no evidence for having articulated burial within a conical shaft. In addition, These monuments were probably still standing outskirts of Amesbury, Wilts. In 2002, the Amesbury supported timbers. Instead, they contained a wide pits containing fragmentary human remains were when the Archer and Bowmen died in the Early Archer, the richest Early Bronze Age or Beaker variety of worked flint, bone and pottery, including found in close association with both monuments. In Bronze Age. burial in Britain so far known, was found. Within a Late Neolithic Grooved Ware and a small number of one case, a pit that contained only an upturned skull year, the mass grave of the ‘Boscombe Bowmen’ placed deposits. However, ramps on the sides of was flanked by two further pits that each contained Ritual activity then ceased. Generations later, the was found. These men are likely to have originated four of the larger pits here showed that substantial a complete Beaker. The disarticulated human plateau was briefly occupied by a small in Wales. Inevitably, links have been drawn between timbers had been slid into position before erection. remains suggest excarnation. A possible excarnation Middle/Late Bronze Age farm and later it was these two discoveries and the building of the stone The timbers may have only been in position for a platform is represented by a four-post structure with divided by a massive Bronze Age boundary ditch. It circles at Stonehenge, less than three kilometres to short period, although the presence of Beaker and a central pit lying between the two monuments and may be coincidence, or not, that the plateau was the west. But why were the burials made at Collared Urn in some pits indicates that the other clusters of postholes, both within the enclosure chosen as the setting for the cemeteries of the Late Boscombe Down, rather than close to the monument was in use into the Early Bronze Age. and throughout the plateau, may have served a Romano-British village and returned once more to a contemporary temples at Stonehenge, Durrington similar purpose. ritual landscape. Walls or Woodhenge? Preliminary results from Burial sequence major excavations covering over 13 hectares The pit circle and enclosure were the focus of ritual Placed deposits Andy Manning adjacent to the grave of the Amesbury Archer activity. An Early Bronze Age barrow had a body Numerous scattered pits were found concentrated Wessex Archaeology undertaken in 2004 are exciting. placed in a timber mortuary structure, and shortly near to the monuments. These contained charcoal, www.wessexarch.co.uk

32 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 33 changed in the Early Neolithic, and leaf-shaped arrowheads replaced microliths, the knapping strategy changed, and it continued to change PREHISTORIC ARTEFACTS throughout the Neolithic. The transformation becomes more apparent in the Bronze Age, when metal begins to replace flint, leading to a general the Portable Antiquities Scheme decline in flintworking skills and a smaller range of tools. Flint tools were not solely functional: there are Sally Worrell & Prehistoric many prestige items found unused with burials and in ritual deposits, such as pits or ditch terminals. An flintwork – increase in such deposits of finely made axes, knives and arrowheads occurred just at the time when an undervalued general flintworking skills were declining. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) was introduced in 1997 and since 2003 has covered all resource? Some archaeologists are sceptical about using flint England and Wales. The volume of material for dating, in contrast to reliance on pottery. Part of recorded is vast and at the end of March 2005 there Chris Butler the problem is that flint is very durable, so will often were 138,000 artefacts on the database be residual, and careful consideration of context is (www.finds.org.uk). Most have been found using a essential. Although certain types (eg microliths, metal detector and, although their study is arrowheads and polished axes) have become hampered by lack of stratigraphic context, most findspots have a six figure NGR and thus Flint is sharper than metal and second only established cultural indicators, it is only in recent years that the study of debitage and manufacturing distribution patterns can be established with some to diamonds in hardness. It can be worked technologies has provided much more information. precision. One of the real strengths of PAS is predictably to produce tools of defined type creation of an ever increasing national accessible and shape and for a variety of tasks. Diagnostic pieces can quite easily be given a broad database of material. date, but many sites produce huge quantities of Immensely durable, it is the only material debitage, but few tools or diagnostic pieces. Again, So what is the archaeological potential of this data? used on some sites that survives. Without sites frequently comprise more than one phase, and My recent study of 3200 Iron Age artefacts includes flint we would understand little about our assemblages can become mixed. Alternative the most heavily studied ‘heartland’ areas of the past. We therefore need to appreciate how methods of dating or phasing therefore need to be Iron Age such as Wessex and Hertfordshire, as well found. Proven techniques such as length-breadth as ‘marginal’ less intensively researched areas. An prehistoric people used flint, where they analysis and an understanding of how different raw interesting pattern emerges for example for middle obtained raw materials, and how tools were material sources were exploited in different periods to late Iron Age horse and vehicle equipment. The Changes in flint made and used. can often provide an answer. traditional view has seen Wessex and East Yorkshire tools, such as these as the Iron Age equine material culture ‘hot-spots’, arrowheads, can During the Mesolithic, the use of microliths to make Technological characteristics that result from the but recent studies in Norfolk demonstrate that provide evidence for composite hunting equipment required production manufacturing process, seen on flakes and cores as county’s artefactual wealth. PAS data also reveals dating, as well as of bladelets, which needed good quality flint and well as ordinary implements, may successfully be marked differences in the types and proportions of function. very controlled working. When hunting equipment used for classification, and it is these that flint horse and vehicle equipment: terrets now dominate, specialists today concentrate on. Replication of flint with a total of 127 recorded and there are 24 linch tools and ethnographic studies have also pins and 15 strap-unions. Distribution of Iron contributed to understanding the knapping process, Age horse the debitage that is produced, and how different In contrast to excavated evidence, only a modest the Late Iron Age with horses and their trappings equipment tools are made and used. Use-wear analysis is also quantity of horse and vehicle equipment has been being more decorated than people. The use of recorded by PAS currently back in favour. recorded by PAS in Hampshire, Somerset, Dorset horse gear with metal fittings seems to have been and East Yorkshire. However the distribution in the exaggerated within and underestimated outside A detailed study of a good stratified flintwork eastern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Wessex. assemblage provides both dating evidence and Lincolnshire is striking. Of particular note are 21 information about activities on the site, together artefacts within this group recorded from PAS data is therefore beginning to change with aspects of trade, technology, social organisation Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire perceptions of aspects of the archaeology of and even ritual. and Staffordshire. The total of 7 linch pins recorded England and Wales and is building an ever- is outstanding, especially when compared to the 4 increasing research resource. Chris Butler examples recorded previously. Interestingly, the Freelance Archaeologist number of brooches normally exceeds that of horse Sally Worrell [email protected] and harness fittings, although in Staffordshire and PAS Finds Adviser for Prehistoric and Roman Author: Prehistoric Flintwork, Warwickshire the opposite is the case. The pattern is artefacts, Tempus Publishing Ltd 2005 curious and highlights a possible regional trend in [email protected]

34 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 35 Building materialsfor the archaeologist Michael Nevell

Cement, a stone substitute, was first reintroduced brick arch would carry most of the weight across an into Britain in a 1796 Patent by James Parker, but opening. A variety of Brick Taxes (1725 1784, 1803), was not popularised until Portland Cement was attempted to standardise sizes and can provide manufactured at Swanscombe in Kent 1844. broad dating if used carefully. Again the introduction and span of these features varies from Building materials are often diagnostic of date and load was supported through pairs of included Bricks – decorative finish to mass production region to region. Initially handmade in clamp kilns, function, and can also reveal the extensive local, trusses running from floor to ridge height). There is Although in regular use from the late medieval moulded and terracotta bricks were introduced in regional, and national trade networks of a given little chronological difference between the two period brick only rarely became a fashionable the eighteenth century and machine-made bricks in period. Before the 1830s principal construction types, but crucks are most common in Wales and building medium in polite architecture before the the mid-nineteenth, by which date the vernacular materials were stone (including flint and cobble) in central and northern England. Carpenter’s marks, late sixteenth century. This, combined with the traditions of the medium had all but disappeared. the uplands, clay for brick making, and oak timber usually Roman numerals, are important elements in increasing restrictions on oak timber supply, The introduction of machine-made brick coincided in lowlands. Important materials after the 1830s are the recording and understanding of timber probably encouraged its use in vernacular roughly with the building of the first generation of iron, steel and concrete. structures. The wall spaces between the uprights architecture in the seventeenth century, when many railways and allowed mass-produced bricks of a and rails were usually filled with either wattle and timber buildings were given false fronts or were standard and regular size to be transported across Timber technology daub or later on brick, but timber wall frames could completely encased in brick. Sixteenth, seventeenth Britain from the major brickfields in areas such as Amongst the earliest surviving timber structures in be clad in wooden tiles or covered in timber and eighteenth-century brickwork is distinguished Bedfordshire. The transition from handmade to Britain is Greensted church in Essex (mid-eleventh weather-boarding according to regional taste. by decorative effects using coloured bricks, machine brick is one the most useful relative dating century), but most standing timber structures date Timber-framing ceased to be the normal means of produced by differential firing, and projecting horizons in Buildings Archaeology. The distribution of some from the fourteenth century onwards. These are construction in lowland Britain in the later mouldings. The unfamiliarity of some of the early roofing material types, after usually made from oak in either box-framing (where seventeenth century, but the box-framed tradition craftsmen with the structural strengths of brick led Michael Nevell R Brunskill 2000, Vernacular the weight of the separate roof trusses was taken on survived long enough to be revived in the mid to occasionally to the use of iron tie plates to brace University of Manchester Architecture. An Illustrated the wall frames) or cruck-framing (where the roof late nineteenth century, whilst timber remained in walls, whilst sometimes a timber-lintel behind a [email protected] Handbook (Faber & Faber, use for roof structures. The decline in vernacular London, 4th edition), page carpentry techniques can be seen in the nineteenth 207 century, with the introduction of iron bolts and nails in the assembly of roof trusses. One feature of the Sources of buildings Oakdene new industrial factories was the use of pine timber materials for Tameside Farmhouse (sometimes from the Baltic and indicated by houses. Top: the 1755 geometric marks on the wood) for floors, Oakdene Farmhouse was supporting posts, and roof trusses. built using materials local to Tameside. Bottom: the Styles of stone Kershaw Lane housing The use of stone in buildings is extremely varied but estate built in the 1940s in perhaps the major divide is between irregular types Audenshaw used materials of rubble walling, often graduated with the larger from around Britatin and stones at the bottom, and regular walling techniques abroad. Note the increase using finished and smoothed ashlar blocks which Tameside in floor area between 1755 often fronted a rubble wall. The style of tooling of and the 1940s and the such finished blocks gives a broad indication of presence of a motor garage date. However, the stylistic divide between rubble at Kershaw Lane. and ashlar walls appears to be more one of economic and social status rather than chronology, although traditions vary from region to region. Where cobbles and flints were the common building medium more polite structures were often rendered.

Kershaw Lane Britain

36 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 37 Science Science

Leatherworker’s tool box from Evie, Orkney, dated to cal AD640-870. Photo: NMS

Unfinished alder cup from Watten, Caithness, 170 cal Galleries of Wales have initiated similar dating The last five years have focused on Bronze Age Dating BC – cal AD30. Photo: NMS programmes, and we look forward to English material, producing significant numbers of dates for colleagues catching up. Scotland’s various urn types and accessory vessels; Scotland’s for Food Vessels and Beakers (to be fed into Mike Some highlights... Parker Pearson’s ‘Beaker People’ project); for faience Since the early 1990s the National past: The themes of NMS dating programmes are varied. (in Scotland, Wales and England); and for daggers, Museums of Scotland Archaeology In the 1990s, in preparing displays for the new battle axes and bone toggles. Highlights – of which Department has undertaken programmes of Museum of Scotland, attention focused on objects there are many – include the discovery that the the National from Scottish peat bogs. Fascinating results henge bank at North Mains (and by extension, the radiocarbon dating to shed light on ancient emerged, including several ‘firsts’: the oldest ditch) must have been constructed around or after Museums of Scottish artefacts and funerary practices. evidence for wheeled transport in Britain and 2000 BC, significantly later than the timber ring Ireland (disc wheel from Blair Drummond: OxA- enclosed within, as Gordon Barclay predicted. Scotland C14 Thanks to generous outside support, the scope of 3538, 2810±85 BP, 1220–800 cal BC at 2σ, calibrated Further dating work for other researchers, using this activity has expanded to encompass material using OxCal v3.9); the earliest bow (from Rotten material in NMS collections, has produced equally dating held outside NMS’ own collections, including some Bottom: OxA-3540, 5040±100 BP, 4040–3640 cal BC fascinating results (such as the Ritchies’ confirmation from Wales and England. It has also included at 2σ); the oldest ox yoke (Loch Nell: OxA-3541, that the Stones of Stenness henge ditch and bank had programmes cremated bone: in 2001 the NMS Dating Cremated 3430±85 BP, 1940–1520 cal BC at 2σ); and the earliest been created around 3000 BC, thereby neatly Neolithic axe with Antrim Bones Project (DCBP) was established, using the new swingletree (a crossbar to regulate movement providing a millennium-long bracket for henge porcellanite blade from technique of AMS dating of structural carbonate during pulling by traction animals) in the world construction in Scotland). Shulishader, Lewis, 3500- Alison Sheridan (bio-apatite) in cremated bone as developed at the (White Moss: OxA-4507, 3115±60 BP, 1520–1210 cal 2900 cal BC. Photo: NMS University of Groningen. This technique – which BC at 2σ)! Other highlights include dates for two uses a completely different approach from previous, animal traps – a late third millennium pit-fall trap disastrous attempts to date absorbed carbonate or from Mye Plantation (UB-3882, 3913±39 BP, collagen in charred bone – opens new horizons for 2500–2230 cal BC at 2σ) and an Early Historic deer certain classes of material (such as Bronze Age tread-trap from the Moss of Auquharney (OxA- cinerary urns), and had already been tried and 6052, 1440±45 BP, cal AD 530–680). tested by Anna Brindley and Jan Lanting, revolutionising our understanding of Irish Bronze Dates were also obtained for items of clothing Age pottery. Some 79 cremated bone dates have (including the Orkney Hood and a pair of shoes, been obtained for the DCBP, with 11 more in the both first millennium AD); for wooden vessels and pipeline. Our colleagues in Scottish archaeological bog butter; for items connected with water transport units have also embraced this technique, with CFA (logboats, unfinished Viking boat stemposts from a Archaeology Ltd’s work on the assemblages from suspected boatyard on Eigg, a rudder, and boat Skilmafilly, Aberdeenshire and Lesmurdie Road, bailers); various hafts and shafts; a Bronze Age log Elgin, Moray, giving us the most comprehensively- coffin cover; horizontal mill wheel paddles; a flax dated Early Bronze Age cemeteries in Britain and scutcher; and a Late Bronze Age leaf-shaped sword Ireland. Colleagues in the National Museums & made of yew from Grotsetter in Orkney, inter alia.

38 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 39 Funerary practices – Mesolithic to post-medieval collaboration and synergy, it’s been a spectacular Recent results include dates for Iron Age success! Jobs in British Archaeology 2004 inhumations (from Burnmouth, Craigie and Cumledge) and for Early Neolithic cremated bone We thank the following for generous support: James Drummond-Murray from the non-megalithic Cairns of Atherb. Samples Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; NERC; Historic have also been provided from NMS collections for Scotland (Patrick Ashmore); University of £ non-NMS programmes of research, including Rick Groningen (Jan Lanting); Aberdeenshire Science Schulting’s work on early Neolithic populations, Archaeology (Ian Shepherd) and Queen’s University Mike Richards’ work on the Late Mesolithic human Belfast with ORADS (Finbar McCormick). The Here again is the annual review of Jobs in British SMR slipped back to an anaemic £16,941 and £21,397 remains from Oronsay and James Barrett’s work on collaboration of many museum curators and field archaeology – based on the ads placed in JIS, plus respectively from last year’s healthier £17,274 and the Pictish and pagan Norse cemetery at Westness. archaeologists is warmly acknowledged. some from BAJR. There was an identical number £23,840. compared to last year (127) which suggests that the Dissemination and impact Sheridan, JA 2003 New dates for Scottish Bronze Age archaeological economy is at least steady. The high The advances made by the Specialist and Illustrators Over the last 13 years, the NMS C14 dating cinerary urns: results from the National Museums’ of point of 146 jobs in 2001 is still some way off. categories last year went into sharp reverse as they programmes have produced 168 results, mostly from Scotland Dating Cremated Bones Project. In Gibson, plunged from £17,170 and £16,914 respectively to the University of Groningen and the Oxford AM (ed), Prehistoric Pottery: People, Pattern and Pay £15,254 and £15,992 though there were more jobs (27 Radiocarbon Accelerator Dating Service (ORADS). Purpose, 201–26. BAR (International Series 1156). This was encouraging at the bottom end, averaging rather than 18). This may be an area that needs Most have already been published (below). Most £13,710 – up from last year’s £12,903. The general looking at closely to make sure these jobs are graded have also been incorporated in Patrick Ashmore’s Sheridan, JA 2004 Scottish Food Vessel chronology upward progress of previous years has been correctly in the employing organisations. Historic Scotland radiocarbon datelist, revisited. In Gibson, AM & Sheridan, JA (eds), From resumed, though this is still far too low. www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/, and it is planned to Sickles to Circles: Britain and Ireland at the Time of Encouraging signs of action on this front include IFA membership publish full details, with images, on NMS’ own Stonehenge, 243–67 formation of the IFA Diggers’ Forum (p8) and the The number of jobs mentioning IFA membership website. work of Prospect (in particular Phil Carpenter) in continued to grow, up to 23%. There is room for Alison Sheridan seeking to set up National Pay Bargaining for improvement, but at least some ads stated ‘PIFA Together with the major programme of radiocarbon Head of Early Prehistory archaeology. The words of the new IFA chair David preferred’ for the first time. dating archaeological sites that Patrick Ashmore has National Museums of Scotland Jennings in the TA 53 in making this issue a personal co-ordinated for Historic Scotland (reported priority were especially welcome as he is in a good IFA recommended minimums annually in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland), the position to influence these matters. Pete Hinton wrote in TA 54 that this whole issue was NMS’ programmes – which are ongoing – have Food Vessels from Ratho, Midlothian being reviewed, and a new system is awaited with transformed our understanding of Scotland’s (left) and Pitmilly, Fife (right), and There were too few supervisors’ jobs to comment interest. A more sophisticated approach is surely to archaeology and that of neighbouring countries. As accessory vessel as miniature Food but Field/Project Officers were virtually static at be welcomed. It should be noted that the minimum value for money, and an example of partnership, Vessel from Craigdhu, Fife, 2140-1740 £16,563 (2003 – £16,592). Project Managers advanced for a MIFA level goes up to £20,295 for 2005-2006. cal BC. Photo: NMS to £20,957 (2003 – £19,701) but are still at the same The author wonders how many MIFA’s earn less general level of 2001 (£20,881) suggesting the quiet than this. If membership at MIFA level guaranteed last two or three years is having a dampening effect. this level of pay in RAOs this would certainly This may also be the reason both Junior CRM and encourage higher membership.

AVWAGE NOOFADS MENTION AVWAGE AVWAGE AVWAGE AVWAGE AVWAGE IFA MINIMA 2004 (2003) IFA 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 APRIL£04

Excavator / site assistant £13,710 26 (26) 4 £12.903 £13,232 £12,378 £12,024 £11,174 £13,071 (PIFA)

Supervisor - 3(11) 1 £14,765 £14,806 £12,741 12,868 £12,700 £15.225 (AIFA)

Field Officer / Project Officer £16,563 23 (14) 6 £16,592 £18,489 £15,572 £15,518 £13,777 £19,713 (MIFA)

Project Manager £20,957 16 (13) 8 £19,701 £21,536 £20,881 £19,447 £18,671

Junior CRM / SMR £16,941 13 (27) 3 £17,274 £15,563 £17,532 £15,608 £14,167

Senior CRM / SMR £21,397 9 (15) 5 £23.840 £30,605 £23,012 £23,486 £20,654

Specialists £15,254 15 (8) 3 £17,170 £14,992 £16,531 £14,632 £15,476

Illustrators etc £15,992 12 (10) £16,914 £14,085 £14,908 £15,497 £13,271

Misc - 5

127 (79) 30(23%)

40 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 41 NEW Prehistoric BOOKS REVIEWED Submarine prehistoric archaeology of ‘Submerged prehistoric archaeological surveys’; ‘Systematics, palaeontology, and proxy data’; the North Sea: Research priorities and ‘Management and supporting data’. Geoff Bailey collaboration with industry makes the forceful point that exploitation of coastal Richard Bradley, Robin Daniels, Tim Phillips, Nicola Powell and Alison Taylor CBA Research Report 141 resources seen as a characteristic of the Mesolithic may have occurred in the Palaeolithic as well, the NC Flemming (ed) 2004 Palaeolithic sites now being submerged. He points Prehistoric Dorset of the finest monuments and most spectacular CBA 140pp pb £25 out the fruitfulness of the coast to early humans as a excavations of this period. This book by a lecturer at food resource and how it facilitated ease of John Gale 2003 Bournemouth university, who has excavated sites in These fourteen papers were originally given in 2003, movement, suggesting that submerged landscapes Tempus 192 pp pb £16.99 the county and used its resources extensively in and the editor is congratulated on such quick may contain crucial evidence for the arrival and teaching, is a useful roundup of this seminal production. The volume brings together survival of people in northern Europe. Nic Our understanding of prehistory is changing fast archaeology, and to an extent brings us up to date contributors from five countries and is essentially a Flemming outlines the problems of recovering and throughout Britain, but Dorset can still boast many with important reports of recent years. Excavations statement of the current position of research, raising analysing data from such a hostile environment. for example include Mount Pleasant, Cranborne awareness of work around the North Sea outside Chase, Hambledon Hill, Gussage All Saints, sites in the British Isles. The volume provides important examples of current Dorchester such as Greyhounds Yard and work on submerged landscapes, from site location Flagstones, and of course Maiden Castle itself. He Major section headings are: ‘The scope and modelling and survey projects to excavation projects ends with a handy gazetteer of sites to visit which importance of Continental Shelf prehistory’; of Mesolithic sites. The final section sets out English should inspire many outings. Heritage’s approach to their maritime responsibilities, the Dutch national heritage The limitation of the work is that the less accessible agency’s approach to damage to the seabed which results of developer-funded fieldwork (ie not will result from the extension of the port of published as monographs or in journals) and, I Rotterdam, and a thoughtful essay by Anthony Firth imagine, other entries in the sites and monuments on what we are trying to achieve and the record, are essentially ignored. Putting these in developer/archaeologist relationship. context might have changed the picture in interesting ways, and this is evidence that local This is an excellent introduction to current research studies in particular have little excuse to ignore. and perceptions of the archaeological resource of the Maiden North Sea. It is well presented with good Castle Alison Taylor reproduction of plates and figures, and I Examples of recommend it to anybody with an interest in early Neolithic votive prehistory or the east and channel coasts of Britain. offerings from the Danish sea floor Robin Daniels

heart of Britain, despite its domination by borders in later periods, and the dramatic scale of its prehistoric archaeology reflects both sides of the modern divide. Stan Beckensall is a local enthusiast Ketley Crag rock shelter, who seems to have practically re-invented the with its dramatically archaeology of rock art, and his insights and his In The Shadow of the Brochs: The The Northern Isles and Caithness papers centre on decorated surface access to recent excavations and other fieldwork the brochs, but take the material further than bring welcome freshness to those sated with Iron Age in Scotland individual sites. Stephen Dockrill discusses the lowland settlement cropmarks. The book is written Beverley Ballin Smith and Iain Banks (eds) economic base of their builders and the structure of thematically rather than chronologically, including their society; Julie Bond looks at faunal and 2002 whole chapters on prehistoric rock art and on botanical remains from Orkney; and Colleen Batey symbols of power as well as standards divisions of Tempus publishing 256pp pb £25 summarises evidence for Viking and late Norse religion, burial and (sensibly combined in this reuse of broch mounds in Caithness. In the section context) settlement and defence (though it is The wealth of archaeological evidence from Iron on the Western Isles a greater range of structures is Prehistoric Northumberland interesting how rock art creeps into most of these). Age of Scotland often lies in the ‘shadow’ of the brought out from the shadows, including He ends with suggestions of places to visit. This is brochs, these brooding, mysterious and enigmatic wheelhouses and souterrains. These chapters are Stan Beckensall 2003 not a full over view of prehistory in structures. This aptly-titled volume ‘present[s] a complemented by a discussion of the Western Isles’

Tempus Publishing 192pp pb £16.99 Northumberland, but is a valuable and enticing general overview of the state of Iron Age studies in pottery sequence (Ewan Campbell). John Hunter addition to its literature. Scotland at the beginning of the twenty-first provides a welcome overview of the late Iron Age,

Here is quite a different county to Dorset, and quite century’; it also marks the retirement of Euan emphasising that this was a period of profound a different approach. Northumberland is in the Alison Taylor MacKie. social change including Christianisation, also setting

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42 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 43 out the difficulties in interpreting this change. A Prehistoric Rock art in section on regions south of the Great Glen includes Northumberland a crannog in Perthshire, a hillfort in Angus and the evidence from south-west Scotland (Iain Banks). Stan Beckensall 2001

Tempus Publishing 192pp pb £16.99 The geographical research bias identified by Banks cannot be hidden. This is highlighted by the editors Having spent two weeks walking around in their concluding chapter, as well as other Northumberland as an undergraduate searching for problems with the research agenda such as a new rock art and looking at known sites, preoccupation with nomenclature and ‘the fortunately often with the author, it was a pleasure persistent obsession with structures…in contrast to to read this overview of rock art in the county. the wider Iron Age landscape’. However, the Beckensall sets the scene, explaining the study of purpose of this book is not to right the wrongs of rock art using the highly decorated rock at current research, but to provide an overview of that Lordenshaw. His clear and precise illustrations Scatness broch, roundhouse and wheelhouses research. In this, it succeeds admirably and makes show rocks covered in art, including cup and ring an important addition to the literature of Iron Age marks, pick marks, serpentine grooves and motifs, Scotland, whilst highlighting where problems lie. in their context. It explains where archaeologists are in rock art studies, how art is perceived in the Tim Phillips landscape and relates to monuments. It also looks at the research in its wider setting and accepts that the subject often raises more questions that it can answer. The main part of the book is more than a gazetteer; entitled ‘Art in the Landscape’ and along Archaeology in Northumberland evolving place is emphasised, where the needs and with the chapter devoted to rock art found in a National park desires of visitors to popular places such as monumental setting, it includes every piece of rock Hadrian’s Wall are managed alongside management art discovered in Northumberland, with six figure accepts that there will be many more theories, Paul Frodsham 2004 of an important and so far little studied grid references and full description and however odd. Council for British Archaeology pb 382pp £19.95 archaeological landscape. Frodsham has produced illustrations. How people have perceived and an important and enjoyable review of fieldwork in interpreted rock art is discussed and Beckensall Nicola Powell The first part of this book looks at the changing Northumberland National Park for the archaeologist landscape of Northumberland National Park over as well as the general reader. time and the second covers fieldwork by contributors over the last ten years, ranging from Nicola Powell the palaeoenvironment and prehistoric periods through to the industrial past and the present day. Young Derek Simpson (right, standing), with Piggott and Atkinson, sorting out Stonehenge Early on, we are aware of the importance of the omnipresent and ‘looming’ Yeavering Bell, a focus From Sickles to Circles: Britain and up to the present day. Sites such as Turf Knowe, Ireland at the time of Stonehenge which includes monuments dating to the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, are discussed in Alex Gibson and Alison Sheridan (ed) 2004 greater detail in the second part. The rock art of the Tempus publishing 384pp pb £30 National Park is famous and Stan Beckensall’s ‘Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumberland’ is the This impressive tome was prepared as a festschrift perfect companion book. Later, we are introduced to for Derek Simpson upon his retirement last year a bastle village and then in greater detail to towers from the Chair of Archaeology at Queen’s and bastles. But most importantly, the University, Belfast, and is now sadly also a memorial Northumberland National Park as a continually to him, as he died this March. It is not a work for a general reader, but a serious compilation of significant research topics and discussions by eminent prehistorians, many of whom worked closely with Derek and have personal memories. This includes a good deal of new information and new interpretations, especially welcome when they

are by old masters such as Aubrey Burl, Vincent

Megaw and Ian Kinnes who have had time to re- evaluate their own pioneering works.

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44 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 45 The largest part of the book concentrates on exciting notions of totemism on the way. Dermot useful work of reference, but there were times when renovated many times. The basic structure remains Scottish archaeology, and much of this is concerned Moore uses the impressive settlement evidence of I wondered if it might have been better to go back but much fabric is new. It is a great achievement to with aspects of megaliths, where new techniques Neolithic Ireland to look at evidence for conflict – to the drawing board and produce a different book have offered interpretations that have kept their are reviving old topics. This includes Graham and finds quite a lot of it. Several papers are altogether. This would not constrained by the place in the discipline over such a long period, but Ritchie’s discussion of some dreadful things done devoted to aspects of artefact typology that are format of its predecessors; it would place more there is a danger that any further editions will seem to standing stones in the recent past, the clearly due for an overhaul, and there is a call from emphasis on the late second and earlier first like footnotes to an established text. It should be on importance of understanding past interventions Colin Burgess for more disciplined use of uniform millennia (here the Bronze Age ‘background’); it the shelves of every field archaeologist, but is so and how we should approach them today. Patrick phraseology for describing Bronze Age phases would take on the opportunities raised by the expensive it is more likely to be confined to the Ashmore uses Calanais (Lewis) as compelling (though he admits that over the last 45 years he has expansion of commercial archaeology; and it would better funded libraries. It is to greatly to Barry evidence for frequent long-distance contact been a culprit too). All in all, this satisfying work is treat Ireland on equal terms with England, Scotland Cunliffe’s credit that he is given us so much to think networks c. 3000 BC, and Audrey Henshall looks at a tribute to the ingenuity and tenacity of and Wales. Above all, it would engage more fully about, but, as Umberto Eco said in The Name of the new data from passage grave and what we should archaeologists in dealing with old and new data in with the ideas put forward by the proponents of an Rose, ‘books are not made to be believed, but to be emphatically not be trying to learn from them – old and new ways, as well as to the inspiration of ‘alternative Iron Age’. That is a radical challenge, subjected to enquiry’. That is the nature of research, reinforced by Anna Ritchie’s assessment of animal Derek Simpson himself. but it is one which the author is uniquely qualified and it is pity that the publishers seem to have bones in chambered cairns, which can derive from a to meet. There is no sign that anyone else is miscalculated the audience in their pricing of this variety of human and natural causes, destroying Alison Taylor prepared to do so. important book.

This latest edition is like a building which has been Richard Bradley

Iron Age communities in Britain successive editions of Iron Age Communities. It is An account of England, Scotland and light on theory and cautious in its interpretations. It is rich in drawings of artefacts and site plans and The moon and the bonfire understand their siting in the landscape (which has Wales from the seventh century until the is at its most confident when it deals with subjects An investigation of three stone circles in implications for understanding all monuments that Roman Conquest. Fourth Edition and regions on which the author himself has came to life when it was dark). He ends with worked: the Wessex chalkland, cross-Channel north-east Scotland discussion of the elements of these recumbent stone Barry Cunliffe 2005 trade, the archaeology of Atlantic Europe. That is Richard Bradley 2005 circles that are found on other monuments across Routledge 741 pp hb £140 understandable. It is based on exhaustive reading Britain and Ireland. Though apparently restricted to Society of Antiquaries of Scotland hb 124pp £25 (£20 to of fully published projects, but, wherever possible, a very regional type of site, this report therefore has When I studied law many years ago, I could never it avoids engaging in controversy. For instance, Fellows of Soc of Ants, Scotland) value for archaeologists attempting to understand understand why authors of most famous textbooks there is no mention of John Creighton’s account of prehistoric ritual monuments anywhere in Britain, were dead. Their works were entirely rewritten, yet the Late Iron Age. This sumptuous hardback volume is ostensibly a and perhaps beyond. they retained the original title and format. The report on three excavations and two fieldwalking same is true in medicine. No one who has studied surveys in Aberdeenshire, but it somehow brings in Alison Taylor Gray’s Anatomy could have met Dr Gray. more than one expects for this genre.

Archaeology is different, for few of its classic texts Richard Bradley makes clear for example how these are ever revised. They may be reprinted long after apparently unitary monuments went through they have outstayed their welcome, but few are prolonged sequences of structural change, making rewritten by their original authors. Gordon Childe nonsense of simple classifications of style or was one great exception, and Barry Cunliffe is function (eg burials may be one incident, not a another. This is the fourth edition of Iron Age major role). In combination with Tim Phillips’ Communities in Britain, which first appeared in a fieldwalking surveys, which emphasised the much slimmer version 31 years ago. It was the one isolated positions of the monuments, on open substantial study to consider the Iron Age of the ground on or beyond limits of settlement, their entire island of Britain and it is largely due to its topography is discussed in terms of how they influence that the subject has expanded to such an would have been perceived (both looking in and extent during the last three decades. Although it looking out), the visual effects that would have deals with the prehistory of England, Scotland and come into play (changing views and perspectives, Wales, it should really be read alongside Barry movements of sun and moon, use of contrast Raftery’s Pagan Celtic Ireland and Dennis Harding’s between red, grey and white stones as part of recent synthesis The Iron Age in Northern Britain. dramatic and clearly intentional effects of monument design etc). This includes precise

One of the problems of recasting older research is Its strengths, as in previous editions, are its alignments with the moon and the setting sun

that it establishes a format from which it is hard to excellent illustrations, its lucid style and command which imply the sites were intended for use at escape, and there is a certain continuity between of detail, and its enormous bibliography. It is a night, with implications for ways we should

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46 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 47 New members Members news

ELECTED Member (MIFA) Associate (AIFA) Practitioner (PIFA) Affiliate Student Philip Abramson Christopher Beth Asbury Kirsty Bell Abby Antrobus Andrew Crutchley Barrowman Emily Betts Rebecca Ireland Louise Bush Phil Carpenter (2652) retired as Prospect’s Phil Carpenter Joseph Elders Julia Bennett Alexander Farnell Robert McCubbin Jill Campbell negotiator with responsibility for archaeologists in Natasha Nicholas Best Monica Giedelmann Simon Oakley Garrard Cole January, but was immediately hired back to help Hutcheson Sarah Court Naomi Hall Richard Constable Prospect work on the new Civil Service pensions Peter Rumley Suzanne Gailey David Kaye Mark Faulknall scheme. Phil has worked closely with IFA staff Reuben Thorpe Mhairi Hastie Helen Parslow Claire Feldkamp recently in developing proposals for industry-wide Sylvia Warman Charlotte Lewis Natasha Ransom Natalie Kershaw pay bargaining, and has always emphasised the Daniel Lewis Abigail Rothwell Aoife McKeown benefits of union and professional institute working Doug Murphy Elizabeth Rundle David Millum together. He has had many responsibilities in Geoffrey Saunders Daniel Stone David Pearce Prospect, but it is obvious that archaeology has left Anna Stocks Andrew Tizzard Alice Samson its mark. Reported in Prospect’s Bulletin Phil says ‘I Hawk Tolson still think the Prison Service is the worst employer Gareth Watkins I’ve had to deal with, though English Heritage is spend part of his retirement researching the history catching up fast.’ A member of the Sussex of the iron industry in Ashdown Forest. And Archaeological Society (RAO 10), Phil intends to attending IFA conferences, of course. TRANSFERS Member (MIFA) Associate (AIFA) Practitioner (PIFA) Affiliate Chris Constable Samantha Badger Margaret Feryok Ben Booth Andrew Holmes Adina Gleeson Emma Rees Jonathan Kenny Stuart Prior Stephen Malone David Sabin Lynne Bevan (MIFA 1028), IFA’s JIS Compiler has job as Living History Co-ordinator for Balsall Heath Julie Satchell Christopher Smith just passed her PhD viva (on rock art in Val Local History Society, Birmingham but is still Linda Smith Graham Tait Camonica). She has also just stared a new part time available for freelance artefact work.

News awesome job as a volunteer at the Orkney Museum, Obituary sorting thousands of human bones from the Apology to Norfolk Landscape ‘written warning of future conduct’), the name of Neolithic tomb at Isbister in South Ronaldsay. Daphne Lorimer MBE, MIFA 1677 Archaeology the member may not be published. Besides her own archaeological work, Daphne was We would like to apologise to James Albone(1744), an enthusiast who supported the efforts of David Gurney(48), Ken Hamilton(2169) and A Disciplinary Inquiry Panel conducted a hearing Orkney’s archaeology has lost one of its great colleagues, be it with information and a listening Andrew Hutcheson(1376) whose address details on 10 December 2004 to investigate allegations that champions with the death of Daphne Home Lorimer. ear or entire buffet parties for hungry student were incorrectly published in the Yearbook and a member had breached various clauses of the Code She was chair of the Orkney Heritage Society 1994 to diggers. In celebration of her work an on-line directory for 2005 and should have been – Norfolk of conduct and Code of approved practice for the 2003 and was responsible for the Society’s decision to festschrift was produced last year, Papers and Landscape Archaeology, Union House, Gressenhall, regulation of contractual arrangements in field have two international archaeological conferences, Pictures in honour of Daphne Home Lorimer MBE. This Dereham, Norfolk NR20 4DR archaeology. The Panel found that a Member of the Neolithic Orkney in its European Context and Sea includes an impressive series of papers, many by Institute had not acted in accordance with rule 1.5 Change: Orkney and Northern Europe in the Later Iron IFA’s Scottish members, and can be read on ‘An archaeologist shall give appropriate credit for Age AD 300-800. She was also the driving force http://www.orkneydigs.org.uk/dhl/papers/index. work done by others, and shall not commit behind establishment of Orkney Archaeological html. Announcement of the result of a plagiarism in oral or written communication, and Trust. Disciplinary Investigation shall not enter into conduct that might unjustifiably Anne Brundle Peter Hinton injure the reputation of another archaeologist.’ Daphne intended to study English at University but, Council agreed with the Disciplinary Inquiry with the outbreak of war instead became a The IFA’s current regulations (see TA 55 for Panel’s recommendation that the appropriate radiographer, stopping work in 1952 to start a family. Daphne Lorimer proposed revisions) for investigating allegations of sanction is a written warning: that warning has She first became seriously involved in archaeology in improper conduct have various requirements for been duly issued. London with Hendon and District Archaeological reporting. If a Disciplinary Inquiry Panel finds a Society, and co-edited the final excavation report on a breach of the Code of conduct and Council imposes In a quite separate case it was found necessary to Mesolithic site on Hampstead Heath which appeared

a sanction of expulsion or suspension from the remove Archaeological Solutions from the Register in 1989. Retiring with her husband to Orkney in the Institute, the IFA may publish details of the of Archaeological Organisations for providing false early 1980s, she wrote many specialist reports on

breaches, sanction and the identity of the member information in support of their application for human bones from excavations in Scotland, from concerned. In the case of a lesser sanction (a Registration.

Iona and Dundee to Shetland and she did an MEMBERS

48 The Archaeologist Spring 2005 Number 56 49