ANTIQUITY, LXV, I971

The Royal Society and the origins of British archaeology: I M. C. W. HUNTER

Mr Michael Hunter is a third-year undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge. This is the first part of his article on the r81e of the Royal Society in the origins and development of archaeology in Britain.* The second part will be published in the next number of ANTIQUITY.

‘The beginning of the modern world’: Lytton interests of men directly connected with the Strachey’s opinion of the foundation of the Royal Society undoubtedly differed greatly Royal Society, the opening remark to his essay from those of Camden and his earlier followers, on John Aubrey (Strachey, 1931, IS), retains an and it is true that the Society’s activities were element of truth. For although the origins of ‘far closer to modern fieldwork‘ (Evans, 1956, modern science (and thus of the modern world) 29). But before this growing resemblance to the go back further than Strachey suspected, the modern discipline of archaeology is attributed Royal Society, with its aim of ‘improving to the Society’s scientific outlook, the anti- natural knowledge by experiments’ zealously quarianism of the period must be evaluated applied over many years, did much to lay the more carefully, defining the study of archaeology foundations of the empirical method of modern and tracing its earliest manifestations. science, and gives English intellectual life of the ‘Archaeology’ is a relatively specialized late 17th century a crucial role in the transition historical science: ‘if we use the phrase to the modern world (see Butterfield, 1957; “historical research” to denote the discipline of Purver, 1967). Strachey went on to contrast the obtaining knowledge of the human past from ‘great age’ of the Royal Society with the written records, we can recognize in “archae- ‘curious twilight period‘ of Hobbes and Aubrey ology” a complementary group of techniques which preceded it; he sensed a vital change in which utilizes material remains for the same men’s outlook in the 1660’s, and yet he dis- ends’, as Professor Piggott has put it (Piggott, cerned the essential continuity underlying it, 1956, 94). And whereas ‘written records’ a continuity symbolized in Aubrey. range from historical narrative to inscriptions or The antiquarian thought of the late 17th even coins, material remains include such century reflects this general dichotomy. It uninscribed and ‘unconscious’ relics of the past inherited earlier traditions, but it was certainly as potsherds, earthworks or even buildings, modified by the Royal Society-as more than which impose upon the archaeologist lines of one writer has pointed out in recent years enquiry quite different from the historian’s. (Piggott, 1950, 1-17 passim; Evans, 1956, 29; For only if they are studied extensively and Piggott, 1956, 112 and passim; Fussner, 1962, compared with similar objects, either modern 105; Piggott, 1965, 169). The extent of this or ancient, can material remains yield proper influence is a problem: the archaeological information about the culture, technology and economy of their period. It is this that concerns * The author is indebted to Professor R. J. C. modern archaeology; mere collation of anti- Atkinson for his kindness in lending photostats of quities with historical sources is almost useless. Books 1-111 of Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica, and Translated into historical terms, this differ- to his friends, especially Sheridan Gilley, for their sympathetic criticism of this article. ence reflects the gulf between the antiquarian ANTIQUITY research of Camden and his school and that of their intrinsic value. Archaeology in the modern the Royal Society. Camden’s Britannia and his sense did not exist for these men. contemporaries’ and followers’ books on allied The contrast is immediate and striking with subjects, though antiquarian in a broad sense, the Royal Society’s archaeological work in the are certainly not archaeological in these narrow 1680’s.The new tone appears in an article in the terms. Camden’s consciousness was primarily Philosophical Collections (Lister, I 682) about historical, and his materials were almost all Roman antiquities from York, by Martin literary. Though they included written sources Lister, a York doctor who often contributed to from archaeological contexts, such as inscrip- the journal (see Stearns, 1967). Except for a tions and coins, he had little interest in pureiy single inscription quoted as a postscript, Lister archaeological evidence, which appears in his examines only archaeological material and narrative as an afterthought to his account of the interprets it in purely archaeological terms. history of a site, as with Folkestone, ‘a flourish- He divides Roman pottery from York into ing place in times past, as may appeare by the three types, one of them clearly Samian Ware, peeces of Romane coine and Britaine brickes which he discusses in some detail, and the other daily there found’ (Camden, 1610, 349). In two of different sorts of sandy clay. These clays general, his followers inherited his attitude. Lister examined more carefully, thereby dis- Thus Lee writes of Roman remains at Chester covering the sites of the kilns where the pots that ‘the Romans residence in great numbers and were made, one near York and the other in plenty, their arched Vaults, and sweating Lincolnshire; he briefly describes the kilns, houses, their Urns, coins, tesselated Pavements, whilst his further comments on the pots, their do abundantly witnesse’ (King, 1656, 11, 6), lack of glazing and their black surface (the and similar finds were treated in an equally result of the reduction rather than oxidisation of perfunctory way in Burton’s Description of the clay), also illustrate his purely technological Leicestershire (1622). Such descriptions show no concern. So does his denial of Camden’s claim conception of the value of archaeological that certain Roman antiquities in Yorkshire evidence as an autonomous province of histori- were made of artificial stone (Camden, 1610, cal enquiry. 701), for Lister shows that they are in fact of This is made particularly clear by a tendency millstone grit, whose source he traces, as he to quote earlier reports of finds rather than to elsewhere tracks down the jet used for Roman add new ones, as in Harrison’s Description of ornaments in the York district. His single- England (1577), in Burton’s Commentary on minded concern with materials and their sources Antoninus his Itinerary . . . so far as it concerneth indicates the change coming over antiquarian Britain (1658), and in Philipot’s Villure studies. Cantianum (1659); in Lambarde’s Peram- A succession of archaeological articles in the bulation of Kent (1576) and Erdeswicke’s Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Survey of Staflordshire the sections on anti- for the following years shows the same interest quities are more cursory still. John Norden, in antiquities and their interpretation in their who lacked Camden’s obsession with historical own terms. Lister published two further articles information, collected miscellaneous geogra- on antiquities from York, one of them identify- phical and topographical matter for his County ing the multangular tower as Roman for the first Surveys, to which archaeological evidence was time (Phil. Trans., XIII, 7*4, 237-42). Machell, only incidental, and in this he looks back to the the Westmorland antiquary, submitted a careful less discriminating Leland rather than forward account of his examination of a Roman well at to modern archaeology. Even John Weever, who Kirkby Thore (Phil. Trans., XIII, 555-8); and, copied inscriptions in sitid rather than secondary during the next two decades and beyond, there is historical sources for his Ancient Funeral1 an impressive series of articles on antiquities Monuments (I63 I), seldom recorded archae- from the North of England by Ralph Thoresby, ological finds and had little appreciation of the Leeds antiquary (Phil. Trans., XIX, 319-20, THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY

663-4; xx, 205-8,310-2; XXII, 1156-8,1285-9; organic materials from Roman sites in London XXIII, 1864-5, 2145-8, 2149-51, 2194-6; XXVI, preoccupied him in this account and elsewhere, 134-7,289-91, 393-4), and Christopher Hunter whilst his other archaeological notes are inter- of Durham (Phil. Trans., XXII,657-8, 1129-30; spersed amongst observations of natural scienti- xxx, 701-4; XLV, 159-60; see Rogan, 1954), fic phenomena in the city and experiments on whose exact records of Roman finds in this area meteorological and other subjects. Conyers was were later to prove so valuable to John Horsley particularly interested in stratigraphy, clearly in the compilation of his Britannia Romana stating its procedure in his account, suggesting (1732). The Transactions also published some of that the relative depths of objects in the ground Edward Lhwyd’s detailed letters on his ‘poynt and show’ the different periods in which archaeological field-work in Ireland and Scot- they were buried and so drawing conclusions land (Phil. Trans., XXVII, 503-6, 524-6; about Roman and medieval finds (Conyers, XXVIII,93-101)*, whilst other archaeological 109r). This use of the context of archaeological contributions dealt with subjects ranging from finds to gauge their significance is another Anglo-Saxon monuments (Phi2. Trans., XIV, aspect of the new archaeology. 1287-95) to Bronze Age metal-hoards (Phil. John Aubrey was also at work in the 1680’s Trans., XXVI, 393-412), and for nearly a century on his Monumenta Britannica (Aubrey, 24-5), important archaeological finds from all over the which in its conception shows the change in country were published in the Transactions.* interest: here, for the first time ever, was a A rich field for archaeological research was great collection of purely archaeological mater- the City of London, being rebuilt at this time ial, without the miscellaneous information of after the Great Fire. Sir Christopher Wren Aubrey’s own Natural History and Anti- kept valuable notes of finds from building sites quities of Surrey (1718-19) and other topograph- which were eventually published in his ical or historical surveys merely illustrated with Parentalia ( 1750), whilst another antiquary of isolated references to anquities. Books 11 and the Royal Society, John Conyers, ‘made it his 111, in particular, are full of information about chief business to make curious observations, and archaeological remains which Aubrey gathered to collect such Antiquities as were daily found from his own observations and his friends’ and in and about London’ (Bagford, 1715, lxiii). classified by type: Urns and Barrows, Roman Conyers recorded many finds, most of them finds of different types, Camps and Castles, unfortunately now known only at second hand, other types of earthwork, and miscellaneous through Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica or items such as ‘Horned-each was recorded in Bagford’s ‘Letter relating to the Antiquities of its own special section. There are limitations London’; but one remarkable piece of work has to these books: within the basic sub-divisions survived, an account of Roman pottery kilns (themselves perhaps oddly ordered) Aubrey is discovered whilst digging foundations for the muddled and often inconsistent. But his new St Paul’s Cathedral, with notes on other conception was sound and the Monumenta is an Roman finds from the City (Conyers, 105-9). impressive collection of archaeological material. Conyers describes in detail the kilns and the Book IV, and to a lesser extent Book I, are pottery found with them, illustrating his more remarkable still, for here Aubrey uses account with fine plans of the kilns and draw- the antiquities as a framework for evaluating ings of the pots. His interest in archaeology was individual specimens. Best of all is the ‘Chrono- logia Architectonica’, which Mr H. Colvin scientific: the decomposition of metal and M. * Dr Daniel has recently done justice to Lhwyd’s Society fluctuated. Thus ten such articles appeared in archaeological work (Daniel, 1967), and so I have the volumes for the 1680’s, eleven in the 16go’s, largely omitted it from this article. seventeen in the I~OO’S,fourteen in the I~IO’S,two in t Articles about British antiquities continue until the the 1720’s, none in the IY~o’s,twenty in the 1740’S, late 18th century, their regularity varying not eight in the 1750’s and two in the 1760’s. Articles on because of editorial policy (except before 1680), but foreign antiquities continue throughout this period because the keenness of archaeological members of the and beyond it. ANTIQUITY has recently highly praised (Colvin, 1968): with drawn to scale. In Lyster’s article there is a great perspicacity, Aubrey collected a series of plan, probably the first published archaeological dated medieval buildings, noting the shape and plan with any pretensions to accuracy: Inigo tracery of their windows and other details, in Jones’s diagram of Stonehenge in his Stone- order to build up a sequence of styles in Heng Restored (1655) preceded it, but is too English Gothic. He applied the same technique grossly stylized to be significant. This new to palaeography, working, as he points out care in recording antiquities was as charac- (Aubrey, 25, 185), in parallel with the great teristic of the Royal Society’s archaeology as Mabillon, whose De Re Diplomatica appeared its fresh concern with unspectacular subject- in 1681. As early as 1672 Aubrey noted the matter. evolution of handwriting from the Middle All this is so different from earlier anti- Ages to his own time, methodically applying to quarianism that its origin is of considerable these relics of the past the concept of cultural interest. That the Royal Society archaeologists and technological change that is basic to the were themselves conscious innovators is implied discipline of archaeology. The same principle by their rejection of the Camdenian tradition is also apparent in Aubrey’s more haphazard dominant in antiquarian studies for a century. ‘Chronologias’ of Clothing and of Scutcheons, Thus in his Natural History of Sta8ordshire and is implicit in more general terms in his (1686), Dr Robert Plot wrote that ‘I intend not notes on the diversity of weights and measures to meddle with the pedigrees or descents either and on the rise of prices. Book I is notable for of families or lands . . .; nor of the antiquities or his approach to the problem of megaliths from foundations of Religious houses, or any other the study of the monuments themselves rather pious or Civil performances: it being indeed my than from historical preconceptions, and his designe in this Chapter, to omit, as much as may painstaking collection of details of megalithic be, both persons and actions, and chiefly apply remains from areas with no common culture in my self to things; and amongst these too, only of the historical period showed him that they were such as are very remote from the present pre-Roman. It is no coincidence that in this he Age . . .; such as ancient Medalls, Ways, Lows, was nearer the truth than any of his historical Pavements, Urns, Monuments of Stone, Forti- predecessors. Here again there is a gulf between $cations, &c., whether of the ancient Britans, the writers of the school of Camden and the Romans, Saxons, Danes, or Normans. Which archaeologists of the Royal Society. being all made and fashioned out of Natural The Society also advanced technique, for it things, may as well be brought under a Natural is to its archaeologists that we owe the beginnings History as any thing of Art’ (Plot, 1686, 392). of the modern excavation report, in the sense that In short, he insists on the study of archaeological deliberate excavation was described in a de- evidence in isolation from the historical sources tailed published record. In the PhilosophicaZ which were the domain of antiquaries like Transactions for 1706 John Lyster reported on Camden. Archaeology and history were again the excavation of a Roman hypocaust at distinguished in 1717, when an article was Wroxeter (Lyster, 1706), whilst in 1717 omitted from the Philosophical Transactions Dr John Tabor of Lewes gave a similar account because ‘being chiefly Historical, it seems not of a Roman bath and mosaic uncovered at so properly the subject of these Transactions’ Eastbourne (Tabor, I717), and both measured (Phil. Trans., WX, 563). Lister echoed this in the foundations revealed, describing the struc- claiming to treat Roman relics from York ture and the materials and methods of the ‘only in the relation they may have to the builders in detail. Lyster’s article contains the advancement of Natural Philosophy and Arts’ modern proviso that ‘the form of the whole will (Lister, 1682, 87), thereby translating into be understood better by inspecting the Figures’ archaeological terms the Society’s characteris- (Lyster, 1706, 2227) and both his and Tabor’s tically careful study of man and nature, a pro- accounts are accompanied by illustrations cess clearly illustrated by John Conyer’s work.

I 16 THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY

They were also attacked as innovators. John Webb’s Vindication of Stone-Hmg Restored Batteley identified antiquaries and natural (1665) and Gibbons’s A Fools Bolt soon Shott scientists in assailing both together in the find at Stonage. Although Jones described the sections of his Antiquitates Rutupinae (171 I) monument in some detail in Stone-Heng (which nevertheless owes a great deal to the Restored, his main interest was its historical Royal Society). He deplored the useless pursuit context, the theme to which he devoted the of unimportant phenomena for their own sake bulk of the book, whilst he dismissed the pre- as a waste of time, for ‘proper ea antiquitatis historic or Arthurian claims to the monument studium e republica literaria exturbari’ because of the bestial condition of the Britons (Batteley, 171 I, 90). ‘Scilicet facilius est’, before and after the Roman occupation, which Batteley says, ‘res in oculos nostros sive he argued from purely literary evidence. perspicillorum, ut vocant, ope, sivi simplici Arguing also on literary grounds, and from obtutu incurrentes, notare, atque discribere, parallels with megaliths in Denmark, Charleton quam de antiquitatis monumentis recte judi- denied Jones’s interpretation and advanced his care.’ And by correct judgement Batteley own theory of a 9th-century Danish origin. meant the wholesale, and inappropriate, cor- Webb’s attack on Charleton is less interesting relation of ordinary finds from Kentish sites for reasserting Jones’s original theory with more with statements of classical and later authors. vehemence and less ingenuity than for its This passage shows that the opponents of the criticism of Charleton’s Danish parallels and of Royal Society, and by implication its pre- their source, Olaf Worm, for this raises decessors, found an interest in antiquities for Professor Piggott’s query as to the influence of themselves inconceivable. It also suggests that continental scholarship on the English anti- this was a new interest, inspired by the Society’s quaries in this period (Piggott, 1956, 107). concern with ‘unimportant’ phenomena in other In a piecemeal form, the impact of Worm’s fields, which contemporaries found equally Danicorum Monumentorurn Libri Sex (I 643) was strange, not understanding those who ‘studi’d undoubtedly great: it is often quoted at this time these twenty years to find out the several sorts on megalithic remains and early Northern of Spiders, and never [cared] for understanding burial rites (King, 1656, 111, 10; Dugdale, 1656, Mankind’ (Shadwell, 1676, 10). If they were 3; Browne, 1658, 228; Charleton, 1663, 37-50, correct, the new scientists created the new 57; Plot, 1677, 324,338-9; Browne, 1684,153; archaeology, and the pioneers of the one Morton, 1712, 5-31), whilst its study of runes pioneered the other. inspired Aubrey to similar investigations and it Antiquarian work of the mid-17th century is the principal source of Aubrey’s essay on suggests that they were at least partly right, for drinking horns in the Monumenta. In method, there are few signs there of modern archaeology. however, Worm’s importance is small. Only a William Dugdale devoted five columns to sixth of his book is devoted to uninscribed barrows in his Antiquities of Warwickshire antiquities of the sort which concern us here, (1656), but his sources were mostly literary, and and this is by no means the best part of the his observation and evaluation of individual whole, which is chiefly important for its antiquities only incidental to them (Dugdale, epigraphic study of runes. Dividing the 1656, 3-5). Equally disappointing are four megaliths of Denmark into classes, Worm monographs inspired by a controversy in the arbitrarily correlates stone-circles with several 1650’s and 60’s about Stonehenge, a monument historical theories which he should have weighed too impressive to escape the attentions of up critically; one feels that he is as much an antiquaries usually uninterested in such remains, historian as Camden, but that with more from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Camden. The antiquities like Stonehenge and fewer authori- approach to the problem was set by Inigo ties to explain them, he has to make his material Jones’s Stone-Heng Restored (I 655), which go further. Of the study of antiquities in their provoked Charleton’s Chorea Gigantum (1663), own terms there is hardly a glimpse here, and ANTIQUITY his viewpoint was invariably literary. Only in Royal Society’s archaeologists’ unprejudiced Aubrey and Lhwyd does the change of priori- observation of antiquities, although neither he ties bring men within sight of the true date of nor Rous was concerned with the specifically the megaliths. archaeological material that won the attention So the new archaeology did not come from of their successors. Scandinavia, for Worm and his English A wider interest in antiquarian studies of disciples only show more clearly the Royal every sort grew in the 16th century. Leland was Society’s novelty. The real source of the new a pioneer in recording Roman inscriptions and attitude towards antiquities must be sought other finds, whilst systematic epigraphy began elsewhere, in a more careful examination of the with the 1607 edition of Camden’s Britannia, Society’s predecessors, and in earlier and rarer and the first monograph on archaeological instances of their kind of antiquarian work. For, remains may date from the Elizabethan period, even applying the same narrow definition of although at present none has survived from archaeology in the modern sense, our search earlier than the Civil War. Spitalfields in takes us back to the Middle Ages and to a 15th London was ‘described, and likewise observed century chronicler who applied to material to have been a Roman Camp by a judicious remains of the past that concept of cultural and Author in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s technological change which seems so remark- Reign, published in a valuable Quarto pamphlet’ able in Aubrey.* (Bagford, 1715, lxi-ii), but unfortunately our In his Warwick Rolls, John Rous (1411-91) authority for this had ‘forgot the Author’s executed drawings of past Earls of Warwick and name’. Spitalfields, however, was also the he deliberately dressed his characters in the subject of a detailed archaeological account, armour of the period in which they lived-with like those published a centuq later in the Saxon earls in long mail hauberks, 14th-century PhiZosophical Transactions, which appeared in a knights in mixed mail and plate armour, and larger book, Stow’s Survey of London (1598). full-plate armour for his most recent figures. Discussing a Roman cemetery found there in Whether or not it is true, as Sir James Mann 1576,* Stow described the pottery unearthed at suggested (Mann, 1933, 262), that the early length, noting its consistency and shape like armour of the Earls must have been preserved Lister in his article, whilst more remarkable in Warwick Castle in Rous’s time, this attempt still was Stow’s approach to an archaeological to trace the development of armour was of re- problem that arose at the site: many large nails markable precocity: though less explicit than the were found, thought by onlookers to have been similar work in Book IV of Aubrey’s Monumenia, used to smash the skulls of the corpses, but it can hardly have been less deliberate. Rous’s Stow, sensibly doubting this, believed them to contemporary, William Worcestre, was also a be part of the coffins used in the burials. precursor of archaeology in the modern sense, Noting the distribution of the nails around one as his recent editor has pointed out (Harvey, of the bodies-‘round about him, as thwart his 1969, xi-xii). Worcestre measured a great many head along both his sides, & thwart his feete’ ecclesiastical buildings and listed castles, purely (Stow, 1598, 132)-he asked a man digging on for the sake of doing so-thus anticipating the the site to pass him some of the nails, and proved his point by showing that they still had traces of * Instances of medieval antiquarianism before Rous wood under their heads. Here, in 1576, is the include Matthew Paris’s detailed catalogue of the gems in the Treasury of St Albans (Chronica Maiora, careful study of antiquities, free from historical or literary preconceptions, just like the work of ed. H. R. Luard, VI (London: Longmans, 1882), frontispiece) and Thomas of Elmham’s similar the Royal Society a centuq later. description appended to his careful drawing of a seal Such investigations are not common, but in the chartulary of St Augustine’s, Canterbury they give warning against rash claims about (Trinity Hall, Cambridge, MS I, 24r). For William Worcestre’s precursors see Harvey, 1969, xii. See also *Perhaps the same finds were described in the lost Wright, 1844, 1849; Mann, 1933. quarto pamphlet. 1I8 THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY

‘beginnings’. Another account occurs in the medieval antiquary’ (Kendrick, 1950, 22); unlikely context of Meric Casaubon’s Notes to Stow shared the historical outlook of Camden his translation of the Meditations of Marcus (Levy, 1967, 163); Casaubon stood close to a Aurelius (1634), where again, as in Stow, the pure classical Renaissance humanism. None of description is no mere illustration to an historical these men herald the Royal Society, and yet, as narrative. In a long passage of the Notes, we have seen, their work closely resembled its Casaubon discusses a Roman burial ground antiquarian activities. The association of modern near Newington in Kent, describing in detail science and the beginnings of archaeology thus the pottery found and its grouping (Casaubon, seems dubious. 1634,31-6). In considering the finds, Casaubon What of the technical advances which have quotes from Jan Gruter (1560-1627)) whose been attributed to the close association of monumental Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis archaeology with science in the Royal Society? Romani had appeared in 1603, a clear case of Dr Daniel has drawn attention to Edward continental influence, for Casaubon makes it Lhwyd’s use of stratigraphy at New Grange clear that however ‘common’ his countrymen (Daniel, 1967, 353-5), and an equally striking might consider such a find, ‘by the learned application of the same technique occurs in Antiquaries beyond the Seas, . . [it] would John Woodward’s ‘An Account of some Roman bee much esteemed’ (Casaubon, 16-34, 31). Urns and other Antiquities lately Digg’d up Casaubon’s summary of the conclusions sug- near Bishops-gate’, in which a coin associated gested by the finds is both sensible and valuable, with a Roman burial found at Camomile Street but perhaps the most remarkable feature of his was employed to date the Roman walls of account of the Newington cemetery was an London (Woodward, 1712~25).It is no doubt engraved plate that illustrates some of the significant that Woodward and Lhwyd were pottery-an urn with a roughly executed in- both palaeontologists, and that for both strati- scription, a flagon, an indented Castor urn, and graphy was central to their argument. But they a cup and dish (stamped ‘Coccillim’) of Samian were not without precursors: Camden noted ware. This precedes by nearly a quarter of a that ‘Hellens money [is] oftentimes found under century Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydriotaphia, the Walles’ to illustrate his historical proof of which has been claimed as the earliest book the age of London’s walls (Camden, 1610,423), illustrating pottery in this country. And since and the less sophisticated but closely allied that claim accompanied the statement that it technique of association was also employed for was ‘perhaps not by chance’ that the pots ‘were dating in Camden’s period (Camden, 1610, thought worthy of visual record by a doctor of passim; Sir Robert Cotton, quoted in Weever, medicine’ (Piggott, 1965, 169), it is worth 1631, 30; Weever, 1631,618). Just as Aubrey’s pointing out that Meric Casaubon was firmly ‘scientific’method of classification for construc- rooted in his father’s sober traditions of ting a typological framework in his ‘Chrono- Renaissance classical scholarship, and the father logias’ has a precedent in the 15th century, so at least was utterly remote from the new this should be a warning against claims that scientific impulses of the 17th century (cf. such techniques are of scientific origin. Pattison, 1875). Indeed, science merely made the uncommon These examples disprove any claim that the commonplace. It is less important that Lhwyd men associated with the Royal Society in the and Woodward were scientists than that the late 17th century were the first to see the in- use of stratigraphy became customary amongst trinsic interest of antiquities; they only the Royal Society’s archaeologists, including continued and enlarged upon precedent. What is Conyers (who was not a palaeontologist)*. So more, all these earlier writers were wholly with other aids to the study of antiquities; medieval or Renaissance figures. However * On Conyers’s stratigraphy, see above, p. 1x5. The modern parts of Rous’s work may seem to us, he use of associationand a rudimentary understandingof was in his ideas and aspirations ‘a traditional stratigraphy appear in Aubrey’s discussion of the ANTIQUITY Camden had observed cropmarks at Rich- linguistic, and excursions into archaeology borough and at Wroxeter (Camden, 1610, 342, proper were merely incidental. At the end 593), but these were isolated cases and only of the 17th century, this hitherto minor con- with the Royal Society did the practice become cern was developed, and the Royal Society usual-John Wilkins and Seth Ward noted them is responsible for the resulting refashioning of when they visited Silchester in 1658 (Aubrey, antiquarianism. For by providing a new intel- 24, zrs), like other Royal Society archaeologists lectual climate where minute and ostensibly later (Morton, 1712, 511; Tabor, 1717, 550). pointless studies were respectable, the Royal And if we owe the modern excavation report to Society made possible the study of ‘things’ to archaeologists associated with the Royal Society, the exclusion of ‘persons and actions’-a this only consolidated a more haphazard dichotomy of great importance, for it has left its tradition of deliberate excavation, mainly of mark in the modern distinction between barrows, going back to the Middle Ages (e.g., history and archaeology. Moreover, the Society’s influence as an institution propagated the new Wright, 1844, 1849; Twyne, 1590, 75; King, 1656, 111, Oglander, 1888, Antiquities principle and applied it in practice, sponsoring 10; 118). could be empirically approached before the much work by publishing it in its Philosophical Royal Society as after it; only the general Transactions, and encouraging and approving imprecision of surviving accounts of these more as independent research. By providing a investigations contrasts with the detail of later forum for the exchange of views on all subjects reports to illustrate the change wrought by the the Society interested a growing number of Royal Society in this field as in others. people in archaeological studies of a modern This is the importance of the Royal Society type, and these made up the large circle of well- to archaeology. Neither in interests nor in tech- informed correspondents who investigated niques did it innovate-but its new emphasis archaeological sites and gave Aubrey material focused and intensified both. Antiquarian pre- for his Monumenta. From the 1680’s onwards occupations of the late 16th and early 17th it developed archaeological research to a degree centuries always remained historical and hitherto unknown, contributing a new refine- ment in recording and interpreting finds, pro- ducing a great body of work in a short space of Devil’s Ditch (Aubrey, 25, 88); Long’s letter to Aubrey transcribed in Aubrey, 25, 130; Batteley, time, and consolidating it into a monograph of 1711, 89 (though his application of it is limited); a new kind, Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica. Browne, 1712,7; and Morton, 1712, 509, 521, etc. This sudden flowering is inseparably linked to Aubrey’s interest in intersecting Roman roads the Society’s influence, and, if the origins of (Aubrey, 25, 96, 99) suggests that he hoped that by studying the places where they joined he would be archaeology are remote, the Royal Society first able to judge their relative dates. defined it.

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