Latest News

Dig in Scotland has discovered a bunch of meadowsweet blossoms in a Bronze Age grave at Forteviot, south of Perth.

More at
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8412938.stm

AN ANCIENT rubbish tip – inhabited nearly 2,000 years ago – is disappearing into the sea, archeologists have warned.

The Iron Age midden on Skye’s west coast has so far yielded bone fragments, stone tools, a button manufactured from horn and the top of a human skull.

But experts are battling the elements in a race to save the 1,900-year-old treasure trove from the elements.

The manmade tools and fragments are already under attack from lashing waves and strong winds, with significant amounts of material already lost to the sea. A report published by Highland Council’s Historic Environment Record said that at the current rate of erosion, the site will not last beyond 2010.

The settlement is thought to have been inhabited from 80AD, about the time the Colosseum was built in Rome.

It was discovered by local archeologists Martin Wildgoose and Steven Birch in 2005.

Excavations last year and this year have uncovered a number of fascinating objects. Among the tools and animal bones, archeologists found the remains of a human skull with a small hole drilled into the top.

Experts have speculated that the hole could have been made while the victim was still alive as a primitive form of surgery. Known as trepanation, the procedure was a common remedy in many cultures thought to cure seizures and mental ailments.

The rock shelter and midden, known as Uamh an Eich Bhric, or Cave of the Speckled Horse, is about 3km south-west of the village of Fiskavaig.

It is extremely difficult to get to the site by land, with excavators having to negotiate a steep 100 metre descent of high grass and heather to the shore below.

Access by sea is only possible in calm conditions, due to the hazardous landing on a boulder and pebble beach.

The site was uncovered when a huge talus, or pile of broken rock, that had protected the cave from the sea was partially breached during the winter storms of 2005.

Since then, the tides have exposed the site and continue to wash out new material on a regular basis.

When it became clear that time was against the archeologists, Historic Scotland sponsored the excavations to recover as many artefacts as possible before the site was destroyed. A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland said: “From the evidence gathered it was clear that an important and unusual site was at severe risk from continuing erosion.

“A campaign of excavation was quickly organised, with funding from Historic Scotland and others.

“The excavations have revealed that during the Iron Age, people used this location as a temporary home.”

Details of those who lived in the cave were yet to emerge, she said, adding that from ongoing analysis there was strong evidence of metal-working.

She said it was hoped the discoveries would allow archaeologists to further explore the history of the inhabitants, with important implications for the understanding of Scotland’s west coast during the Iron Age.

She added: “Although the site will continue to be eroded by the sea, the archaeologists have rescued an enormous amount of data and the gains in knowledge are likely to be very significant.”

Skye, known for its abundant historical finds, has had several important discoveries in the past few months.

Last Thursday, 47-year-old Graeme Mackenzie discovered a Viking anchor while digging near his home in Sleat.

The find was hailed as further evidence that Norse raiders never returned to their native land, choosing instead to settle on Skye and many other places along Scotland’s north-western seaboard.

And in November, house builders near Armadale pier uncovered six richly decorated prehistoric graves, one of the most significant archaeological finds yet made in the Highlands.

news.scotsman.com/scotland/Tide-turns-on-Iron-Age.5903400.jp

More information and the subsequent later archaeological excavations are here, with lots of interesting photos...

high-pasture-cave.org/index.php/news/comments/151/

Yesterday, whilst attending a small local event I spoke to a man called Chris Park. He looked familiar – I had seen him before at the annual Forest Festival.

This is his web-site which is just lovely to look at. I didn’t ask but am fairly sure he was one of the people behind the replica roundhouse at Barbury Castle.

acorneducation.com/homepage.html

The BGS has set up a web service to allow free access to Geology Maps.

BBC News article here

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8398451.stm

BGS Web service here

bgs.ac.uk/opengeoscience/

The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society has written to Judy Howles the Area Development Officer at Wiltshire Council in Salisbury with the following comments:
*****
(25 November 2009)
Stonehenge Visitor Centre Planning Application: S/2009/1527/FULL

We write to comment on the Application. This covering letter provides an overview of our response
(attached) with reference to that document.
The Society has supported the preservation and presentation of Stonehenge for over a century (Section 2).
The Society agreed a formal position on the Stonehenge Visitor centre at its AGM in October 2009 and support for that position and concerns about the proposed site are specified in Sections 4, 5 and 6. In summary the Society welcomed the positive step forward taken by English Heritage in preparing proposals for a new Visitor Centre, but would prefer the Visitor Centre to be located outside the World Heritage Site and on brownfield land. There are a number of aspects that we welcome and warmly support including:

• the closure and grassing-over of the A344
• the removal of visitor facilities and car parking from the vicinity of Stonehenge
• the proposal for a new visitor transit route that will not require the construction of new roads within the World Heritage Site
• the closure to certain motorised vehicles of Byways 11 and 12
We have a number of concerns and make suggestions which we feel will improve the scheme and address some of the issues that we raise in our response:

• Additional screening of the proposed visitor facilities
• Reduction in the height of the visitor centre building
• Minimising the long term impact of the visitor centre by retaining existing slopes
• Minimising light pollution

We suggest that the application is accepted in part, but that a decision is deferred to allow Council Officers to negotiate amendments along the lines we suggest above, so that the scheme may proceed without substantial delay.
********
Apologies if this is ‘old news’ but some may not be aware of it.

BBC carrying this news story on findings from a site in South West Germany

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8394802.stm

Antiquity link article link at

antiquity.ac.uk/ant/083/ant0830968.htm

The BBC have obviously gone for the “big headline” story here (as I have) but there is strong debate around this as evidence cannibalism vs processing of bodies as part of a death ritual.

Held at The Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury

We are pleased to announce that the great AUBREY BURL will be joining us to give us a glimpse into his new research on stone circles. ROBERT BAUVAL will be discussing his breakthrough discoveries about the origins of Egypt, and ANDREW COLLINS will be revealing the cave and tunnel systems beneath Giza he recently discovered. Staying on that continent, MICHAEL TELLINGER will be opening up a lost megalithic civilization from Great Zimbabwe that is arguably the oldest city-state on the planet; and ANTOINE GIGAL has rediscovered pyramids on Mauritius, as well as in Sicily and Tenerife. Back to Albion, ANTHONY THORLEY will be discussing the subject of his Phd, Landscape Zodiacs in in Britain, and FRANCINE BLAKE will be comparing ancient rock carvings to modern crop circle symbolism. We also welcome WALTER CRUTTENDEN from America who authored ‘The Lost Star of Myth & Time’.

There’s a whole lot more than that though, so for the complete line up and details of each speakers talk see the website. We will also be hosting another Megalithic art gallery and a full day seminar with MICHAEL TELLINGER detailing his amazing discoveries in South Africa, plus three days of tours to sacred sites in the West Country.

Call 01458 831800 for tickets. For more details visit megalithomania.co.uk

From PlanetEarth online

What were Britain’s primordial forests like before humans started tampering with the environment? The latest clues from a study of fossil beetles suggest that the ancient forest was patchy and varied in density across Britain.

Scientists have long debated the nature of Europe’s ancient landscape and hesitated between a nightmarish, close-canopied forest and a pasture woodland of oak and hazel trees, similar to the modern New Forest, which is kept open by grazing animals.

This is not just an academic question. ‘If we want to manage our forests and species to keep them as natural as possible, we have to know what natural is,’ says Dr Nicki Whitehouse, a palaeoecologist at Queens University Belfast.

‘The traditional view is that the original Holocene woodland in Europe was quite dense with a closed canopy,’ she says. ‘But this is probably too simplistic and nowadays the debate is more about the degree of openness of the ancient forest and the role of grazing animals in maintaining this structure.‘

Together with Dr David Smith, a specialist on environmental archaeology at the University of Birmingham, Whitehouse decided to look for clues in an overlooked source: ancient beetle remains.

Beetles are a good source of environmental data because it’s easy to tell species apart and each type of beetle is specific to a given habitat. Some thrive in dense forests, others prefer sparse woodlands and grassland areas, while dung beetles are usually found in areas grazed by large herbivores. The proportion of beetle species in a given period of time ‘allows us to reconstruct past habitats with detail,’ explains Whitehouse.

Whitehouse and Smith looked at 26 beetle assemblages from different parts of Britain, from Thorne Moors in Yorkshire to Silbury in Hampshire, and looked at how beetle communities changed over 7000 years, since the end of the Ice Age until 4000 years ago.

They found that the history of the original British forest is not as straightforward as previously thought.

Between 9500 and 6000 BC, the fossils were mostly from open and pasture beetle species, with moderate contributions from forest types and hardly any dung beetles. This suggests open patches of oak, hazel, birch and pine forests of variable tree density, similar to modern pasture woodland.

Around 6000 BC forest beetles become more abundant, grassland species decline and ‘we see an overall closing of the forest canopy in the insect record,’ says Whitehouse.

By 4000 BC, everything changes. This was the time that humans started pursuing an agricultural way of life, raising animals for meat and dairy products. Dung beetles become more abundant, while the other types of beetles decrease.

‘The transition to the Neolithic was rather abrupt,’ says Whitehouse. The dense forest gave way to pasture woodlands and open landscapes, kept open by the increasing number of grazing animals feeding on saplings.

The beetles turn the history of the British forest into a complex tale. Instead of a continuous closed canopy forest, Britain was covered by uneven patches of forest, with different levels of openness driven by local phenomena such as storms, forest fires or floods. But grazing animals apparently did not play a role until the beginning of agriculture.

The beetle findings, published last week in Quaternary Science Reviews, largely agree with the data collected from the study of ancient pollen. But ‘pollen studies have probably over-estimated the abundance of closed canopy trees and under-estimated the more heterogeneous nature of the landscape at this time,’ says Whitehouse. ‘The Holocene forest was probably patchier than we though: open areas were of local significance and important features of the landscape.‘

Hundreds of people have staged a protest on land near an Iron Age hill fort in a bid to stop it being sold and keep it in public ownership.

Worthing Council has already said it has suspended the sale and will also review the decision to sell farmland near Cissbury Ring, in West Sussex.

The council said the review was because of public concern about the site.

The South Downs Society said it was a famous archaeological site that needed to remain in public ownership.

The group, Stop the Cissbury Sell-Off (SCSO), said about 400 people gathered for the rally and walked across the land in question, letting off flares.

SCSO spokesman Trevor Hodgson said there was strong feeling and a “massive turnout” by people who had vowed to fight on until the land was fully protected for generations to come.

Worthing Council said the decision to sell two parcels of agricultural land, 57 and 132 acres in size, was taken following the death of the former tenant farmer.

The council said the review would consider fresh options and talks would be held with the South Downs Joint Committee and the National Trust.

Mr Waight said: “Because the decision was made a year ago and because of public concern, we feel it right to review the decision made over a year ago in order to make sure we take everything into account before a final decision is made.”

Spokesman for the South Downs Society, Steve Ankers, welcomed the move but called for a permanent halt to the sale.

He said: “It is essential that this important site remains in public ownership. Cissbury Ring cannot survive properly on its own.”

He added: “If it was sold, it could end up being fenced off into unsightly paddocks with no access for the public.”

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8360572.stm

The new Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was opened to the public last weekend 7/8th November.

Today, I had some spare time and as it was wet and windy it was a perfect day to visit. The ground floor is given over to the Ancient World. Unfortunately the European Prehistory room is not ready yet (I was told to give it another month). I spent some time in the ‘Italy before Rome’ room, looking at the Etruscan alphabet among many other things.

A marvellous resource and a beautiful building:

Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
University of Oxford
Beaumont Street
Oxford OX1 2PH

Tel: 01865 278000
ashmolean.org

Free admission: Tuesday – Sunday 10am-6pm
Bank Holiday Monday: 10am-6pm
(Closed Monday except BH)

Site of Bronze Age burial site found during dig in Oxford
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8336475.stm

pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1467854?UserKey=

Here we go again ...

dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/11/03/exclusive-scots-treasure-hunter-finds-2000-year-old-lost-trove-worth-1m-86908-21794028/

independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/stonehenge-lays-out-the-welcome-mat-1801777.html

Stonehenge, Britain’s most mysteriously resonant World Heritage Site, is finally going to get a visitor centre fit for the 21st century.

The fight to create it has been tortuous, but from the wreckage of the £0.5bn plans finally dumped in 2007 comes something that will settle, feather-light, in a shallow, grassy swale at Airman’s Corner, a mile and a half west of the neolithic stones near Amesbury, Wiltshire.

Peace

Pilgrim

X

An interesting article in The New York Times....

THE Ridgeway is the oldest continuously used road in Europe, dating back to the Stone Age. Situated in southern England, built by our Neolithic ancestors, it’s at least 5,000 years old, and may even have existed when England was still connected to continental Europe, and the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine.

Ridgeway Trail; Once it probably ran all the way from Dorset in the southwest to Lincolnshire in the northeast, following the line of an escarpment — a chalk ridge rising from the land — that diagonally bisects southern England. Long ago it wasn’t just a road, following the high ground, away from the woods and swamps lower down, but a defensive barrier, a bulwark against marauders from the north, whomever they may have been. At some point in the Bronze Age (perhaps around 2,500 B.C.), a series of forts were built — ringed dikes protecting villages — so the whole thing became a kind of prototype of Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England.

The land here is downland, somewhere between moorland and farmland, hill after hill curving to the horizon in chalk slopes (the word down is related to dune). Here on these pale rolling hills, the plowed fields, littered with white hunks of rock, sweep away in gradations of color, from creamy white to dark chocolate. The grassland becomes silvery as it arches into the distance. The wind always seems to be blowing. The landscape is elemental, austere, with a kind of monumental elegance. The formal lines of the fields and hills not only speak of the severity of life in the prehistoric past, but would also match some well-tended parkland belonging to an earl......

three pages read on....

travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01ridgeway.html

The council are inviting you to ‘soak up at the atmosphere at a well hidden stone circle as the daylight of the shortest day fades’ on Sunday 21st December.

You must book in advance by telephoning 01771 622857 and will meet at Drinnies Wood car park, near Fetterangus.

Which of course gives away which circle it is – if you don’t want to know, look away now.......

Sure?

Loudon Wood – so if you don’t want to book, meet them there ;-)

I have just been lucky enough to have been loaned a hardback copy of John Michell’s final work (he died this year on 24th April).

Titled:
HOW THE WORLD IS MADE – the story of creation according to Sacred Geometry

By John Michell with Allan Brown

Published by Thames and Hudson

ISBN 978-0-500-51510-5

I will definitely be buying my own copy as it has 344 illustrations (341 in colour) many of which are hand drawn. It is a beautiful book and a fitting tribute to John Michell.

The book has been reviewed for Fortean Times by writer and musician Steve Marshall who also wrote the last interview with John Michell for the Fortean Times.

It can be purchased in paperback here:

play.com/Books/Books/4-/10662446/How-The-World-Is-Made/Product.html

The Guardian 27/10/09

‘The booming interest in archaeology suggests a new quest for identity in a time of rapid change‘

Question Time descended into pure farce when Nick Griffin was challenged by Bonnie Greer to define what he meant by the “indigenous” peoples of Britain. It must have been the first time that the Ice Age had been dragged into the heat of contemporary political debate.

What emerged from their conversation was riddled with absurd notions, and no doubt had Britain’s considerable army of amateur archaeologists tearing their hair out. For we are currently in the midst of an unprecedented archaeology boom, the public appetite for the subject – TV programmes, museum and site visits and 180,000 metal detector enthusiasts – never having been higher.

There was a comparable surge in interest in the subject during the middle decades of the 19th century; it was the period that antiquarianism – the collecting of quaint objects – began to develop into the academic discipline of archaeology and the pioneers were the barrow-diggers. Often clerics, these men dug their way through hundreds of barrows. In North Yorkshire, Canon William Greenwell dug 400 mounds in 50 years and ended up selling his collection to the British Museum. Alongside them sprung up the county historical societies which began the work of analysing and recording this new area of study.

Full Article

Bremore. Quo Vadis

By Gordon Kingston, Heritage Action

By 2007 Ireland’s booming economy and growth in demand for construction materials, was causing increased capacity pressure at the ten ports along its Eastern seaboard. One obvious consequence of this was the “Port Tunnel”, a new access to the largest port, in Dublin, which was constructed at enormous public expense, €752 million, to ease the traffic congestion caused by heavy goods vehicles in the city. A further modification proposed to address the capacity problem was an expansion of the port, a concept requiring the infilling of 52 acres of Dublin Bay. This idea, initially suggested in 1988, is currently under consideration by An Bord Pleanala.

In the meantime Drogheda Port Company came up with its own proposal, a new large-capacity, deep water port at Bremore and entered into a government-approved joint venture for the project with Castle Market Holdings Ltd.. Castle Market Holdings is owned, via Real Estate Opportunities Ltd., by Richard Barrett and Johnny Ronan’s Treasury Holdings, one of the largest developers in Ireland and a company with a long track record of “unwillingness to back down in the face of legal threats.....

read on.......

heritageaction.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/bremore-quo-vadis/

An ancient British inland Atlantis dating back millennia has been discovered on a remote moor.
The remains – including a mini-Stonehenge – were found when an old reservoir was drained in Dartmoor, Devon.

The find includes remains of ancient walled buildings, burial mounds and a stone circle 27m (89ft) across.

‘Most of the stones we found would have been put in place around 4,000 years ago but some of the flint is much earlier, going right back to the Mesolithic period around 7,000 to 8,000 years ago,’ said Dartmoor National park authority archaeologist Jane Marchand.

From The Metro, no other information or news elsewhere but be wary of news items carrying ‘Atlantis’ and ‘Stonehenge’ in their words!....

tinyurl.com/ykn5mls

Photographer prefers black and white shots.

By Donna MacLarty.

Published by the Press and Journal,
20/10/09.

Further info :

pressandjournal.co.uk/article.aspx/1447205

Even more info at :

onebigpic.com

heathermaslenphotography.com/gallery_156115.html (Added by TMA Ed.)

The earliest human figure (now commonly known as the Westray Wife) to be found in Scotland is to go on temporary display at Edinburgh Castle.

More info :

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8309503.stm

timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article6833081.ece

News from BBC Jersey

The 6,000 year-old burial site at La Hougue Bie is one of the best preserved remnants of the Neolithic period in Western Europe.

Every spring and autumn crowds of people gather to watch the equinox from inside the chamber.

Archaeologists can make educated guesses about what went on there, but much is shrouded in mystery.

The name is Norse in origin, coming from hougue meaning man made and bie meaning Homestead.

Archaeologist Olga Finch is the curator at La Hougue Bie, and explained this in more detail.

“Hougue and Bie are Norse words. Hougue was a term the Vikings used for man—made mounds, and Bie means homestead. So it could mean the homestead near the mound,” said Olga.

Despite being best known as a burial ground Olga says that this was just one, albeit important, aspect of what went on.

“It was almost like a cross between a modern-day church and a community hall.

“We know there were rituals associated with seasonal activities because the Neolithic people were the first farmers,” she explained.

Therefore the cycles of nature were crucial to the survival of the indigenous population. The discovery of the equinox alignment brought home how important this time of year was to the farming community.

It is one of Western Europe’s best preserved mounds
The Equinox alignment happens twice a year. La Hougue Bie’s entrance points directly east, which enables a beam of sunlight to travel up the passageway to illuminate the chamber deep in the mound.

Today, this natural phenomenon inspires awe, not just among the community at large, but with archaeologists like Olga.

“We are talking about 6,000 years ago. The window into the tomb was set up perfectly, so that the rising sun penetrates not just the front, but all the way back into the terminal cell,” she said.

Olga believes the terminal cell at the foremost part of the mound would have been the focal point for any rituals which took place.

Entering the mound is a mildly uncomfortable experience, requiring visitors to crouch, chimp-like, to negotiate the nine metre passageway leading to the chamber.

Olga says this was probably to conceal the main area for ritual from uninvited eyes.

The passage opens up into the main chamber, which takes a cruciform shape. Two side chambers to the north and south were the burial plots for the dead.

Every spring and autumn crowd gather to watch the equinox
The large flat rock at the back of the passage is raised up from the floor denoting a more sacred area.

“It is almost like a modern day church. The further back you go the more sacred and spiritual it gets and less people have access to it.”

“There is a little terminal cell at the back, which may have housed an important object or person.

“The equinox sunrise concentrates initially in that area. This shaft of light perhaps symbolises bringing in new energy. It is all about rebirth and contact with the dead.”

“Anyone who experiences it knows they have witnessed something really special. To think 6000 years ago there would have been people in here experiencing the same thing,” Olga explained.

Again Olga can only hazard an educated guess as to the meaning of the rituals that went on all those thousands of years ago.

“We know there were little seeds placed on the cairn stones, so it may have been a plea to the gods for a good harvest,” she said.

The mound may have been used in a similar way to a modern day church
The human remains of about eight people – male and female adults – were found at the site. The items they were buried with are strong evidence in a belief in the afterlife.

“There were bones of cattle, which may have been left as food for the afterlife. There were also flint tools that show people believed they would need these things in the next world,” Olga said.

Despite significant digs in the ‘90s, much of the site remains unexcavated. La Hougue Bie may reveal more of its secrets for future generations to wonder about.

“It is one of the best preserved and one of the largest Neolithic sites in western Europe, so Jersey is very lucky in that respect.

“It has almost cathedral status compared to other sites in the island. A lot of sites have been robbed or destroyed. We are very lucky to have it here in Jersey,” Olga concluded.

Photos of site on the link.....

news.bbc.co.uk/local/jersey/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8196000/8196305.stm

“Dogu are from the earliest-dated tradition of pottery manufacture in the world, dating to the prehistoric Jomon period, which began 16,000 years ago. Most of the figures in the exhibition are from about 2500 BC to 1000 BC (the Middle and Late Jomon periods) and show the development of the sculptural form over time.”

The exhibition is in Room 91 at the British Museum until 22 November 2009. Admission free.

More here – britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/the_power_of_dogu.aspx