Doggerland

Europe’s Lost World: The rediscovery of Doggerland
by Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch & David Smith

A new book by a team from the University of Birmingham explores the lost world of Doggerland, the land that was submerged when the waters rose at the end of the last Ice Age.

It has always boggled my mind that when Doggerland was dry land, the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine.

The past is sometimes said to be a foreign country, but less than 12,000 years ago Europe was a very different and almost unrecognisable place where Britain did not exist as a separate land. Over several thousand years the climate changed, sea levels rose and the entire coast of Europe morphed into the familiar shape we know today. Britain, formerly a range of hills on the edge of a great plain, gradually separated from continental Europe. This new book concludes a remarkable programme of archaeological research by the University of Birmingham to rediscover Doggerland, the enigmatic country which once linked the Yorkshire coast with a stretch of Continental Europe from Denmark to Normandy but which now lies beneath the North Sea.

Whilst many may associate Doggerland with the area of sea described memorably each night in the BBC Shipping Forecast, 10,000 years ago Doggerland was an inhabited land where communities of hunter-gatherers lived and roamed, hunting and gathering resources, just as they did in many other areas of northern Europe. Previously interpreted by archaeologists simply as a ‘land bridge’, this project has described this amazing landscape in detail for the first time and revealed the valleys, hills, rivers and plains which lie beneath the North sea and which were home to unique cultures, tribes and, perhaps, thousands of people.

This CBA book documents the terrible events which brought an end to this landscape. Sometimes slowly, but sometimes with a rapidity which brings to mind Noah’s Flood, sea levels rose due to a rise in temperature and melting glaciers. Doggerland was drowned, its people lost or driven to higher ground.

Does this scenario sound familiar? The project accurately reconstructs the story for us, the tragic conclusions of which cast a chilling light on our situation today. With another potentially catastrophic climate change event looming, there is a real possibility that we will lose more land to the North Sea. The submersion of Doggerland was the last time this happened, and reminds us of our obligations to future generations who may lose the plains, valleys and rivers familiar to our land surface today if global warming is not arrested.

The project team, headed by Professor Vince Gaffney, a specialist in landscape archaeology at the University of Birmingham, conducted the research using ground-breaking oil industry technology and 3D seismic reflection data, donated by PGS Ltd, to scan the seabed. Using millions of data points across 23,000km² of the sea bed, a reconstruction was created of the old land surface, now submerged beneath metres of marine sediment and tens of metres of sea water.

Can these dry bones live?

Henry Alexander Bowler 
The Doubt: Can these dry bones live? (1855)
Tate Gallery, London, UK

The context of this fascinating painting is the Christian belief that people would be bodily resurrected at the Last Trump (the Second Coming).

It appears that most Christians no longer believe this, since the Church of England is apparently happy for people to be cremated.

What it does illustrate is that when you look at bones, there's no-one home in there.  The person has gone.

Some cultures have specific beliefs about bones; others do not.  It would be difficult to guess how a culture might treat its dead from its theology; sometimes funeral practices arise from perceived economic or social necessities as much as from belief systems.  Also, of course, different individuals within cultures will have widely varying beliefs about what happens to body and soul after death.

Open-air cremation

On 24-26th March 2009 the Royal Courts of Justice in London will review Britain's cremation laws and decide whether Baba Davender Kumar Ghai deserves the legal right to a Hindu religious cremation on an open air funeral pyre.

I know several Pagans who would like an open-air funeral pyre, so I think we should support this campaign. If it uses too much wood, this could always be offset by planting more trees (I'm willing to bet that it is more environmentally friendly than most crematoria). Other than the possible environmental impact, this doesn't harm anyone else.

Also, gas-fired crematoria use a huge amount of gas.

Anglo-Asian Friendship Society funeral pyre campaign (you can register your support by filling in the comment box on this page)

The pioneer of the revival of cremation in Britain was William Price, an eighteenth century Druid.

Some ancient pagans also cremated their dead, probably for similar reasons to Hindus.

I'd quite like my corpse to be pushed out to sea in a burning longship (Viking-style), but failing that, either an open-air cremation or a woodland burial would do. Although a burial mound would be good. I will of course have plenty of grave-goods for future archaeologists to examine. Maybe I should be buried in acid-free soil so they can examine my bones and analyse them.

Archaeology of women

Who is she? A goddess, a ritual object, a votive offering, a vehicle for working magic or fulfilling wishes, a talisman for protection, a teaching or initiation device, or simply an ancient woman's embodiment of herself?

The Brooklyn Museum is staging an exhibition of prehistoric female statues (which may or may not be goddesses). It will be accompanied by a seminar to discuss early female figurines of the Neolithic Period from ancient Mesopotamia and of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods from ancient Egypt.

Similarly, the Onassis Cultural Center is staging an exhibition, "Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens":

The purpose of the exhibition Worshiping Women is not to argue that Classical Athenian women were 'liberated' in any contemporary sense, like the figure of Lysistrata on the comic stage. It remains true that the lives of Athenian women were highly restricted when it came to mobility in the public sphere, participation in the political process, or control over their own bodies. But the study of religion provides a necessary corrective to this unremittingly bleak picture.
It is not that participation in religious ritual was an 'escape' for women from their lives of daily oppression, for it is highly unlikely that they perceived their own existence in this way. Rather, ritual defined who they were -- as women, as Greeks, and as Athenians.

Women in archaeology

Since it was International Women's Day on Sunday, I thought I'd write about women in archaeology.

Agatha Christie famously said that one should marry an archaeologist, as he's the only man who will become more interested in you as you grow older.  I followed her advice, and found it excellent.  But she was an archaeologist in her own right, and her depth of knowledge was appreciated by her husband and colleagues:

 She became very expert, and was much respected by Max's colleagues for her painstaking and skilled work.

70 years ago, Dorothy Garrod became a professor of archaeology at Cambridge.  She was the first female professor at Cambridge long before the admission of women to the university.

Other prominent female archaeologists include:

• Bridget Allchin
• Dorothea Bate
• Mary Beaudry
• Patricia Birley
• Gertrude Caton–Thompson
• Lorraine Copeland
• Maud Cunnington
• Nadia Durrani
• Dorothy Garrod
• Helen Geake
• Roberta Gilchrist
• Miranda Green
• Margaret Hasluck
• Jacquetta Hawkes
• Anne Johnson
• Kathleen Kenyon
• Dorothy King
• Mary Leakey
• Meave Leakey
• Carenza Lewis
• Caroline Malone
• Margaret Murray
• Gisela Richter
• Alice Roberts
• Katherine Routledge
• Margaret Rule
• Joan du Plat Taylor
• Ruth Tringham
• Joyce Tyldesley
• Jacqui Wood

Now there is an organisation, British Women Archaeologists (originally started as a Facebook group but now with its own website, and seemingly well on its way to becoming a professional association) with their own strand at TAG 2009.

There's also the archaeology of women to be considered - for example the excavation of the Greenham Common peace camp; the archaeology of gender roles; the discovery of Amazons in Sarmatia and Amazons in Britain; the archaeology of identity; and women's material culture and social and economic status in the past. 

Some feminist archaeologists (and some feminist Pagans too)  got very excited about the idea of a pre-Indo-European goddess-worshipping matriarchy, but the idea really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.  Certainly attitudes to women were different in the past and the degree of patriarchy varied from one society to another, but there wasn't a Europe-wide Goddess-worshipping culture.  There is little or nothing to suggest that the famous "Venus" figurines actually were goddesses.  Unless you find an unequivocally female statue in a temple (such as the Sleeping Lady at Hal Saflieni in Malta) you can't be sure it is a goddess.  Also, having goddesses doesn't necessarily guarantee that women themselves are respected.

Further reading

• Alun Salt on Gender, Archaeology and Gender Archaeology
  
• Alun Salt on Why Male Archaeologists don't get Feminism
  

Guest post: Clovis tools found

What's In Your Backyard? A Cache Of Clovis Stone Tools! by Pitch313
A rare, undisturbed cache of Clovis stone tools maybe 13,000 years old was discovered in a Boulder, Colorado, backyard. Analysis reveals that some of the tools were used to butcher ancient camels and horses. The University of Colorado at Boulder web site offers an excellent account of the find and its archaeological context, including a striking set of images of the tools and the site.

Using a search engine for a phrase like Clovis tools Boulder CO brings up many other pages.

The location of the find is within the Boulder city limits. Bunches of stone tools being weighty, Clovis folk apparently did bury tool caches as they roamed their territories. A landscaper found this cache buried about 18 inches deep. In the past, the site formed part of a natural drainage. Nobody, apparently, had any clues about its presence.

What gets me about this find, really, is that it was right in somebody's backyard. Not out in the back of beyond. And it was, after erosion and human earth moving activities, not all that deep. Makes we wonder about other sorts of ancient artifacts and sites we might literally be living on top of and walking over every day.

As a Pagan, I find it interesting that this cache was hidden right in a city. Did Pagans and psychics and dowsers not pick up any traces or indicators? Does this suggest a magically or psychically "dead" cache. Was the cache magically hidden by the Clovis folk who buried it? Or do we take our backyards so much for granted that we never even think to look there. I certainly never looked for ancient finds in my little patch of Northern California backyard, even though it did hold a few unusual creatures and interesting old trash from previous occupants.

The Clovis people were early Paleoindian immigrants to North America. They ranged over the West. Materially, the hallmark of Clovis culture is beautifully knapped stone points, called Clovis points. In college, I had an opportunity to look at and handle a couple of them. As the University of Colorado at Boulder article points out, they do have a sort of touch magic that recalls something of the ancient days.

13,000-Year-Old Stone Tool Cache in Colorado Shows Evidence of Camel, Horse Butchering

The Mahaffy Cache consists of 83 stone implements ranging from salad plate-sized, elegantly crafted bifacial knives and a unique tool resembling a double-bitted axe to small blades and flint scraps. Discovered in May 2008 by Brant Turney -- head of a landscaping crew working on the Mahaffy property -- the cache was unearthed with a shovel under about 18 inches of soil and was packed tightly into a hole about the size of a large shoebox. It appeared to have been untouched for thousands of years, Bamforth said.

• University of Colorado at Boulder web site on the Clovis cache
• Wikipedia on Clovis culture
  

(Pitch313 has given permission for this article to appear on Pagans for Archaeology; it is copyright the author, Pitch313).

An alternative theology of reburial

I would like to draw your attention to an article written by a PFA member, An alternative theology of reburial which is part of a site called Ancient Britons: Honouring Our Ancestors By Remembering Them.

What of the remains? Do they hold the spirit of the dead? No. In my opinion they do not. They may retain an echo or an imprint, but the spirit has gone, the person has left and what remains is essentially a golem, a physical shadow of the person who once was. Perhaps it was this echo or memory held within the bones that our Neolithic ancestors were hoping to remain in touch with when they continued access and handling of the bones of the dead. Perhaps it was their way of remembering them, their lives and theirs stories. That being the case, our way of retaining and displaying human remains would not be entirely alien to them.

From the Ashes: Southampton scientists restore Amazon warrior

clipped from www.soton.ac.uk A 2000-year-old painted Roman statue, discovered in the ancient ruins of Herculaneum in 2006, is being digitally restored to her original glory by scientists from the University of Southampton, University of Warwick and the Herculaneum Conservation Project.

CafePress shop

I've set up a Pagans for Archaeology shop on CafePress with T-shirts, a mug and a bag. I will soon be adding new designs and badges, fridge magnets and car stickers, so watch this space.

If anyone has designs that they would like to donate, or ideas for witty captions, please let me know.

Let's get active

At the weekend, I went to a conference about community archaeology - that's archaeology done by and/or for the community. All very inclusive.

So, if you would like to get more involved in archaeology, here are some ideas for stuff that we could do under the banner of Pagans for Archaeology - because part of the aim of this group is to raise awareness among archaeologists that there are moderate Pagans out there, in fact we're the majority.

T-shirts: I am thinking of getting some T-shirts via Café Press but would like to know that people would buy them. Also, suggestions for motifs and slogans would be welcome.

I would like to create a list of volunteers and skills - perhaps on the PFA Yahoo group, as that is more private than Facebook.

I think it would also be good if people could invite archaeologists from their local university to give talks at Pagan moots, and do a bit of awareness-raising. Also, PFA members could offer to speak at county archaeological societies about Paganism and Pagans for Archaeology (if you would like to do this, I have Powerpoint slides you could use).

If you want to try your hand at experimental archaeology, digging, potwashing, recording, drawing etc, join your local county archaeology society. Don't forget to mention that you are a member of Pagans for Archaeology and explain what it is. If you message me with your email address, I can supply you with a leaflet to print out and distribute - either at your local moot or at the county archaeological society.

There are also opportunities to take part in archaeological research on an informal basis (on your own if you like) in to landscapes and their archaeology, which can result in a deeper connection with the site.

Another idea is to start a collaborative website of Pagan sites of interest, both ancient and modern, and hopefully walking trails to join them up (like a Pagan version of JTrails).

You could also collect some oral history from the older members of your local Pagan community, and take photographs of Pagan altars, costumes and artefacts (with permission from the owners of course).  You can post them in the Pagans for Archaeology Flickr group.

Please post a comment if you are interested in taking part in any of these initiatives.

Study day

Late Antique Archaeology 2009: Late Antique Finds: Excavation and Analysis
London - Sat 7th March 2009

The study of late antique artefacts is no longer limited to silver plate and pilgrim tokens. Yet on many sites, finds are still excavated without thought for the information that they ultimately provide. Rich destruction deposits are excavated to a 'one size fits all' method, and finds are often studied only when digs have finished. Sadly, specialists are often kept out of trenches, despite the insights they can provide from finds into deposits actually under excavation. So do we simply collect finds?, or is there information, particular to each object type, and to late antique deposits, that needs to be recorded in order to study them properly? This meeting will examine the methods appropriate to the recovery and analysis of late antique finds, focusing especially on problems specific to the period and on new discoveries.

A joint conference of the University of Kent and King's College, London, to be held at the Safra lecture theatre, KCL Strand Campus, The Strand, London, WC2R 2LS.

10.30 Welcome by Luke Lavan (Kent) and Tasssos Papacostas (KCL)

10.40-11.10 Steve Roskams (York) Animal Bones
11.10-11.40 TBC Textiles

11.50-12.20 Jerry Evans & Phil Mills (Leicester) Late Roman Pottery
12.20-12.50 Joanita Vroom (UEA) Early Medieval Pottery

2.00-2.30 Veerle Lawyers (KULeuven) Glass
2.30-3.00 Anthea Harris (Birmingham) Everyday Metals
3.00-3.30 John Casey (Kent) Coins

4.10-4.40 Stephan Gros (Vienna) Waste
4.40-5.10 Phil Mills (Leicester) Building Materials

5.10-5.40 James Gerrard (Pre-construct archaeology) Excavating and studying the domestic hoard from Drapers' Gardens, City of London

Entrance is free, though places are limited. To reserve a place please email Michael Mulryan on info@lateantiquearchaeology.com.

Location details. Temple Tube station is closest.

www.brill.nl/laa
www.lateantiquearchaeology.com
www.lateantiqueostia.wordpress.com

new logo

I have designed a logo for Pagans for Archaeology.

An underworld goddess seemed appropriate, but the pomegranate, attribute of Persephone, was already taken. So then I thought of Vanth, Etruscan underworld goddess, and looked her up. Apparently she had eyes on her wings, which reminded me of the owl butterfly. So I chose the eye in the wing of an owl butterfly as the logo, to represent Vanth.