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October 2003 | |
 Maltese cart ruts could simply be abandoned fields
The mystery of a prehistoric site cited as, variously, a launch site for little green men or the tracks leading to Atlantis, could be finally solved. Known as the Maltese Clapham Junction, the expanse of scrubby fields and barren rock is a complex of tracks believed to be up to 6,000 years old, gouged into solid limestone of the island whose megalithic temples are the oldest stone buildings in the world.
Now an Australian archaeologist, inspired by the evidence of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, has demolished both the myths and the conventional explanations. Claudia Sagona, from Birmingham University, suggests the site may be simply a relic of stone age agricultural enterprise.
The tracks which can be seen all over the island have been called "cart ruts". Failing any expert agreement, alternative theories have rushed in to fill the void. The wildest include the tracks of outer space landing craft, or coded messages to the gods scrawled in runes across the landscape. Because in places the tracks plunge into the sea they have also been embraced as evidence that Malta was the lost Atlantis. The conventional explanation has been that the ruts were worn by heavy carts or sledges, moving tons of stone miles across the landscape. However, there are problems with this theory: the tracks continue up steep slopes, across deep fissures and chasms, and to sheer cliff faces.
Dr Sagona offered a more prosaic explanation. She suggested that as thunderstorms and torrential rain washed away up to a metre of soil from exposed sites, the farmers 6,000 years were struggling to feed a growing population from the scarce poor soil of islands which are basically solid rock.
Her clue came from the Aran Islands, where generations of farmers created fertile fields out of sand and rotted seaweed, protected by dry stone walls, through generations of backbreaking work. Dr Sagona suggested the Maltese farmers built up similar fields, and also scored channels into the rock to channel away and save rain water, and protect the precious soil. Her theory could also explain the greatest mystery on Malta, what happened to the temple builders.
They appeared 7,000 years ago, and over the next 3,000 years manipulated slabs of limestone into temples decorated with elegant carvings. The three stories underground Hypogeum mortuary temple, needed an estimated 22,000 tons of rock to be picked away with antler and bone tools. Having created what one architect speaker called "mankind's first great architecture", the temple builders apparently downed tools, stopped work, and vanished from the face of the earth around 4,500 years ago.
Dr Sagona believes the farmers had pushed agriculture to its limits, so that minor climate change could have caused catastrophic crop failures. Recent floods left suggestive stripes in modern fields on the island. "It may be that where we see cart ruts we are seeing failed and abandoned fields."
Source: The Guardian (4 October 2003), Malta Media (5 October 2003)
Prehistoric Long Man is only 5-century old
The origins of England's tallest chalk hill figure, the Long Man of Wilmington, have puzzled historians and archaeologists for generations. Carved into a steep slope on the South Downs in Sussex, the imposing figure has been claimed as an Anglo Saxon warrior, a Roman folly and an Iron Age fertility symbol. But according to a team of researchers, the Long Man may be a relatively recent addition to the landscape. Tests carried out this summer have produced compelling evidence that it dates from the mid-16th century.
The findings have surprised the experts and will cast doubt on the age of other supposedly prehistoric carvings, including the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset. Standing 226 feet tall, the Long Man of Wilmington is one of the largest carved figures in the world. It dominates the grassy downland at the village of Wilmington near Eastbourne, holding a stave in each hand. Although the earliest known record of the figure comes from 1710, many scholars have argued that it already existed when the Romans invaded Britain.
The new findings come from a team of researchers led by Prof Martin Bell, an environmental archaeologist at Reading University. "I didn't expect this date at all," Prof Bell told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "I expected it to be no later than Anglo Saxon." Prof Bell's conclusions come from an analysis of chalk fragments washed down the slope over the past few thousand years. The analysis revealed little activity on the hillside during the Iron Age, Roman occupation or Medieval times. But about 500 years ago there was a sudden change when a layer of chalk rubble swept down the slope. Prof Bell believes that the chalk debris may have been come from the freshly cut Long Man.
Source: BBC News (2 October 2003)
Important finds in Norfolk
Excavation work on the new park-and-ride site at Harford, south of Norwich (England), has revealed an insight into a rich and intriguing period of the area's ancient history. The discoveries made at the site, next to the junction of the A140 and A47 Southern Bypass, have been described as "one of the most important" finds ever recorded in Norfolk. As well as evidence of settlements from a number of different ages, exciting finds relating to the Neolithic age between 4,000 and 2,300 BCe were made. Among them was a Neolithic timber structure.
Gary Trimble, project manager, said: "We already knew this was a very rich Bronze Age site but this is the first time we can push back time to the Neolithic age. It is tremendously exciting and a once-in-a-lifetime dig." Archaeologists were also excited by the discovery of what is believed to be a mortuary site – the first of its kind in Norfolk. Massive holes show where huge wooden poles would have been and indents reveal where timber walls would have run alongside. The find has great similarities with a site discovered in Hampshire in the 1950s but, unlike that one, there was no mound at Harford, although it is possible it has been ploughed away. Another major find was a rectangular enclosure, about 35-40m by 60m, which is also thought to have been used in mortuary activity. At the southern entrance there was a pit containing a broken flint axe.
And the finds did not end there. The dig took place over four months during spring and early summer this year, and items unearthed have now been removed from the site for restoration and cataloguing. Arrowheads and examples of Beaker pottery dating back the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age were also found, as was a cremation burial site containing two bronze axes and bits of burnt bone.Close to the burial at the highest point of the site was the remains of a Roman aisled building that was possibly used for storage.
Mr Trimble said the immediate area of the finds, close to a confluence of rivers, was very sensitive, with Arminghall Henge and the Roman fort at Caistor St Edmund nearby. "I think it was when we found the mortuary structure that we realised we had something very significant and exciting because it was so different for the region. This was an important area where people would probably meet to trade and congregate or for a multitude of different reasons," he said. But he said it was difficult to be precise about the lifestyles of people from the Neolithic era from these finds. “What the settlement looked like is more complicated than we first thought and it is difficult to know how people lived,” he said.
Source: Norfolk Now (2 October 2003)
Survey needed to save Pakistan's rock carvings
Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority(Wapda) is reluctant to provide funds to the Federal Archaeology Department to conduct survey in Chilas, where Bhasha dam is proposed to be constructed, to save ancient rock carvings. Earlier in May, Wapda had given a go-ahead to the archaeology department to conduct a survey of the proposed site so that a comprehensive strategy could be evolved to protect the rock engravings, Buddhist carving and inscriptions. It had also promised to provide funds for the survey. But now it has conveyed to the department that only 19 rock carvings are located at the site and carrying out a survey would be a futile exercise. However, it proposed that an archaeologist should join its team at the site to assess the number of rock carvings.
According to a survey conducted by the archaeologists over two decades ago, around 26,000 rock engravings, Buddhist carvings, petroglyphs and inscriptions are located in Chilas. Federal Archaeology Department Deputy-Director Dr Muhammad Arif said that "A team of experts is required for the job." Without conducting a survey, he said, it would be difficult for Wapda to save all the archives. He said the survey would help ascertain the exact number of important sites in the area. "The number of important rock arts sites is around 10,000," he added. He said wordings (history) from pre-historic times to the age of Buddhist from South Asia to the Central Asia, China, Korea and Japan were chalked in its petroglyphs. The enigmatic petroglyphs were found all along the Karakoram Highway and on both sides of the Indus, he said.
Source: DAWN (27 September 2003)
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