A new book summarizes the Quaternary environments of the submerged landscapes of the European continental shelf. It is a detailed overview that extends from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and includes some general chapters on sea-level and climate as well as the preservation conditions that impact on the sites that once lay on these hidden landscapes. Needless to say it is an expensive and academic tome, but invaluable for those working in the field, or those seeking to improve management and investigation. It is part of a series of books produced as output for the Splashcos project, the other two being Under the Sea: archaeology and palaeolandscapes of the continental shelf, and Coastline changes of the Baltic Sea from south to east, both published by Springer. Together they make a formidable addition to the growing collection of material on submerged landscapes. I’ve co-authored a chapter in the first volume. I’m now frantically reading it all in an attempt to keep my forthcoming text book on sea-level change and submerged landscapes for archaeologists up to date!
This image of Maeshowe published by James Farrer in 1862 shows, very clearly, the encircling henge, which tends to be forgotten in many accounts of the tomb. Incidentally, it also shows the appearance of the mound before the reconstruction of the roof by the Ministry of Works in the early twentieth century.
Recently, a team of specialists drawn from the Universities of Leicester and Southampton announced the find of a new structure within the south circle at Avebury. It is an exciting find that reminds us that these ancient and well-loved places still preserve their secrets. I found it particularly interesting because of the way in which the new formation, said to be composed of megaliths that were removed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comprises a square that is set within the heart of the surviving stone circle.
The team are, apparently, surprised to find a square megalithic setting, I can’t comment on that as my knowledge of megaliths around the UK is not, sadly, comprehensive, though I would point them to a paper published by Tim Darvill in the spring of 2016 which celebrates just this design at Stonehenge. I would also suggest that, were they to look north, they might find that the use of a square design, and indeed the overall design of a rectangle set within a circle is far from unusual. In fact, in Orkney, monuments comprising a square setting within a circle were all the rage among the special places of the late Neolithic. Perhaps the best known is Structure Eight at Barnhouse, where one is able to enter the reconstruction and experience for oneself how this type of architecture may have functioned. Another, well known example, is Structure Ten at Ness of Brodgar, only partly excavated but of similar design – contrast the angularity of the interior with the rounded nature of the exterior.
This internal angularity with external rounding is also seen in the house structure at Skara Brae, perhaps it is just how one did things in the Neolithic? But there is another site that suggests it may have a deeper meaning. Maeshowe is known for the circular platform on which it sits – yet the tomb interior is beautifully angular. Curiously, several archaeologists have suggested that there may have been a free standing rectangular stone setting on the platform at Maeshowe prior to the building of the tomb. And, of course, many of the stone-built chambered tombs of the north comprise rectangular chambers set within a rounded mound.
My guess is that were we to have a similarly detailed record of late Neolithic architecture right across the UK, we would find other uses of the square within the circle. Hopefully, the application of refined geophysics to sites away from the research heartlands of Wiltshire and Orkney will start to find them. What it actually meant is anyone’s guess, though I have noted before that it is still a powerful symbol (with many meanings) today. The new find at Avebury is indeed significant, but I’d caution against celebrating it as unique – to my mind it is more interesting if it starts to flesh out the nascent patterning of monumental settings that we are beginning to recognise across Neolithic Britain.
Intrigued by the emerging evidence for Late Upper Palaeolithic activity in Scotland, Torben Bjarke Ballin and I have put together a short paper which was published earlier this week in the Journal of Lithic Studies. We are particularly interested in the potential of existing lithic collections to yield finds that went unrecognised in the past. There are several reasons for this. Often, it was just not possible to examine large field collections in the detail necessary. But also, current paradigms do exert a very real bias on the way that we think, with the result that identifications can be missed. Many years ago I worked on a flint assemblage from Lunanhead, Angus. It looked vaguely Late Upper Palaeolithic, but because I knew there was no evidence for Palaeolithic in Scotland, I worked hard to make it fit into Early Neolithic paradigms. To have published it as Palaeolithic would have required a very strong argument because it went against the accepted wisdom of the time, and I was just not courageous enough. Torben has recently been re-examining that assemblage and, I am pleased to say, that he feels able to confirm my initial hunch, that it might be early. I’m hoping that he will have time to publish a new version of the flint assemblage in due course.
Meantime, you have to make do with our new paper, which is available to download here.
Excavations at the site of Killellan Farm on Islay. I worked as a volunteer here in 1976 under the direction of Colin Burgess. As I remember we set up camp in the grounds of the Bowmore distillery and Colin organised food for everyone in a local hall.
The excavation season is upon us and adverts for diggers have been landing thick and fast in my inbox together with posts about work starting at several significant sites. It made me think about my own days as a ‘digger’. In those days, you consulted the Council for British Archaeology Excavation Calendar in your local library and then sent off letters to prospective projects. It was a slow process. There were some perks, however, that seem to be lacking today; most notably money. Paying to work on a site was almost unknown, and only for the rich. Usually you were paid a weekly subsistence amount and, as I seem to remember, accommodation was arranged by the excavation project. This had the advantage that we all stayed together and a good dig social life soon built up. Friendships were made and held strong, I am still in touch with some of the people who I worked with in the early 70s and it always brings back memories to see a familiar name mentioned in the press or on social media, and learn what they are doing now.
The biggest advantage to this system was that it was possible to avoid serious gainful employment over the summer and gain valuable archaeological skills (and friends) while escaping the inevitable loss of savings that would arise from similar work today. If you chose your excavation sites carefully you could cover a wide range of periods, techniques and environments, all of which built up experience to stand one in good stead in the long run. And, in my day, the universities still had funds available to help those students wishing to excavate abroad: in that way, I got to work at Lazaret Cave in France and Hayonim Cave in Israel. It was often a steep learning curve, but one that was well worthwhile. My acquired skills were not restricted to archaeology: there were trips to hospital; catering for large numbers; the prevention of vermin; negotiation of foreign visas; even (surreally) the use of firearms. I can honestly say that my time as a youthful excavator helped to prepare me for a wide range of possible situations in later life.
I have no doubt that participation in an excavation today is just as rewarding in its own way. But, like all those who begin to see the younger generation filling roles they once occupied, I can’t help a feeling of nostalgia for times past. Ironically, perhaps the greatest lesson I learnt was that, having spent some time envying the responsibilities and role of the ‘site supervisors’, as soon as I found myself perched on the edge of the trench with a clipboard and a pencil I realised that I had made a horrible mistake. At that point, I wanted nothing more than to find myself back down in the trench at the centre of the action and with nary a care in the world.
The Farmstead at Gallow Hill in Shetland. This panorama gives an idea of the remarkable preservation of the site which sits on the surface at present ground level. The main house structure lies at the centre (with modern disturbance), while the remains of clearance cairns and field walls may be seen all around it. The complex also includes substantial outlying burial monuments.
I seem to be travelling a lot just now and it makes me think about the ease of mobility today and the way in which it transcends not just distance but also culture. We are all accustomed to the presence of items in our homes, often everyday items, which reflect a way of life very different to our own.
One of my journeys led me north to the island chain of Shetland. It is a great place with amazing archaeology and I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to spend three days there, discussing the archaeology with colleagues, and visiting some of the lesser known (but as it turned out no less spectacular), sites. Much of our discussion focussed on the introduction of farming to Shetland and development of the Neolithic there. The interesting element about this for me is that, although farming was certainly introduced by boat, there is little evidence that people, once settled there, kept up frequent contacts with communities further south. Repeated evidence for contact between Shetland and places such as Orkney does not appear until later in the Neolithic.
Alison Sheridan’s recent research suggests that, on the grounds of tomb types, the early farming communities may have come from the west coast of Scotland. We do not know for certain whether or not there were pre-existing Mesolithic communities here, but tantalizing hints of the use of coastal resources at an early date come from the site of West Voe in the south of the islands, where a team from Bradford has excavated a site dating to 3700 – 3600 BC. The finds from West Voe included both cattle and sheep bones and seem to indicate a community with both Mesolithic and Neolithic traits. This is, of itself, particularly exciting because, as I have argued before, it is particularly difficult for archaeologists to recognise the ‘blurred’ episodes that lay between our carefully defined periods. West Voe, it seems, is exactly this. Was this one of the first farming communities to settle in Shetland, or do the remains relate to a Mesolithic (or Neolithic) community that chose to adopt the ‘useful bits’ from their new neighbours? At the moment, we just don’t know.
Farming soon spread across Shetland and it is likely that agricultural land may have been more plentiful than today. Shetland, like Orkney, has been subject to rising relative sea-levels since the end of the last Ice Age meaning that coastal lands have been lost. We don’t yet have precise measurements for this but it is possible that relative sea-level was as much as 10m lower around 4000 BC which would mean that the topography of the islands was very different to that of today. As yet, there are few sites that date to this earliest farming period: perhaps a reflection of the loss of coastal settlements to inundation; or of our inability to recognise the earliest sites, particularly if they reflected the hybridity of West Voe; or maybe just confirmation that population levels at this time were, indeed, low.
The interesting thing is that the resources that we find on the Neolithic sites were all very local. And, despite the production in Shetland of stunning and apparently high status objects such as beautiful polished axes and knives of local felsite, we don’t get much evidence of Shetland-style products leaving the islands. Even in Orkney, where the islanders were, apparently, seriously into the production and acquisition of elaborate showy goods like Grooved Ware pottery, only two, possible, artifacts of Shetland felsite have been found. There is no evidence either that pottery such as Grooved Ware, or even architecture such as that of the Stone Circles, or the buildings at Ness of Brodgar and Barnhouse came north to Shetland. And, while research on the Orkney Vole and its possible Neolithic origins on the Continent may still be be controversial, there is no evidence for the spread of Orkney Voles into Shetland.
So, the available evidence suggests that the Neolithic islanders of Shetland did not look south for cultural connections. And the Neolithic islanders of Orkney seem to have been too preoccupied with their own southern networking to explore the possibility that there was benefit to be obtained from looking north. Only later, as economic and cultural horizons in the south of Britain shifted to the Continent and Ireland with the introduction of metal, did Orcadian communities apparently become aware of the availability of raw materials to the north.
I find this seeming isolation of Neolithic Shetland fascinating. Just how many groups of incomers made the lengthy journey north? How many people were needed to settle the islands? You’d not need that many breeding cattle and sheep, though the voyage cannot have been an easy one. Are the difficulties of the voyage reflected in the fact that there is so little evidence for return trips? Does the development of connections between the island groups of Orkney and Shetland in the later third millennium BC (when, for example, we see the export of steatite vessels from Shetland to Orkney) reflect improvements in sea-going craft as well as the possible decline of Orcadian connections further south?
Nevertheless, isolation did not equate with lack of success. The population of Neolithic Shetland may not have been large for the first few centuries, but communities survived. Work by Janet Montgomery of Durham University and her colleagues, suggests that there were, indeed, times of famine, but houses and elaborate tombs were built, and communities developed. With time, Shetland would become more a part of mainstream Britain. For now, it seems to me that the earliest farmers in Shetland may have adapted to their northern homeland by broadening their resource base and leaving an archaeological record that is both less clearly ‘Neolithic’ and, most likely, largely underwater.
