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Norfolk’s famous Bronze Age timber circle should finally go on public show in 2007.

A display of part of Seahenge, which in 1999 was controversially dug up from the shoreline at Holme, near Hunstanton, will form the focal point of a major redevelopment of Lynn Museum at King’s Lynn.

The scheme, costing just over £1m, is due to start next summer, with the museum reopening in early 2006.

But it is not expected that conservation of the 55 posts forming the 4000-year-old ring will be completed until mid-2006.

Specialists at the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth are carrying out the painstaking process of freeze-drying the wood after it has been impregnated with poly-ethylene glycol – nicknamed “peg”.

This will remove all the water vapour and preserve the sponge-like cell structure of the timbers, which would crumble to dust if left to dry out. The work is being paid for by English Heritage.

“What we are looking to do is reopen the museum building, once the building works have been completed, with temporary displays and we will wait until we’ve got the Seahenge timbers ready before installing the permanent displays,” explained area museums officer Robin Hanley.

“Obviously it’s a very complicated preservation job and it’s ground-breaking in many respects, but it looks like the ring timbers will be coming out of conservation in the middle of 2006.

“We will look at mounting a display at the beginning of 2007 and then it will hopefully be finished by the summer of 2007.

“What we didn’t want to do is keep the museum closed until the timbers are available,” said Dr Hanley.

“We do need a period of time, once the timbers have come out of conservation, to design a display around them. It will require custom-built fittings for all the timbers.

“We want to do the very best we can, which is why at the moment we are looking at a whole range of different approaches to the display.

“When the Seahenge timbers come in they are going to be a key part of telling the West Norfolk story, which is what the permanent displays will do.”

Preserving the large upturned tree stump which was at the centre of the circle is expected to be a much longer undertaking.

“It’s such a massive piece of timber,” said Dr Hanley. “It may take an additional couple of years before the central stump is ready.

“What we are expecting that we will need to do in the short-term is to have a replica of the stump alongside the original ring and replace that with the original one when it comes out of conservation.”

The museum closed at the end of September so preparations for the project, which has a £778,500 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, to begin. It will result in a better entrance, a new study area and extra learning space on a mezzanine floor and removal of the suspended ceiling, revealing the interior of the historic converted chapel building.

Dr Hanley promised that although the finished displays would not be ready for the reopening “there will be lots for people to see and activities”.

Sue Skinner. EDP24 website.

Carved from the trunk of a woolly mammoth, made in two pieces glued together, archeologists are unsure whether the flute was used for recreational or religious purposes.

More here.... guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1375665,00.html

From an article by David Prudames, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 16th December 2004:

A Stone Age hand axe dating back 500,000 years has been discovered at a quarry in Warwickshire.

The tool was found at the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm, near Coventry, which has already produced evidence of some of the earliest known human occupants of the UK.

It was uncovered in gravel by quarry manager John Green who took it to be identified by archaeologists at the University of Birmingham.

“We are very excited about this discovery,” enthused Professor David Keen of the university’s Archaeology Field Unit.

Read the full article...

Environment Minister Dick Roche has reportedly stated that he does not have the power to significantly alter the proposed route of the M3 motorway through Co Meath.

Campaigners are urging Mr Roche to re-route the road away from the Tara-Skryne valley due to the archaeological and historical importance of the area.

The proposed route of M3 would pass close to the Hill of Tara and would also lead to the destruction of dozens of archaeological sites.

However, reports this morning said the minister had insisted that his only role in the controversy is to decide on the method of preservation for archaeological sites.

Under a recent amendment to the National Monuments Act, Mr Roche has the power to order the in-situ preservation of such sites, a move that would necessitate a change in the route of the M3.

From Breaking news.ie

A half size replica of a Bronze Age boat that was found at North Ferriby will be sailed on the Humber as part of SeaBritain 2005, a celebration of our maritime heritage.

The original 16-metre boat wasn’t a dug out but used sophisticated techniques and carpentry skills that are difficult to match today. The replica’s planks are cheatingly fixed together with polyester rope, rather than the yew stitches used to sew the oak timbers on the original.

The Hull amateur archaeologist, Ted Wright, who impressively found no less than three boats between 1937 and 1963, always wanted to see them recreated. With extra funding it’s possible that a full-scale version will be built.

You can see the half-size replica in the meantime at the Streetlife Museum in Hull.

Read more at the Yorkshire Post’s site:
yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=904948

Contrary to press reports in August, the National Museum of Ireland did not rule out that Ireland could have been Atlantis (Full text). The previous reports were apparently the result of quoting out of context.

There is a new website for the theory now, AtlantisInIreland.com, which includes a blog and an invitation to a real time debate.

Neolithic villagers brewed alcohol as far back as 7.000BCE.
More here.. newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996759

In what would appear to be a victory for good sense, the town & district councils have stepped in at the eleventh hour to buy this historic site for the town of Penzance; hopefully this will ensure the preservation of what remains of this much abused antiquity. On visiting the site today to take the accompanying pictures, I was rather dismayed by the amount of dog-fouling present.

See BBC News web site for more details.

Archaeologists are planning to build a copy of an ancient boat found in Dover and sail it from Britain to France. The original was found by chance in 1992 in a water filled shaft during roadworks in the town. It was one of the best preserved examples of a coastal vessel from the Bronze age ever found. Studied intensively by experts at Dover museum, the only way they say they can find out more is to build a replica... John Iverson from Dover museum describes it as “a remarkable feat of engineering” and will copy the materials of the original: yew timber, bees wax and moss.

A section of the boat has already been reconstructed but the project is expected to cost £200,000 in total. Funding is now being sought, but some may be available from the EU, as French museums are involved in the project. The boat will probably take three years to complete and after the crossing, it is hoped it will go on tour in Britain and France.

(adapted from the article at
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4056021.stm)

Tuesday November 30, 2004, The Guardian

A carpenter’s new theory on how Stonehenge came about could roll away old theories on Britain’s megalithic monument, finds Patrick Weir

For more than 20 years, Derbyshire carpenter Gordon Pipes has been striving to find an answer to a 4,000-year-old question that still confounds archaeologists; namely how, without roads or wheels, did Neolithic man transport 80 sarsen stones, each weighing an average of 30 tons, 20 miles from the Marlborough Downs to Salisbury Plain to construct Stonehenge? The site also comprises 98 blue stones, each weighing six tons, from the Preseli Mountains in Wales. The question of how these were conveyed over land – it is agreed they must have been ferried in boats along the Severn Estuary and River Avon – is also unanswered. But Pipes is convinced he has found the solution.

“What fired my imagination was a book about the stone statues on Easter Island by Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl,” he explains. “Working out how the ancients were able to move such heavy megaliths became an obsession.

In terms of Stonehenge, theories that one stone could have been dragged a mile a day by 700 men using rope and wooden rollers seemed as viable to me as alien involvement. The rollers wouldn’t have taken the weight and the physical effort required would have been super-human.

Continues here

From The Scotsman, 24 November 2004

Archaeologists in Scotland have made a “hugely significant” discovery by unearthing the best and most comprehensively-dated Bronze Age site in the UK, The Scotsman has learned.

The tightly clustered group of 29 cremation pits, one containing eagle talons, was uncovered at Skilmafilly when the gas maintenance company Transco was excavating and installing its £56 million gas pipeline from St Fergus to Aberdeen.

With no previous indications of the burial site, either from ground-level observations or aerial photographs, the pits were stumbled on by chance. Transco called in archaeological contractors to check the site while the pipeline was being installed. continues...

From an article by David Prudames, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 19th November 2004:

Written in Stone?, on show at the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle until January 8 2005, presents a series of colourful contemporary cast glass sculptures on display alongside fragments of ancient rock carvings.

Taking their inspiration from their Northumbrian ancestors, the modern work was created by a group of young people from Greenfield School, Newton Aycliffe.

“This is a really unusual project which has reaped enormous benefits, both for the schoolchildren and for the museum,” explained Lindsay Allason-Jones, Director of Archaeological Museums at Newcastle University.

“We jumped at the opportunity to get involved, because we saw this as a way of engaging people all around the region with our collections, and it has also enabled us to creatively display this exciting new work alongside our existing exhibits, giving them a new dimension too.”

Read the full article...

by Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent, The Guardian, Monday November 22, 2004

Stonehenge’s past brought to light
The sign advises the solitary car pootling down the deserted road, past the reassuring AA phone box, to “fork left for Exeter” – unless the driver decides to fork right onto the infant A344, park on the grass verge, and pop in for a quick wander among the towering columns of Stonehenge, or for a nice cup of tea and a Bath bun in the newly built Stonehenge Cafe.

The photograph, one of hundreds excavated for a new book by archaeologist Julian Richards, from the National Monuments Archive in Swindon and other public and private archives, dates from around 1930. The car is passing the exact spot of the current furore over what to do about the world’s most famous prehistoric site. Read whole article here...

Archaeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years

Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed hundreds of possible implements, many appearing to be stone chisels and tools that could have been used to skin hides, butcher meat or carve antlers, wood and ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance called chert, a flint-like stone found in the region.

cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/17/carolina.dig/index.html

This brief piece from the Irish Examiner website:

Minister signs order protecting Bronze Age sites – 17/11/2004

The Minister for the Environment has signed a preservation order to protect two Bronze Age sites in Co Wicklow.

The move is being seen as showing fresh Government commitment to the safeguarding of archaeological monuments throughout the country.

The protection orders were signed following reports that a prehistoric settlement near Blessington had been damaged.

The Bronze Age sites include a stone circle and a number of burial mounds.

breakingnews.ie/printer.asp?j=102235440&p=yxzz36xzx

Summarised from James Goffin’s article, “Norfolk’s changing landscape set for web”, published on 17.11.04 by EDP24.

The Norfolk Historic Environment Record (NHER) could be made available to the public over the internet in a £140,000 project. It contains more than 40,000 entries detailing archaeological activity, sites, finds, cropmarks, earthworks, industrial remains, defensive structures and historic buildings in the county.

It’s currently held on a computer database with built-in digital maps, and there are more detailed paper records for many of the sites.

Currently the records are only available by appointment at the archaeological services’ base at Gressenhall, near Dereham. However, the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service is bidding for lottery funding to make easily understandable summaries of the records available on the web.

A decision on the lottery application should be made by March. If successful the scheme could start in July and be completed by June 2007, with records being made available in batches as the project progresses.

Concerns as Iron Age Fort Goes on Market – From This is Cornwall, 11:00 – 15th November 2004

An Iron Age hill fort is due to go under the hammer next month – to the delight of entrepreneurs but the concern of historians and locals. Lindsey Kennedy reports

Historians and a school have raised concerns about the sale of an historic hill fort in Penzance, which is to be put up for auction next month. Historians and a school have raised concerns about the sale of an historic hill fort in Penzance, which is to be put up for auction next month.

Lescudjack Hill Fort, the area’s largest Iron Age settlement, is for sale through Fulfords Estate Agents in Penzance, with a guide price of £28,000.

The estate agent said there had been “a lot of interest” in the site.

The area of land off Pendennis Road, Penzance, extends to around one hectare or 2.5 acres – and has breathtaking views over Penzance to Mount’s Bay and the Mousehole Peninsula.

In the sale particulars, the estate agents suggest the land is suitable for “general amenity, equestrian or perhaps parking on the quarry area to the south-east” subject to planning permission.

The historic site will be put up for auction on December 2 at the Novotel, Marsh Mills, Plymouth, unless previously sold,

Ian Addicoat, a local author and historian, is among those expressing concern about the pending sale.

He said: “Clearly it is imperative that such an historic and important site is maintained and preserved correctly”.

“I think if there were any plans to develop such an important site there would be an outcry, and I would be very surprised if the planners would allow it”.

He said the site was currently overgrown, adding: “I hope whoever takes it on appreciates its history and considers allowing it to be used as an amenity”.

“I’m not sure the public is aware of its significance. They probably think it’s a field with a nice view. But historians are certainly aware of what it represents”.

Historian and writer Craig Weatherhill, who mentions the hill fort in his book Belerion, said it dated back to around 300BC.

“It is extremely important to Penzance and over the decades it’s been treated pretty shamefully”, he said.

Hill forts were fortified settlements which began to appear in upland areas, especially in southern England.

They were often massive, complicated structures with surrounding ramparts and ditches. Some of them served as small towns and administrative centres, as well as fortifications at times of conflict.

Although the Penzance hill fort is overgrown, the site has never been properly explored and could reveal many archaeological secrets.

Mr Weatherhill added: “Some 15 to 20 years ago there was a proposal to do a hefty excavation but it came to nothing. It has never really been dug properly”.

“I would be delighted if local historical groups are successful, because they would have the well-being of the site at heart”.

Nikki Owen, headteacher of Penzance Infants School, which is close to the ancient site, said the news of the sale was “very disappointing”.

Two years ago children from the school gave some serious consideration to what they would like to see happen to the old Lescudjack Hill Fort site.

The children made the site their summer project and set about gathering names on a petition calling on the local councils to carry out some improvements.

Some 30 children from Year Two visited the then Mayor of Penzance, Ruth Simpson, and presented her with a 500-name petition calling for the site to be refurbished.

“It took us some time to track down the owner of the site, who turns out to be somebody in Newlyn,” Mrs Owen said.

“It is very disappointing that it is being sold off.

“I only hope that any future owner will develop it as a public amenity and show its historic significance.”

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.

Read the full article...

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.

Read the full article...

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.

Read the full article...

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