"New " henge found in Hertfordfordshire .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/threecounties/hi/front_page/newsid_8940000/8940216.stm
A Bronze Age henge has been discovered on land near Letchworth.
Archaeologists have found a circular area about 50 metres wide surrounded by a bank at Stapleton's Field in Norton. North Herts Archaeology Officer, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews said: "Henges are quite rare with only 60 known in the UK, so this is a significant find. It's interesting as the only other henge known locally is on the Weston Hills, which is visible from the site we are working on."
Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, leading the team working on the site, revealed how the henge which dates back to between 3000 and 2000 BC was discovered: "Ariel photographs of the area showed this rather extensive ring of chalk. There's nothing visible at ground level so we decided to put a trench through it. Having done that we found the chalk bank just survives underneath the plough soil and we have massive ditches inside and out."
The archaeologists are able to date the henge because of pottery they found which is associated with the Bronze Age. "Grooved ware products were found, which dates the henge back to the third millennium BC," explained Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews.
Open invitation
There is an open invitation on Saturday 28 August 2010 at 2pm for members of the public to visit the site and view items on display. Stapleton's Field lies between Church Lane, in the centre of Norton and the A1(M) motorway.
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New EH Chair
Lord Bruce-Lockhart to be new English Heritage Chairman
DEPARTMENT FOR CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT News Release (582007) issued by The Government News Network on 24 May 2007
Lord Bruce-Lockhart has been appointed Chair of English Heritage, the Government's statutory advisor on the historic environment, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell announced today.
Ms Jowell said:
"Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has a distinguished record in public life - particularly in local government - and is ideally placed to lead English Heritage. The Taking Part survey shows just how popular heritage is, and it will be a busy time for the new Chair, including taking a key role in the implementation of the White Paper, Heritage Protection in the 21st Century.
"I know that English Heritage will greatly benefit from Sandy's leadership and wide public sector experience."
The Secretary of State also paid tribute to Sir Neil Cossons for the work he has led during his term as English Heritage Chair - setting the policy framework through 'Power of Place' and bringing about the transformation of English Heritage through the modernisation programme.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart said:
"This is a terrific time to be taking on such an important role. The nation's built heritage is as loved by the public as it has ever been in the past. The months and years ahead contain many opportunities - and challenges - for English Heritage, and I am honoured to have the chance to lead them through this period."
Notes to Editors
1. Lord Bruce-Lockhart will take up the position of English Heritage chair on 1 August 2007 and prior to that will begin to familiarise himself with the organisation. The current chair, Sir Neil Cossons, will complete his final term at the end of July 2007.
2. Lord Bruce-Lockhart is currently Chair of the Local Government Association. Having qualified at the Royal Agricultural College, he has farmed in Kent since 1968 with his wife and three children. He has held a variety of leader and chair roles in local government, the public and voluntary sectors since 1986 - most notably he was chair of the Weald of Kent Preservation Society Committee, co-chair of the Thames Gateway Forum and chair of the Environment Committee and led Kent County Council from 1997 - 2005. His current positions also include Trustee of Leeds Castle Foundation, chair of Rochester Cathedral Council, president of Kent Thameside Development Board and trustee for East Malling Trust for Horticultural Research.
3. Lord Bruce-Lockhart's appointment has been made in accordance with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments Code of Practice.
4. All public appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees' political activity in the past five years to be made public. Lord Bruce-Lockhart has declared that he was the Conservative leader of Kent County Council from 1997-2005, is currently president of the Maidstone and Weald Conservative Association, and has spoken on behalf of the Conservative Party and canvassed on its behalf at elections.
5. The post is part time (90 days per year), and will be remunerated at £45,000 per year. Lord Bruce-Lockhart will serve a five year term.
6. Lord Bruce-Lockhart holds no other public appointments.
Public enquiries 020 7211 6020
http://www.culture.gov.uk
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Bahn Lecture
Paul Bahn finishes a series of six Rhind lectures, "Art on the Rocks", tomorrow at the National Museum of Scotland. I managed to get to three on the Saturday. All were hugely informative, entertaining thought provoking and at times very funny. The one that would be of interest to most was "The Emperor's New Clothes". I won't twitter too much so here's wee synopsis.
It appears that there is not that much opposition, other than Bahn himself, to the David Lewis Williams' shamanic hypothesis but he pointed out that a majority of Neurophysiologists and Ice Age experts do not accept it and that in South Africa the experts on the ethnography of the tribes cited disagree entirely with him as does the "Stan" of South Africa, Bert Woodhouse. More importantly Tribesmen when asked their opinion on the carvings never mention shaman, this applies to other continents as well as Africa and oddly an area that provides some positive ethnography to the theory has no RA. A great iconoclastic attack that might help redress the balance. The theory has replaced the old hunting and sympathetic magic type explanations and likes lots of archaeo mantras it makes for lazy thinking. Nobody is denying the importance or existence of shamanism to many cultures but we have no evidence for it being an explanation for RA here, and as Paul would have it anywhere else. For me the Lewis – Williams books were stimulating reads that will probably influence thinking in this area for a generation but like a lot of big archaeo ideas the cracks were visible a while ago and are getting bigger.
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Post Modern Croft Moraig
Stuart Piggot and Derek Simpson did an exemplary excavation in 1965 , influenced by contemporary research on English stone circles they concluded the sequence at the site was a timber setting and shallow ditch was replaced by two successive stone settings. Pottery associations were dated to the Neolithic . A recent paper by Richard Bradley and Alison Sheridan , "Croft Moraig and the Chronology of Stone Circles " has transformed the earlier thinking. Thanks to the "Dating Cremated Bones Project" from the National Museum of Scotland 26 sherds of the 29 finds are now thought to be of a Late Bronze Age date , Similar sherds have been associated with cremated bone from the stone circles at Kintore and Old Keig and ring cairn at Gownie all giving a date of approx. 2800 BP. The pottery that was previously dated from the Neolithic probably relates to an episode of activity at the site but before any monument building .
The revised structural sequence is now .Phase 1)Outer stone circle Phase 2) Central post circle . Phase 3) Shallow ditched enclosure on site of the earlier post circle. Phase 4) The oval stone setting . All of the above phases have parallels elsewhere e.g. timber settings inside existing stone circles are found at Stannon Down Cornwall , Ogden Down Dorset and Strichen RSC . One of the implications of these findings is that we may have to rethink the Burl suggestion that the last stone circles were built around 1500 BC and abandoned by 1200 BC .
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