ANTIQUITY

ATKINSON, R. J. c. 1967.Hoyle on : some NEWHAM, c. A. 1963. Yorkshire Post, 16 March. comments, Antiquity, XLI, 92-5. 1964. The engima of Stonchenge, privately printed, 1972-Antiquity, XLVI,333. John Blackburn, Leeds. CHARRIBRE, C. 1961. Stonehenge: rythmes archi- r966. Stonehenge: a ‘observatory’, tecturaux et orientation, Bull. SOC.Prdhistorique Nature, 211, 456-8. Franpaise, LVIII,276-9. 1967. Hoyle on Stonehenge: some comments, HAWKINS, G. s. Astro-archaeology, Smithsonian 1966. Antiquity, XLI, 96-7. Institution Astrophysical Observatory Special 1970. Supplement to The enigma of Stonehenge Report No. 226 (Cambridge, Mass.). (John Blackburn, Leeds). HOYLE, F. 1966. Speculations on Stonehenge. 1972. The astronomical significance of Stonchenge Antiquity, XL, 262-76. (John Blackburn, Leeds). THOM, A. et al. 1974. Stonehenge, Journal of the History of Astronomy, v, 71-90.

A jade from the Levels PLATE XXIV This beautiful jadeite axe is published by John -dated, and it is reliably associated with a Coles, Department of Archaeology, University of wealth of neolithic material. The axe, which is Cambridge, Bryony Orme, Department of History, beautiful by any standards, is an important University of Exeter, and A. C. Bishop and addition to the slowly increasing inventory of A. R. Woolley, both of the Department of neolithic material culture, and it may throw Mineralogy, (Natural History). light upon the place of jadeite in neolithic The deposits of the have society. The axe measures mm. by mm. by yielded many prehistoric finds, including 203 64 mm., and its weight is g.; its specific objects reported in Antiquity (Coles, 1968; 22 403.56 Coles and Hibbert, 1971). Recent archaeological gravity of 3-35 is commensurate with jadeite. excavations in the area have been concentrated The implement is smooth and highly polished upon a neolithic track of the late fourth over the whole of its surface, and has an millennium BC, the Sweet track. This was built unblemished cutting edge. It is almost per- of numerous worked wooden pieces to form a fectly symmetrical and would appear to be footpath of single plank width, raised above unused. The axe is a grey-blue to pale green the marsh and connecting the Polden Hills and colour, best described as glaucous, or greenish the island of in the middle of the glaucous (Ridgway, 1912).It has a rough, but Levels. Quantities of neolithic debris have distinctive, foliation and a light-coloured band been recovered from beside the track, discarded runs obliquely across one face of the axe. At during the building and use of the footpath, or the butt end the axe is a beautiful translucent flooded in, including , wooden artifacts pale green colour. and flints. These neolithic objects and the There are two principal mineralogical con- results of the first two seasons’ work on the stituents: a pale green hard mineral which Sweet track have recently been published (Coles, grades into a softer white variety giving a Hibbert and Orme, 1973). marbled appearance to much of the surface. In July 1973, during the excavation of a X-ray powder photographs of both the green further IOO metres of the track, the end of a and white material gave a jadeite pattern. The polished stone axe was discovered protruding second mineral occurs as isolated grains from beneath one of the many stray boards amongst the jadeite. The grains are yellow- lying beside the track (PL XXIVQ). When the brown and some have weathered out leaving board was lifted, a complete and perfect pale pits. An X-ray powder photograph of this green axe was revealed and FIG. material gave a rutile pattern. Rutile is the (PL. xx~vb I). It has subsequently been identified in the commonest of the polymorphs of titanium British Museum (Natural History) as jadeite. dioxide (TiO,). It is undamaged, its context is known and A petrographic examination of the axe has

216 NOTES AND NEWS

JMC

Fig. I.Jadeite axe from the Sweet track, Somerset not been made because it was decided, in view Campbell Smith, who has handled the of the perfection of the implement, that for the majority of the jadeite axes found in the British present it would be best not to remove a slice, Isles, is of the opinion that this axe is, from the even by the thin wire saw technique (Bishop point of view of quality, one of the finest to and Woolley, 1973). One or two grains have have been found. Its polish, undamaged been removed, however, and it is hoped that it nature, and perfect symmetry affords com- will be possible to obtain a chemical analysis parison with the Canterbury axe hitherto of this material in due course, and to use this recorded as the finest of British jadeite axes. It is in comparative studies of jadeite implements. also similar to the Canterbury axe in the ANTIQUITY translucence of the jadeite at the butt end, a flint axe was made of greyish flint, possibly also displayed by the fine quality jadeite from Easton Down, Wiltshire; its condition of the Braemore axe. shows no marks of use (PL. xx~vb). Apart from considerations of quality of Jadeite axes are found throughout the workmanship, there are three distinctive fea- British Isles, but as the map shows (FIG. 2), tures of the Sweet track axe which can be there are clear regional concentrations and gaps. used for comparison with other axes, namely In view of the known distribution of neolithic the colour, the texture, and the presence of the material from the British Isles, there are mineral rutile. interesting gaps for jadeite axes in northern Only five of the axes described by Campbell England, south-eastern England, Wales and Smith (1963, 1965, 1972) are referred to as Ireland. Axes are scattered throughout Scot- ‘glaucous’, i.e., Histon, Falmouth, Sidmouth, land and the northern Midlands, but there are Braemore, and Oxnam I. However, Campbell clusters across southern England from East Smith states that the glaucous colour of the Anglia to Wessex and beyond, not too far from Falmouth axe is superficial, forming a skin the Icknield Way. only 0.3 mm. thick, beneath which the colour Campbell Smith records 75 axes, and only is deep bluish grey-green. It seems possible, two of these are dated. A fragment of a jadeite indeed probable, from the distribution of axe was found in the causewayed ditch at High colour in the Falmouth axe, that the relatively Peak, Devon, where the neolithic settlement pale shade referred to as glaucous may be has been dated to 2860 & 150 bc (BM-214). A produced by some sort of alteration, possibly tiny fragment was found in the chambered during burial, so that the grouping of the five tomb of Cairnholy, Kirkcudbrightshire. Apart glaucous-coloured axes may have only super- from these two broken axes, the remainder ficial significance. published lack both date and context; most It is apparent from the plates in Campbell are stray finds. Some come from ploughed Smith‘s article (1963) that the textures of fields, several from rivers and streams or jadeite axes are very variable. From this point deposits, and one from a prehistoric boat now of view the Sweet axe is distinctive by reason of lost. But the majority lack any precise its foliation, and the only axe at all comparable provenance. texturally among those illustrated by Campbell The Sweet jadeite axe is therefore important Smith is again from Canterbury. Rutile seems for its late fourth-millennium date, for its not to have been reported from any other neolithic cultural associations, and for any jadeite axe, and so in this respect the Sweet axe consideration of the function of stone axes in is unique. neolithic society and the mechanism of their The axe was found directly associated with distribution. Grahame Clark has suggested the the Sweet track, and there is no doubt of its possibility of cycles of gift exchange in neo- contemporaneity with that structure. The eight lithic Europe, with stone axes being one of the radiocarbon dates for the Sweet track so far objects exchanged. The many studies of British obtained indicate that the track was built stone axes have tended to support this possi- c. 3200 bc. The associated material consists of bility, as they establish a wide distribution from early neolithic pots of several fabrics and different sources to all parts of the British Isles, shapes, curved pins made of yew, wooden including those areas possessing their own dishes and and digging , planks and sources. The jadeite axes may have been boards, fragments of bows, unidentified wooden included in this network of exchange, and must objects, grass , leaf-shaped widen the sphere of British contacts to include including one hafted example, hafted flint western Europe, the closest links being per- flakes and one flint axe. This last was found haps with central Germany where jadeite axes lying immediately beside the track, but about similar in shape to the British examples are one km. to the south of the jadeite axe. The known. The source of jade is as yet unknown, 218 NOTES AND NEWS

Fig. 2. Distribution of jade axes in the British Isles, based on Campbell Smith, 1963, 1965, 1972, with additions although it is generally held to be continental, were used to cut wood. Others, however, may and Switzerland rather than Brittany is con- have been used primarily in a system of gift sidered to be the most likely area of origin. exchange or may have had some other function Relatively little is known of the continental apart from that of chopping wood, and they may axes, whether made of jadeite or other stones. never even have been hafted, let alone used. Obviously some of the neolithic stone axes From observations of Maori jade working, it

219 ANTIQUITY may be estimated that an axe of comparable Activity of a ceremonial nature is well size and finish to that of the Sweet axe would documented in later neolithic contexts in take IOO hours to produce. Further, the dis- Britain, and such activity has been suggested covery of several jade axes in or near streams from the earliest British Neolithic, on the or rivers, or in other fluviatile deposits, and the basis of evidence from causewayed enclosures. one found actually in a boat, suggest that they This suggestion is now perhaps reinforced by were either lost during transport or deliberately the discovery of the two axes from the Sweet consigned to water. The Sweet axe, although track. clearly associated with cultural remains, was Acknowledgements :The excavations were financed by similarly found in a watery situation, with the Crowther-Beynon Fund, the Maltwood Fund, implications of transport in the very existence and the Department of the Environment, and were of the track. Whether lost by accident, or conducted with the permission of Agro- deliberately put beside the track, its discovery chemicals Limited and the Nature Conservancy. The jadeite axe was discovered by Miss Janice Brown supports the interpretation of jade axes as more of Exeter University. than mere chopping tools. Moreover, the association of both the jade BISHOP, A. c. and A. R. WOOLLEY. 1973. A new technique for cutting archaeological material, axe and the unused flint axe with the Sweet Antiquity, XLVII, track, and hence with each other, may suggest 302-3. COLES,J. 1968. A neolithic god-dolly from Somerset, that axes of all materials were at times removed England, Antiquity, XLII,275-7. from the functional sphere. It is important to COLES, J. and F. A. HIBBERT. 1971.A neolithic wooden note, in this context, that despite the quantity mallet from the Somerset Levels, Antiquity, XLVI, of wood preserved in the peat, neither the 52-4. COLES, J., F. A. HIBBERT and B. J. ORME. 1973. Pre- jadeite nor the flint axe was found with anything historic and tracks in Somerset: 3. The remotely resembling a haft, nor was there any Sweet track, PPS, xxx~x,256-93. trace of binding material, nor of any bag or RIDGWAY,R. 1912. Color standards and color nomen- clature (Washington). container. Also, although there is abundant SMfTH, w. c. axes from sites in the evidence that the wood used in buiIding the 1963. Jade British Isles, PPS, XXIX,133-72. track was often cut to shape on the spot, with a 1965. The distribution of jade axes in Europe with stone , neither of the axes shows signs of a supplement to the catalogue of those from the use, and all the authors are agreed that these British Isles, PPS, XXXI,25-33. 1972. Second supplement to the catalogue of jade two axes were unlikely to have been lost or axes from sites in the British Isles, PPS, discarded in the building of the track. xxxvm, 408-1 I. Neolithic flax in Bulgaria R. W. Dennell, Lecturer in the Department of is from the Bandkeramik settlement of Heil- Ancient Histmy and , University of bronn (Bertsch and Bertsch, 1949). It is, how- She$eld, sends us the following note. ever, curious that flax has not so far been found Flax seeds occur sporadically on many neo- on any neolithic site in south-east Europe, lithic sites in the Near East and Europe. So where it might be expected to occur after the far, the earliest finds are from Cayonu Tepesi, sixth millennium BC. To date, the earliest find where seeds of Linum cf. bienne were recovered from this region is c. 3500 BC from a Gumelnitsa from a horizon dated to c. 7000 BC (van Zeist, context at Kapitan Dimitrievo (Renfrew, 1973). 1972); slightly later finds are reported from For this reason, the discovery of flax seeds BC in neolithic deposits in Bulgaria is of special Tepe Sabz, c. 5500-5000 (Helbaek, 1969) and Tell Brak, c. 4500 BC (Helbaek, 1960). In interest. At the Karanovo I settlements of Europe, where flax is commonly supposed to Chevdar and Kazanluk, dated to c. 5500-5000 have been introduced from Asia Minor (Hel- BC, flax seeds were found by the author among baek, 1960), the earliest find of flax at present the large quantity of carbonized plant material 220 a

PLATE XXIV: A JADE AXE FROhI THE SOhIERSET LEVELS (a)Discovery of thejadeite axeduring excavationson the Sweet track,Somerset. (b) Stone axes from the Sweet track. Left,jint axe; right, jadeite axe.The length of thejadeite axe is 203 mm.

See pp. 216-20 Photos, John Coles

h