October 2001

  The future of Seahenge

Seahenge, the Bronze Age timber circle that was recovered from the seashore at Holme, Norfolk (England), is to be saved and conserved for future generations. This course of action, proposed by English Heritage, was announced and discussed at a meeting of the Timber Circle Working Group. David Miles, Chief Archaeologist at English Heritage, said: "Seahenge is one of the most important discoveries of recent years for British archaeology. It has opened a new window into the Bronze Age and by conserving the timbers we will be preserving them for future generations to experience for themselves."
      A proposal that the timbers be reburied at Holme beach was carefully considered and English Heritage consulted scientists throughout the world in the process. The conclusion was that a reburial on the beach would not guarantee the long-term preservation of these important timbers, as the most responsible course of action was to conserve the timbers and guarantee their safe storage thereafter.
      The conservation programme, fully funded by English Heritage, will take place at the Flag Fen archaeological centre near Peterborough. The whole process will take at least five years, during which time English Heritage will discuss with local partners possibilities for the future display of this unique survival from the early Bronze Age.
      The Seahenge timbers have been precisely dated to spring 2050BC and 2049BC using pioneering dating techniques. Speculation continues as to the purpose of the monument and the study of axe marks on the wood has shown that about three dozen bronze tools were used to cut and trim the timbers, suggesting that the construction was a communal activity. English Heritage, in partnership with Norfolk County Council, will also produce a travelling exhibition and a booklet about Seahenge.

Source: English Heritage (15 October 2001)

  Irish Bronze Age trove found at sewage site

A sewage scheme in Co Limerick (Ireland) has unearthed a rich vein of archaeological treasures. The scheme, at Castleconnell on the banks of the River Shannon, has yielded a range and density of finds. The finds indicate there has been human activity there for thousands of years according to archaeologists.
      To date, four fulachta faidh (ancient cooking places), three hut sites, a furnace and four human burial sites as well as nine other pits have been excavated.
      According to a spokesman for Limerick County Council's archaeological unit all of these are tentatively dated to the early Bronze Age, spanning from 5,000 BC to 1,500 BC. Charcoal samples have been sent for analysis and the results will clarify the date range. Numerous artefacts have also been found including over 100 pieces of worked flint, 10 stone axes and a fragment of a rotary quern.
      Three locations along the route of a pipeline were archaeologically tested in advance of the work being carried out. At one of these sites, Hermitage, the farm of Mr P Moran, significant remains were uncovered and Aegis Archaeology Limited are currently excavating this area.

Source: The Irish Times (28 September 2001)

  Prehistoric cave paintings much older than previously thought

New radiocarbon dating techniques may force art historians to think again about how art evolved. Art experts believe early art started out with very rudimentary figures and gradually progressed to more sophisticated techniques and images. But French scientists who have dated the oldest known animal paintings in Chauvet cave (south-central France) to 30,000 years ago are turning the theory on its head because they found the images were as skilled and complex as other cave paintings done a mere 17,000 years ago.
      The remarkable Chauvet drawings were discovered in 1994 when potholers stumbled upon a narrow entrance to several underground chambers in a rocky escarpment near the village of Vallon Pont d'Arc, northwest of Avignon. Cathedral-size chambers and galleries in the cave are filled with more than 400 black and ochre paintings of 14 different kinds of animals. Exquisitely drawn bison, horses, rhinoceros, reindeer, bears, lions and an owl roam the walls. Only scientists are permitted to view and study the precious drawings to prevent damage to them.
      Cave drawings are obviously very old, but dating them has always been difficult because of the small quantities of carbon found on the walls or in the caves. To overcome these problems the French researchers have used a newer technique called accelerator mass spectrometry. This separates and counts carbon isotopes found in dead animal and vegetal matter; the technique dates the carbon used to make the drawings, as well as smudges left by torch bearers.
      It found the Chauvet drawings to be between 29,700 and 32,400 years old. This is at least 10,000 years older than comparable cave art found in the celebrated caves of Lascaux and Niaux, near the Pyrenees, which date to the Magdalenian period 12,000-17,000 years ago. According to Helene Valladas the research shows that ancient man was just as skilled at art as the humans who followed 13,000 years later.
      "Prehistorians, who have traditionally interpreted the evolution of prehistoric art as a steady progression from simple to more complex representations, may have to reconsider existing theories of the origins of art," she says.

Sources: BBC News, Reuters/Yahoo (3 October 2001), Scientific American (4 October 2001

  A Bronze Age settlement in Londonderry?

Londonderry (Northern Ireland) could be on the verge of a major archaeological find. Two areas of archaeological potential have been discovered at the site of a proposed huge housing development at Ballyoan in the Waterside area of the city.
      Archaeologists will be present throughout digging at the site to monitor the operation and record any significant finds. This comes just months after ancient artefacts were uncovered by workmen building the new Thornhill College at Culmore Road. The settlement is believed to date back 6,000 years.
      The new development at Ballyoan will incorporate up to 7,800 new homes and is scheduled to be completed by 2010. An environmental statement about the site, which has been forwarded to the Planning Service, highlighted the possible archaeological areas. "Should significant archaeology be discovered, a mitigation strategy would be implemented prior to development to avoid any destruction," the statement said.

Source: Belfast Telegraph (4 October 2001)

  Megaliths as social change indicators

In Saint-Just, a village in central Brittany, is one of the largest collections of neolithic monuments in northern France. Giant quartz blocks straggle across the hillside, some weighing up to 30 tons, many brought from the surrounding region. Archaeologist Dr Chris Scarre believes the monuments were built when people changed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers and that such buildings were indicative that people's world views changed as they began to farm.
      Scarre has been studying settlements in northern France for 20 years. Genetic studies have tried to decipher whether Europe's population descends from the first wave of colonists that arrived as the ice age receded, or whether later settlers are the ancestors of modern Europeans. His studies indicate that small-scale farming took place here, but it was another two to three hundred years before farming became widespread. Ultimately these settlers inspired a radical new way to view the landscape. "Hunters and gatherers in Europe don't build much in the way of physical structures," says Scarre, "yet from the beginning of farming in Western Europe you get these massive monuments."
      Neither was it a case of having sufficient numbers of people or resources, argues Scarre. "It's a question of wanting to. Suddenly they look at the world in a different way and they start to build these monuments. They pick up all sorts of resonances between monuments and landscapes." Scarre argues that people began relating to the landscape in a particular way, almost copying it. He gives the example of an alignment on Gree de Cojoux, a hill in Saint-Just where there are three rows of stones. Two run east-west, the third is at a right angle and consists of five massive quartz blocks in a line 25 metres long along a naturally rocky outcrop.
      "The row of standing stones appears to be aligned on a natural rock formation, blending the cultural and natural," says Scarre. Burial tombs at Saint Just were made from the local schist, but the stone alignments were solid quartz, the same kind that runs in thin veins through the rocky outcrops. Scarre believes the people, by carrying chunks of quartz from the surrounding valley, were "trying to unlock something they thought was in the land already."
      Quartz is used in many neolithic monuments, including Newgrange, in Ireland. Grae de Cojoux also has several burial mounds. For the past seven years Scarre has been excavating a similar one off the coast of Brittany on a tiny island called Molene. It is a huge construction - a trapezoidal shape, 100 metres long, 20m wide and four metres high. "Within it we found two enclosed burial spaces, one with the incomplete remains of three people, and the other with incomplete remains of five people. Did they really build such an enormous monument to bury bits of eight people? It's obviously not the right interpretation."
      He prefers to view such structures as monuments in their own right. "Because this mound is built of limestone and it erodes so quickly that it could never have been very stable, perhaps they weren't built to last. They were built to be visible in a particular form for a short period." Like a cairn, he thinks people came and added stones to them from time to time. But why should this change have come about at the same time as farming? Scarre thinks it relates to the new understanding that one can control animals and plants by domesticating them.

Source: Guardian Unlimited (18 October 2001)

  Bronze Age tombs found in UAE

Archaeologists in Ras Al Khaimah (United Arab Emirates) have discovered 50 to 60 tombs dating back to the Wadi Soq era which flourished between 2,000 and 1,300 BC during the Bronze Age.
      Christian Velde, resident archaeologist, Ras Al Khaimah National Museum, said the discoveries have shed light on the people who lived in this area 4,000 years ago. The German archaeologist said: "With every tomb we discover, we learn more about Ras Al Khaimah. We have to protect these sites." Ahmed Hilal, another resident archaeologist, said the tombs were discovered in Qarn Al Harf, and 155 sites will be excavated. "However, we have just retrieved one of the tombs and will dig out the others," he said.
      Initial studies of the tomb show that it is made of big stone blocks and is rectangular in shape with designs and paintings. Pottery found in the tomb is made of soft stone, proving it belongs to the early Bronze age. The pottery, however, has been made with a very different technique, alien to the era.
      Metal arrowheads made of bronze and copper, beads and a lot of fragmented bones have also been discovered in the tomb. The presence of skeletons suggests the tombs were used for mass burials. Hilal added there were attempts by people to dig the tombs thinking they would find precious items. The archaeologist stressed that it was too early to commit on whether these tombs will give information that will give a new twist to history.

Source: Gulf News (16 October 2001)

  Neolithic art discovered on Greek island

Rare Neolithic stone carvings depicting sailing ships, animals and fish have been discovered on the Aegean island of Andros (Greece).
      The carvings into the rock walls of the Strofilas Neolithic settlement, dating to between 4,500 and 3,300 BC, are the oldest of their kind in the Aegean Sea, it said in a statement. "These rock carvings are especially important, since to date the only similar pictorial representations in the Cyclades date to the early Bronze Age (2,700-2,000 BC)," the statement said.
      Among the images discovered on Andros, a leafy island east of Athens, are a five feet long composition of 17 animals such as deer and wildcats. There are also numerous depictions of ships about one foot in size. "In general the composition includes water or sea related themes," the Greek Culture Ministry said. "It is possible we have the oldest, so far, marine composition in the Aegean."

Source: Reuters/Yahoo (18 October 2001)

  Ancient tombs found in Cyprus

Four ancient tombs were found in Limassol (Cyprus) during work on the town's sewers. The Antiquities Department says the Bronze Age tombs are of significant archaeological value. Several vases and human skeletons were found in the tombs, and were removed to be cleaned and dated.
      The tombs were discovered on Zachaiou Road, which has been closed off and is being guarded while the Antiquities Department continues to investigate the find.

Source: Cyprus Mail (4 October 2001)

  Prehistoric brewing: the true story

On issue 18 of Archaeo News we mentioned the research of Merryn Dineley, a historian from Manchester University. Our news was a condensed version of an article originally published by The Independent but, according to Mrs Dineley, the press misrepresented her research. So, we are now glad to clarify the situation, publishing the "true story" of prehistoric brewing using Merryn's own words:
      "Over the past 5 or 6 years I have been looking for the archaeological evidence for brewing in prehistory. This began as an M Phil for Manchester University (1999) continuing as personal research. There is cereal-based organic residue evidence for brewing on both Bronze Age (eg the Strathallan Beaker, dated to c1,500 BC) and Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery (eg Balfarg Riding School, dated to the 4th Millennium BC) - these may be the remains of beer/ale.
      Experimental research in cereal processing is valid because the biochemistry is the same now as it ever was, so with the help of Graham Dineley, who is a brewer, we have been re-creating a prehistoric ale. We work on an open hearth in the garden. We flavour the ale with meadowsweet. We use earthenware pots, sealed with beeswax to make them watertight. When we went to Orkney in September for the Science Festival, we did a demonstration of the mashing process (where the sugars are extracted from the malted barley) and we used re-created Unstan Ware pots made by a local potter (Andrew Appleby of Fursbeck Pottery). These pots were fired in the prehistoric way - the clamp-firing method. This involves a fire of wood, peat & sawdust and the use of seaweed and cow dung to cover it up and seal it.
      The dung never comes into contact with the pots. Beer, indeed anything made in the pots would most definately not taste of cow dung. This is the source for the so-called "dung flavoured beer" story (which is now, according to some press articles, being sold on Orkney!)
      As for "pub" or "brewery" - other people have applied these terms to my research - I have looked at the 5,000-year-old Neolithic/Stone Age settlement at Skara Brae, Orkney. The stone buildings there are very well preserved and I have interpreted some of them in terms of cereal processing activity - malting, mashing and fermentation. All the elements for making ale are there at Skara Brae but it was just one of many activities - fishing, hunting, keeping animals, minding children, cooking - a crofting lifestyle, with ale fermenting in a Grooved Ware bucket by the fire. It was not a brewery, nor a pub. I would be grateful to get these main points corrected."

Publications:

* Dineley, M & Dineley G., 2000 "Neolithic Ale: Barley as a source of sugars for fermentation" in Fairbairn, A. (ed) Plants in the Neolithic and Beyond; pub Oxbow Books
* Dineley M. & Dineley G., 2000 "From Grain to Ale: Skara Brae a case study" in Ritchie, A. (ed) Neolithic Orkney in its European Context pub McDonald; Institute for Archaeological research, Univ of Cambridge
* Dineley, M., 1996 "Finding magic in Stone Age real ale" British Archaeology, November