From an article published on the BBC News web site on 12th November 2004:
Motorbikes and 4x4 vehicles which were damaging one of Britain’s oldest roads have been banned from the area.
The temporary order has been imposed by a number of district councils on parts of the Ridgeway National Trail in south Oxfordshire during winter months.
In previous years the 6,000-year-old trail has been churned up by trail bikers and off-road riders.
From an article published on the BBC News web site on 12th November 2004:
Archaeologists are set to learn about new discoveries at one of Scotland’s most important ancient sites.
Investigators began work at Traprain Law in East Lothian after a major fire in 2003 which damaged some historical remains and endangered others.
The experts called in to carry out a full assessment made a number of finds, including 5,000-year-old Neolithic rock art and Bronze Age axes.
The details will be revealed at a conference in Edinburgh on Saturday.
THE government will face “international outrage” if the green light is given for the dual carriageway to be constructed near Stonehenge, according to a survey by the Save Stonehenge group. The group claims that a new survey shows people from all parts of the world are opposed to the Stonehenge road scheme.
Group member Chris Woodford said: “Our survey suggests there is overwhelming international opposition to the British government’s plans to construct a new section of dual carriageway – a four-lane highway – only partly in a tunnel, through the world-famous heritage site.”
The group has been publicising the plans on a website, which also includes an interactive message board where readers can post their views. The group claims that, between March 2001 and October 2004, readers from 18 countries have left more than 300 written comments, and only 12 have supported the plan.
Mr Woodford said: “Most of the comments express anger, shock, shame and outrage. Almost all call for the British government to explore other solutions that do not involve damaging road construction inside the World Heritage site. Stonehenge is not just a World Heritage site, it is a world icon. People throughout the world revere and respect this place.
“We believe transport secretary Alistair Darling is considering giving the green light to a road scheme that will bulldoze a new, four-lane highway right through the middle of it*. If he does, as our survey very clearly shows, he will experience the full force of international outrage and concerted opposition every step of the way.”
[*presumably not actually through Stonehenge itself.]
from thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/amesbury/news/AMES_NEWS6.html
and you may wish to view the site at
savestonehenge.org.uk/
part of the article in the Guardian by
Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Thursday November 11, 2004
The motorway plans have been passed by Ireland’s planning board, despite the campaign by archaeologists and local groups, and are now sitting on the desk of the new environment minister, Dick Roche, who has the power to say yes or no. A decision is imminent.
Dozens of academics from Ireland and abroad have written of their concerns in the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune. Dennis Harding of the archaeology department at Edinburgh University called the plans “an act of cultural vandalism as flagrant as ripping a knife through a Rembrandt painting”.
Archaeologists who have researched Tara say the nine-mile stretch of the new M3 motorway will mean the excavation of at least 28 sites and monuments in the road’s corridor. But these, they say, will be “ultimately destroyed”. They expect many more sites to be affected, with 48 archaeological zones within 500 metres of the road corridor and around one site every 300 metres along the road itself.
Conor Newman of the archaeology department at the National University of Ireland, Galway, is the director of a state-funded archeological research programme at the Hill of Tara. “They are knowingly putting this four-lane motorway through the middle of what is actually a relatively compact but uniquely important archaeological landscape,” he said. “I don’t mean landscape in an aesthetic sense, I mean landscape in an archaeological and historical sense. They are doing it willingly when they could have come up with alternative ideas.” He said archaeologists had not been listened to.
What puzzles many international archaeologists is why Ireland has chosen this motorway route at a time when British authorities are spending hundreds of millions of pounds trying to undo past mistakes at Stonehenge. There they are grassing over one road and burying another in a tunnel to remove traffic from the surroundings of the ancient monument.
Edel Bhreathnach, a medieval historian at University College Dublin, and editor of a forthcoming book on kingship and the landscape of Tara, said if the government approved the motorway it would be “the decision of a people who no longer understand their past”.
The road authorities have already dug test trenches along the corridor of the motorway, identifying 28 sites which they could excavate before building.
more at
guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1348030,00.html
From an article by Ishbel Matheson, published on the BBC News web site on 9th November 2004:
International experts in early human art are calling for greater protection to save many of these ancient paintings from destruction.
They say rock paintings by early man in Africa are particularly at risk, as human populations grow, and expose sites to vandalism and graffiti.
Near Nairobi this week, experts saw for themselves the problem facing rock art.
The Neolithic burial mound at La Hougue Bie in Jersey is to be discussed at the British Museum in London.
Olgar Finch from the Jersey Heritage Trust will be talking about the historic monument at the Neolithic Studies Group meeting.
La Hougue Bie, which was discovered in 1924, is said to be one of the best preserved European passage graves.
It is thought the burial site, which dates back to about 3500 BC, was also used for ritual and ceremonials.
Solstice light
In the early 1990s the burial mound was explored properly for the first time in an excavation project and a stone façade was found.
During the German occupation in 1942, forces began to build a battalion command bunker into the eastern side of the mound.
Over 70 trenches were dug in the grounds, causing extensive archaeological damage.
The tourist attraction is best known for a ‘light box’ which allows the sun’s rays to shine through the chamber at the winter and summer solstice.
Archaeologists claim the shaft of light which heralded the start and end of winter reveals more details about the lives and beliefs of primitive Neolithic man.
Speakers from Guernsey, the UK and Belgium will also be talking at the meeting.
Four human cremation burial plots have been uncovered at the Kingslaw opencast site on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy.
And it is understood they form part of complex religious ceremonies carried out by settlers thousands of years ago.
The discovery was made by Fife Council archaeologists as they removed the 4000-year-old Bogleys Standing Stone from the Kingslaw development, which is currently being mined by Lanarkshire-based GM Mining, before being turned into a business and leisure facility.
Moving and protecting the ancient Bronze Age stone was part of an archaeological condition laid down before planning permission was given.
Fife Council archaeologist Douglas Speirs told The Press: “The Bogleys Stone was probably erected about 4,000 years ago.
“It is the last visible vestige of what must have been a highly charged area of ritual landscape.
“The stone is massive, standing some seven feet above ground and weighing more than five tons.
“Clearly the extraordinary degree of effort that went into moving and erecting this stone demonstrates the intensity of meaning that this site had to the Bronze inhabitants of central Fife.
“Exactly how the stone was used is not entirely clear, but archaeological excavations have shown that complex religious ceremonies, including the symbolic burial of human remains around the stone was practised. “Indeed, four human cremation burials were found radiating out around the stone.”
fifenow.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1015&ArticleID=879458
From the East Lothain website;
Edinburgh & East Lothian Archaeology Conference
Edinburgh and East Lothian Archaeology Conference Saturday, November 13th 2004 0930-1700 Appleton Tower (Theatre 4), Edinburgh
Come and find out about the excavations on Traprain Law since the fire, prehistoric remains at Wedderburn House, Roman Crammond and Medieval Leith.Get a latest update on work along the A1, recent digital mapping projects across both counties and the results of the first year of the Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project. Tickets £15 (£8)
To book in advance send cheques (made payable to East Lothian Council) to Culture and Community Development, John Muir House, Haddington
For more information contact Biddy Simpson on 01620 827158 or [email protected] , go to www.elh.info or www.eastlothian.gov.uk
From an article by David Prudames, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 26th October 2004:
Last year an incredible 47,000 historic artefacts were found by amateur archaeologists and reported, identified and recorded through the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
From prehistoric weapons to a Victorian antidote to witchcraft, the unearthed objects span almost 500,000 years and were all discovered by metal detectorists, gardeners, farmers, builders or walkers.This extraordinary success was revealed on October 26 at London’s Roman Amphitheatre, where Arts Minister Estelle Morris, announced the publication of the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s Annual Report for 2003/4.
Salisbury district council is urging people to comment on the Stonehenge visitor centre planning application before the public consultation comes to an end next Wednesday.
Already, more than 250 people have written to the council with their views on English Heritage’s plans.
On top of that, a week-long exhibition held at Amesbury library, where people could view a model of the proposed visitor centre and ask Salisbury district council’s case officer, David Milton, questions about the scheme, attracted about 350 residents.
The scheme from English Heritage, plans for a single-storey visitor centre alongside Countess Road in Amesbury, is one of the biggest and most eagerly awaited planning applications ever submitted to Salisbury district council.
The model of the proposed visitor centre can be viewed at the council offices in Bourne Hill.
Copies of the application are also available for inspection at Bourne Hill, the planning office in Wyndham Road and Amesbury library.
Alternatively, plans can be viewed on the council’s dedicated Stonehenge pages at www.salisbury.gov.uk.
From This Is Wiltshire:
thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/amesbury/news/AMES_NEWS3.html
Venue: University of Durham, Stockton Campus
Date: 06-11-04
Time: 10.15 -16.15
Speakers include:
Chris Tolan-Smith, Paul Frodsham, Nick Hodgson, David Petts, Pam Graves.
Cost £8 per person, £5.25 unwaged, seniors, students.
Contact
Tees Archaeology, Sir William Grey House, Clarence Road, Hartlepool. TS24 8BT
Tel 01429 523455
Heritage Action Media Release – 19th October 2004
A 5,000 year old ceremony is to be recreated this week as campaigners carry an ancient ceremonial axe through Yorkshire’s “Sacred Vale” to Thornborough.
“The area between Catterick and Boroughbridge can claim to be Britain’s first great religious and ceremonial centre” said George Chaplin of Heritage Action. “It contains Britain’s largest concentration of prehistoric henges, vast circular earthworks that were used as ceremonial meeting places. We are staging a march through this “Sacred Vale” to highlight that the area is an immensely important part of our local and national heritage and that plans to quarry the surrounding archaeology are akin to vandalism.”
The trek will take place on Friday and Saturday 22nd and 23rd of October and takes in all of the original ancient ritual landscape – seven mighty henges and a giant stone row, as well as many other monuments that line the route. The route focuses on the mile-long triple henge monument at Thornborough, the location of a bitter battle between protestors and quarry firm Tarmac.
The marchers will carry with them a prehistoric stone axe that last travelled the route five millennia ago. The axe was originally brought from Scotland, and was deposited in a ritual location close to Thornborough.
“We believe it’s vitally important that the Sacred Vale is recognised for what it is” said Mr Chaplin. “It’s not just important to Yorkshire, it’s important to Britain. If the destruction of the surroundings of any of these monuments is allowed to continue it would be a national disgrace, not just a Yorkshire one. We hope that by setting up this heritage trail people can be given the chance to explore this little known but supremely important landscape. The more people that get to know about it the more chance there is that it will be saved”.
The care of castles, country houses and ancient monuments is under threat from Treasury cost-cutters, it emerged last night.
Heritage has been identified as an “inefficient” area of activity which is draining money that could be spent on schools and hospitals.Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, has set up a review of heritage bodies after rejecting the radical option of giving English Heritage’s 400 historic properties, including palaces and Stonehenge, to the National Trust. Miss Jowell, who has yet to visit an English Heritage site, is desperate to find a radical scheme before the election to placate the Treasury and its cost-cutting adviser, Sir Peter Gershon.
Sir Peter is understood to have identified heritage bodies as an area where savings could be found to fund “frontline” services. His wide-ranging review of costs in government has already suggested cutting 90,000 civil servants.
Miss Jowell has shown little interest in heritage, preferring “participation” activities such as sport and the arts. Funding for English Heritage has risen by only 3 per cent in the past five years, while the arts have received 53 per cent and sport 100 per cent.
Amenity groups have accused her department of struggling to understand the relevance of historic buildings and the properties which the Government holds in trust, despite the popularity of heritage television shows and evidence that heritage-led regeneration schemes are the most successful.
Miss Jowell’s anxiety to act decisively over heritage was such that she commissioned a two-week study from management consultants PKF to look at merging the state-funded English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund – which exists solely on lottery money.
When that study concluded in July that there were few savings to be made, Miss Jowell, who is keen for her ministerial career to continue, set up a departmental review, the terms of reference, and even the existence of which, have yet to be announced.
One source close to the process said: “We do not know what she wants but it is something big.”
09:30 – 14 October 2004
Evidence of prehistoric activity dating back to the Neolithic era has been discovered on land in Scarcewater, near St Stephen, where work on a china clay tip is to begin shortly. Archaeologists from Cornwall County Council’s Historic Environment Service have been uncovering the early history of the area and will present their findings during an invitation-only open day for interested groups and local schools later this month.
The team is working closely with china clay company Imerys, which is funding the project and assisting with the removal of modern layers from the site.
During the excavations, finds and features have been uncovered which appear to represent four stages of prehistoric activity – Neolithic, early bronze age, middle bronze age and the later bronze/iron ages.
Previous fieldwork carried out by the HES revealed a long history of ceremonial and settlement activity at Scarcewater spanning five millennia.
Senior archaeologist Andy Jones said: “The excavations at Scarcewater are the largest archaeological excavations to be undertaken in the county and are providing a fantastic opportunity to investigate shifting prehistoric settlement patterns over several millennia.”
Imerys community and public relations manager Ivor Bowditch said: “The company is always conscious of its responsibility to preserve or record historic data which unfolds as the industry itself develops.
“Not in all cases can preservation be made due to the nature of the extractive business, but, as in the case of Scarcewater, we were able to fund professional, archaeological work to retrieve important data and record for posterity the finds of such an excavation.”
l Anyone interested can contact Andy Jones from the HES on 01872 323691 or email [email protected]
A more comprehensive article appears in the Ripon Gazette:
Horses find shows that we are not riding roughshod through archaeology – Tarmac
Quarry firm Tarmac has faced bitter criticism from campaigners fighting to protect the prehistoric Thornborough Henges and has been accused of destroying archaeological remains in the same area. But nothing could be further from the truth, the company tells Lee Sobot.
Earlier this year, the skeletal remains of four horses were discovered at Nosterfield Quarry, near West Tanfield.
A fragment was sent for carbon dating in Scotland and the recently revealed results tell us that the horses date back to the Iron Age – in this case about 50AD.
The horses were lying nose to tail, suggesting something remarkably ritualistic about the find. The skeletons are now being stored at Kings Manor in York, part of the University.
Discoveries like this are rare, highly significant and of major archaeological interest.
So who discovered them? It was Tarmac, the firm that stands accused not caring about the archaeology of the area.
Tarmac say discoveries like these are proof they want to preserve archaeology, quite the opposite of destroying it.
“Quarrying in the UK has provided us with a massive amount of archaeological finds” says Mike Griffiths, the site’s archaeologist employed by Tarmac.
“I have been doing this since the 1960’s and I am happy to say that more archaeological information has come through quarrying than any other source”.
Mr Griffiths began looking at the Nosterfield Quarry and Ladybridge Farm sites ten years ago. He is paid by Tarmac to ensure they are not quarrying land containing significant archaeology. He must also ensure any archaeology found is removed and recorded.
Over the years, field walking, test pitting, trial excavations, geophysical surveys and sieving and sampling have been among the performed by Mr Griffith’s team.
The discovery of four Iron Age horses at Nosterfield Quarry proves that Tarmac and Mr Griffiths are doing their job and the skeletal remains are by far the most significant discovery on the site.
But Mr Griffiths says he can assure campaigners, including Friends of Thornborough, that similar finds are unlikely to exist at Ladybridge Farm, set to be quarried in 2006 if planning permission is granted. After years of research he says he knows best.
“The Iron Age horses are a significant find and are probably connected to the Romans,” he says.
“But there is not as much archaeology here as people say. We have done the work, we have done the topsoiling and we know. I get really annoyed when people say Tarmac are not bothered about archaeology and just want to bulldoze their way through – people have misconceived what Tarmac are about.”
“We strip the area first to check for archaeology and every single discovery is recorded and reported.”
Mr Griffiths says that, unfairly, he and Tarmac are on a loser as regards any archaeological investigations, despite the fact that Tarmac have spent £420,000 researching the archaeology of Nosterfield Quarry and Ladybridge Farm. If archaeology is found “we told you so” will be the response from campaign groups like the Friends of Thornborough. If not, Tarmac will be seen to be quite literally, hiding the facts.
“Now we are producing the results of our archaeological studies and we are not producing the picture that people want to see,” says Mr Griffiths.
“But we are producing the real picture. A lot of emotion has got into this but we are producing the facts and it is time that some of that emotion was diffused.”
A huge file on the table is bursting with extensive archaeological research, and Mr Griffiths says Tarmac has stopped at nothing to ensure meticulous studying has taken place. Tarmac is now preparing to present the council with a detailed evaluation report of Ladybridge early next year. It will say there is little significant archaeology and what there is is scattered.
Rob Moore, estates manager for Tarmac Northern says “We have gone well beyond the legal requirements in our research.”
As well as arguing there is little archaeology on Ladybridge Farm, Tarmac say there are numerous other reasons why quarrying on Ladybridge must go ahead, and leading them is demand.
TV hope for henges protestors
A campaign group fighting to stop quarrying being extended near an ancient landmark say a BBC series will aid their efforts.
Thornborough Henges, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, will feature on British
Isles – A Natural History, which is being presented by Alan Titchmarsh.
A forthcoming episode will cover the Ice Age, showing how the end of the
glacial period left much of Britain covered with gravel.
A later episode will explore the impact which humans had on the landscape,
including a look at Thornborough Henges, which was the largest construction of the Neolithic period.
Tarmac Northern, which already quarries land near the monuments, has asked North Yorkshire County Council for permission to extend its operation in the area.
George Chaplin, Thornborough campaign co-ordinator for Heritage Action,
said: “The programme will first show how extensive the gravel beds in the
north of England are and later how important the henges are. We just have to make sure that the people who watch this know about the quarrying.”
Published: 04/10/2004
thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/entertainment/TV1.html
Nearly 24,000 people applied for the Winter Solstice draw in the hope of being in Newgrange on the shortest day of the year. However, just 50 names were selected at the “Winter Solstice Lottery” at the Brú na Bóinne Visitors’ Centre last Friday.
From a Yorkshire Today article by David Garner, published on 28th September 2004:
The man who helped unlock the secrets of one of Britain’s most important Neolithic sites has launched a fierce attack on plans to extend nearby quarry workings.
Dr Jan Harding, of Newcastle University, has criticised Tarmac Northern’s plans to expand open-cast extraction of sand and gravel in the prehistoric landscape around Thornborough Henges near Ripon.
The company is seeking approval from North Yorkshire County Council to extract thousands of tonnes of aggregate from 111 acres at Ladybridge Farm, Nosterfield, close to the 5,500-year-old scheduled ancient monument. The henges, earthworks with a diameter of 240 metres – more than 250 yards are thought to have been a centre for ritual worship drawing pilgrims from across the North. They are part of a concentration of monuments stretching south-west roughly parallel with the course of the River Ure. Dr Harding, senior lecturer in archaeology and director of graduate studies at Newcastle, has been leading research in the area for nearly a decade. He says the company has submitted factually misleading statements and failed to recognise the importance of Ladybridge.
Pressure group the Friends of Thornborough say Dr Harding’s status as an authority on the archaeology of the monument suggests his criticism of the Tarmac plans should be heeded by County Hall. He insists that the existing quarry at Nosterfield has already destroyed part of the remains of a settlement occupied by the Neolithic builders and users of the henges, while proposed extension would obliterate the remainder, preventing it being studied by researchers in the future.
“The archaeological value of Ladybridge cannot be over-estimated. It has a unique contribution to make to understanding both Thornborough’s archaeology and settlement patterns in later Neolithic Britain,” Dr Harding said. Tarmac plans to employ similar rescue techniques for any buried archaeology at Ladybridge to those it has used in Nosterfield quarry but these are dismissed by Dr Harding as “badly conceived”. In a strongly worded critique of the company’s proposals submitted to County Hall, he says:
“It would be misguided for the shabby treatment of an archaeological landscape of regional, national and international significance to be followed with the rapid and complete destruction of what remains of the settlement area to the north of the henge complex.”
Dr Harding has warned county councillors that allowing quarrying to go ahead would be “widely condemned as an act of vandalism.” County Hall has allowed until tomorrow for public comments about the Tarmac proposals. But Tarmac Northern’s company estates manager, Rob Moore, said yesterday:
“It is usual with planning applications of this nature for the planning
authority to seek additional information on a wide range of issues.
“Among the additional information that we will be providing is a detailed archaeological evaluation of the Ladybridge Farm site following the completion of investigations involving geophysical surveys, field walking, test pitting, trial excavations, sieving and sampling.
“This evaluation was proposed in the environmental impact assessment that we submitted as part of our application and is designed to provide the county council and other interested parties with an accurate picture of the archaeological make up of the Ladybridge site.”
“A retired fisherman has discovered an ancient stone head which experts say could be 24,000 years old – the oldest found in Britain.” The five-inch stone head was found off Long Island in Hampshire and according to archaeologists could be a piece of Neanderthal art. “A similar stone head was found in a Neanderthal cave in northern France and was dated back to 28,000 BC.”
Full story and photo appear on page 7 of The Times, 2 October 2004.
Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron and her Irish-born actor boyfriend, Stuart Townsend, have joined the campaign which wants to prevent the new M3 motorway being built around the famous Hill of Tara.
Theron is to have a specially commissioned portrait of herself auctioned in order to raise funds for the campaign against the Clonee-Kells motorway through the Tara Skryne valley.
The South African actress, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of a serial killer in Monster, is the girlfriend of the Irish film star Stuart Townsend who has also become a vocal supporter of the anti-motorway campaign.
Townsend said: “Barely anyone has tried to stop what surely will be one of the greatest archeological travesties of our time, second only to the ancient artifacts stolen in Iraq. But they had to start a war to get away with that one. “We here in Ireland seem to just be happy to let road builders dig up and tear through the most ancient and sacred place that exists in our land.”
More here:
mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/tara/charlize-theron-tara.php
Campaigners fighting to preserve one of the most important ancient sites in Britain have been given a six-month breathing space before its future is decided.
As the 24 Hour Museum has previously reported, the land surrounding Thornborough Henges, Yorkshire, has been threatened by an application for quarrying work, which would dash undisturbed archaeological evidence.
However, building materials supplier Tarmac Northern, which wishes to extract gravel from nearby Ladybridge Farm, failed to meet North Yorkshire County Council’s September deadline for producing an essential archaeological report.
The henges measure 240 metres across and stretch over 20 miles of Yorkshire countryside. Courtesy Friends of Thornborough
In the absence of the report, the council have chosen to delay any planning meetings about the application until 2005.
George Chaplin of the Thornborough Action campaign group told the 24 Hour Museum: “We know there’s a high chance of nationally important archaeology sitting with Ladybridge … The archaeology report will now be available to the planning committee when they discuss the application, this is very good news.”
The 5000-year-old complex of henges at Thornborough, close to Ripon, is considered by archaeologists to be one of the most important and best preserved prehistoric sites in the country.
The henges themselves are scheduled ancient monuments, and thus protected, but the surrounding land is not, although it is of high importance to researchers because it makes up the ritual landscape – an area stretching at least a mile around the site believed to contain hundreds of archaeological features related to ceremonial practices.
George feels that Thornborough Action has been given a platform to galvanise their campaign: “This additional six months is welcomed by us. We’re now going to concentrate on spreading the word – by next year we’ll have more objection letters than ever before.”
Support for the campaign is not confined to locals anymore – a recent meeting in London attracted a healthy contingent, while more and more people are attending Yorkshire meetings. Considerable interest has also been shown by farmers when the group has taken its message to Masham Sheep Festival.
“We’re building up a head of steam,” George continued. “We have to break that critical mass.”
The next campaign meeting will be held at the Forest of Galtres Society, Easingwold on September 28. Attendees can expect an interesting talk from George, who enlivens the evening with a multimedia presentation. The meetings focus on informing people about the henges themselves – George believes that after people are educated about “Britain’s ancient ritual capital”, they realise why preservation is so important.
The ritual landscape will see another Christmas thanks to the council’s decision to hold off planning meetings until 2005. Courtesy George Chaplin.
The campaign group has also produced a range of Christmas cards depicting the henges. By the time they start dropping on doormats, Tarmac’s report should be in the hands of the council.
George said: “Of course, even if the archaeological report goes some way to confirm the clear signs of ritual culture that have already been noted on the site, Tarmac will still apply to quarry the lot.”
A spokesman for Tarmac Northern stressed that it is usual for planning authorities to seek additional information with applications of this nature.
He said: “Among the additional information that we will be providing is a detailed archaeological evaluation of the Ladybridge Farm site following the completion of investigations involving geophysical surveys, field walking, test pitting, trial excavations, sieving and sampling.”
The first excavation of a well-known pre-historic monument has shown it to be much older than previously thought.
The archaeological dig at Badbury Rings near Wimborne in Dorset has uncovered evidence that the site was inhabited at least 5,000 years ago.
The excavations, which were prompted by concerns that tree roots on the summit were damaging the site, have found the remains of a Neolithic settlement.
The National Trust dig on the hill fort ends on Friday.
Martin Papworth, National Trust archaeologist for Wessex, said: “To date, it is the only hill fort of this size not to be excavated in the area.
“We are hoping that this first excavation of Badbury Ring will help us untangle the chronology of this important piece of Dorset’s history.”
The evidence found so far dates the first occupation of Badbury Rings , which are part of the National Trust’s Kingston Lacy Estate, between 3500 and 1500 BC.
from news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/3684294.stm
Teams from Cork and Cambridge Universities have been using the recently-developed technology of Lidar (light detecting and ranging), which uses airborne lasers pulsing at 33,000 times a second to scan the landscape and pick up details of relief. “The beam is scanned over the ground in a zigzag manner as the aircraft flies along an accurately planned set of paths”.
Amongst other things they can construct “viewsheds” from the data, indicating which parts of the ancient landscape were intervisible.
More at Times Online
timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,61-1274921_1,00.html
From an article by David Prudames, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 21st September 2004:
Experts have voiced their concerns about the future of prehistoric rock carvings on a boulder being used by climbers in the north of England.
Copt Howe, a large rock near the village of Chapel Stile in the Lake District, boasts a series of cup and ring markings believed to have been created between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago.
The site is used by climbers for bouldering, a hard-going, gymnastically-challenging form of climbing without the use of ropes on boulders and short out-crops.
Quarry firm Tarmac Northern Ltd wants to open up a new area of extraction at
its sand and gravel quarry close to the Thornborough Henges. These proposals
have been the focus of widespread condemnation from heritage groups across
the UK.
In June 2004 Heritage Action raised concerns that Tarmac were trying to
derail the planning process by failing to submit important archaeological
documents with their planning application. The archaeological significance
of the Thornborough Henges is a paramount concern for a great many people.
Any plan submitted without taking into account archaeological evidence of
what is “in the ground” at Ladybridge is clearly not in accordance with
planning guidelines.
At that time North Yorkshire County Council chose to press ahead with the
application despite this report being omitted from the application. At that
time, Tarmac had apparently made a commitment to provide the missing report
by September 2004.
However, that report has not been forthcoming and is now not expected until
sometime around Christmas. With this in mind the council have decided to
delay any discussion about the Ladybridge application until the new year.
This turn of events is welcomed by Heritage Action. It should effectively
mean that a new consultation process will start the New Year, with a
revamped planning application that should fully take into account all of the
items required by planning rules, not just a selected few.
So far, North Yorkshire County Council have received an unprecedented number
of objections to the planning application thanks to Heritage Action’s
Thornborough Campaign Team, who have been extremely proactive in lobbying
against this development.
A preliminary report of the plans was set to go before council committee
next month, but both Tarmac and English Heritage are now collecting further
archaeological information regarding the site. As a result, a new public
consultation process will have to follow early next year.
Chris Jarvis, of North Yorkshire County Council’s Planning and Countryside
Unit, confirmed the delay this week.
He said: “The archaeological information being collected all forms part of
the consultation process and it is going to be some time before we get
anywhere.”
Among those opposed to any further quarrying is top archaeologist Aubrey
Burl, who likened Tarmac’s plans to “dropping Stonehenge into the River
Avon”.
The Council for British Archaeology (CBA), the Yorkshire Archaeological
Society (YAS) and the British Archaeological Trust (BAT) also oppose the
plans and the issue has been featured in the national press and the UK’s
most popular archaeology publications.
Thornborough is now the target for growing international concern and is
becoming increasingly accepted as one of the UK’s top heritage sites. Mr
Chaplin said “Tarmac and its parent company Anglo American Plc need to think
carefully how this (their application) is going to impact on their
international reputation”.
