Wednesday, 28 December 2022

Is this year’s tumultuous weather set to become the new ‘norm’ ?

 

The National Trust has warned that this year’s tumultuous weather is set to become the new ‘norm’ https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/services/media/weather-and-wildlife-2022  The Stonehenge and Avebury WHS are thought to be at risk from climate change, so it is of interest here - http://www.stonehengeandaveburywhs.org/assets/Climate-Change-RA-for-web.pdf

We hear a lot about climate breakdown, that our climate is getting more unpredictable and tumultuous. We can survive and thrive in nearly any climate if we can plan and prepare for it from the arctic to the equator, from deserts to rainforests. But instability and uncertainty is dangerous. So is it getting more disorderly?

To check if any increasing instability was evident in England  I thought a simple, quick and dirty way would be to compare the annual, and each season’s, temperature and rainfall using the long running Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html  and HadUKP, the UK regional precipitation series available from https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/index.html

My method was to compare the differences between years.

For instance the mean spring temperature in 2020 was 9.9°C, in 2021 8°C, and 2022 10.1° so the differences are  -1.9°C and 2.1°C.   I charted out the differences from 1963.

Wow, the swings are getting larger. English spring temperatures are getting less predictable.

So, I looked at more of the data.

Here’s the mean spring temperatures from 1904 – 1963:

 


Huh? That looks the same as the 1963 – 2022 chart.  Let’s overlay them to see:

 

So, spring temperature got more unpredictable from 1904 to 1963 and then the pattern repeated from 1964 to now.

What is going on? I don’t know but whatever it is it isn’t unprecedented.

 Just eyeballing the rest of the data graphs for the other seasons, years and annually I couldn’t spot any other repeating patterns either for temperature or rainfall. But torturing it with statistical analysis may reveal more. I hope someone with the skills does so.




  Another surprise to me from the series is how related the Min and Max series are. It appears that the temperature band is narrow, is it self-regulating?  A plot of spring temperatures shows: 



 A simple plot of Maximum temperature minus Minimum shows this over the whole period:


Sometimes very simple analysis is all that is needed to answer a question.

Friday, 23 December 2022

Mesolithic Machans

Yesterday the Mesolithic tree-throw and post holes were showing up well with grass mown and it reminded me to record my belief that there may have had been a practical purpose. 

If you are ever to try a spot of big game hunting, I haven't myself, I am assured that the Cape Buffalo is the most dangerous beast to hunt. I imagine Aurochsen were similar. They don't take kindly to being wounded and a couple of tonnes of beef behind some horns travelling at speed intent on revenge is best avoided. Using only spears and arrows kills would not have been quick and easy. 

Deer hunters in our local woods still use high seats, not so much to avoid the danger, as to be out of sight and smell of the prey and have a better view and platform to operate from. 

In India and south Asian countries, such platforms, in trees and where trees were absent on poles, are called "Machans". Thankfully they now more often used to photograph big game from than for shooting.

David Saunders* in his excellent studies on prehistoric cattle movements touches on the roles the posts may have played but doesn't, I think, suggest them as machans. So combining a sketch from E P Stepping's Diary of a Sportsman Naturalist in India and a photo of the post holes let me supply a suggestion of how the posts alongside a natural funnel for the beast may have been used.
*Saunders, David. The Cursus Enigma: Prehistoric Cattle and Cursus Alignments. Austria: NIELSEN BOOKDATA, 2021.

Wednesday, 21 December 2022

How many original entrances did Durrington Walls have?

 It seems surprising that the number of entrances that Durrington Walls originally had is uncertain.

1, 2, 4 and even 3 have been suggested.



Model from Gaffney V, Neubauer W, Garwood P et al (2018) Durrington Walls and the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project 2010-2016. Archaeological Prospection. 25(3): 255-269. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/16081


"Durrington Walls is a large oval henge, classified as a type 2 henge (Piggott 1939), with an internal irregular ditch and external bank, and with two entrances known, to the east and to the west (Wainwright and Longworth 1971, 1), although Parker Pearson et al. (2007) suggest four entrances."
Higham, R., & Carey, C. The Durrington Walls Sarsen Burial relocated and reconsidered. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Magazine, 112, 74-84.

 
"It was not possible to determine the presence or absence of the assumed north-west entrance in the bank/ditch as there is significant metallic noise at the surface here. Similarly, it is not possible to establish the nature of the apparent breaks on the north and east sides due to the presence of the old and new main roads cutting through the earthworks at these points."
"There appears, for example, to be no certain evidence for a north-west entrance. The air photograph used by Crawford (1929, 54-6, pl.III) might indicate such an entrance, but this also seems to show a gap in the ditch on the east side of the enclosure which certainly does not exist. The land surface in the area of the supposed entrance is steep and very uneven, apparently heavily-disturbed, suggesting relatively recent modification of the scarp slope possibly to create an entrance ramp into the field within the enclosure area, which might account for the ‘gap’ observed by Crawford. The geophysical survey data (GPR and FDEM) are ambiguous, but there is certainly a suggestion that the ditch is continuous (see fig. 15). It is possible, therefore, that the Durrington Walls henge enclosure only had a single south-east entrance." Gaffney et al 

So the South -East entrance is certain, it seems to be ceremonial and aligned to the Solstice.

The North West one opposite seems to be becoming less certain, the area was used as a rubbish dump so it is hard to survey but there doesn't seem to be any evidence it was there.

 "the vexed issue of the north-western entrance to Durrington Walls henge becomes significant. Initially postulated by Crawford (1929, 54–56, plate III), the entrance is complicated by the presence of a large scarp that lies between the bank and ditch, and which must pre-date the enclosure (Gaffney et al2018, 10). The area associated with the postulated entrance is very steep, uneven and heavily disturbed and the geophysical survey data from the henge is ambiguous regarding whether an entrance actually exists at this point."   Gaffney, V. et al. 2020 A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure associated with Durrington Walls Henge, Internet Archaeology 55. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4

The North and South entrances are hard to interpret as the old road went through them. Talking to archaeologists the feeling is that the north one probably is the least certain and is probably more a modern agricultural access to the interior. The South entrance has more features such as a curve to the ditch which hint it may be original. 

To answer the question, I think 1 is certain and 2 probable, but not the traditional two. I think as at Stonehenge there was a ceremonial entrance and maybe a more functional one to the south. 


Saturday, 3 December 2022

The Stonehenge Sarsens didn't float down the Avon

The route that the great sarsens were brought from the Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge is still debated. This blog was started to investigate it and it is still of interest.


I am using 40 tonnes as the maximum weight of an untrimmed sarsen that was moved. The raft or sledge it was moved on then adds to this weight.

The idea that they were brought down the River Avon from Upavon to Amesbury is still popular despite the impossibility of it.

The River Avon we see now isn't the same as it was in Neolithic times, the main difference is that it has historically been dredged, over-widened and impounded in many places due to past river management.

It would have been a multichannel meandering stream in a marshy valley bottom with trees and bushes growing over and in it.

1) They weren't slid on the frozen river. 

The River Avon is largely fed from ground water along its route, water that is referred to as warm during the winter as it stays at near constant temperature all year round. The river doesn't freeze solid and according to Gold's Formula the ice would need to be over 500mm thick 


The River at Amesbury has a normal maximum depth of 700mm and is usually half  of that, and at Upavon it is a lot less.


Photo from Pennsylvania Lumber Museum 

2) They weren't loaded onto rafts and floated down.

To float 40 tonnes of stone  40 cubic metres of water must be displaced. If we had a weightless box to load the stone on it would need to be 4 metres wide, 20 metres long and 500mm deep, the depth of the river being a limiting factor here.

A wooden raft made of logs would need to be much larger. Wood has a specific gravity of 500 - 800 kg per m3 . The photo shows how only half of a  log raft is out of the water. At the lightest end the raft would need to weigh another forty tonnes to displace enough water, at a more realistic weight for hardwoods of 750kg/m3 it nearly 100 tonnes. A forty five meter by five meter wide raft at 500 mm deep. The river is not big enough.

Only by using hollowed logs or canoes could the weight and size of the raft be reduced but would they be strong enough for the massive stones?

Dragging heavy stones through an overgrown bog didn't happen, they went overland away from the river.


Sunday, 6 November 2022

Reconstructing extraction techniques at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in the Preseli hills of west Wales

A very detailed look at the Bluestone quarries and the associated stone tools discovered there.  

Abstract: Excavations at two of the sources of Stonehenge’s bluestones in Mynydd Preseli, west Wales, have led to the discovery of stone tools associated with megalith quarrying in the final centuries of the fourth millennium BC, shortly before the suspected date of the bluestones’ erection at Stonehenge, 240 km away. Among the most plentiful of these tools are stone wedges, three of which were found in situ at the rhyolite bluestone quarry of Craig Rhos-y-felin. Two of these were positioned in the joints of a rhyolite pillar adjacent to a recess left by a removed pillar. Geochemical analysis reveals that these and the third wedge are of compositions different to the rock on either side of the cracks into which they had been driven, confirming their identification as quarrying tools. This research sheds new light on the methods used to extract the stones for Stonehenge.

Reconstructing extraction techniques at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in the Preseli hills of west Wales,

Mike Parker Pearson, Richard Bevins, Nick Pearce, Rob Ixer, Josh Pollard, Colin Richards, Kate Welham

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports,

Volume 46,

2022,

103697,

ISSN 2352-409X,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103697

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X22003601)


Keywords: Megalith quarries; Dolerite; Rhyolite; Stonehenge; Mynydd Preseli; Neolithic



Friday, 4 November 2022

Mythical rings? Waun Mawn and Stonehenge by Timothy Darvill and the response!

Mythical rings? Waun Mawn and Stonehenge Stage 1 by Timothy Darvill 

"In a recent Antiquity article, Parker Pearson and colleagues (2021) presented results from excavations at Waun Mawn in south-west Wales, interpreting the site as a dismantled stone circle and source for some of the Bluestone pillars used in the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge. Here, the author examines the evidence, showing that alternative interpretations are possible. Waun Mawn is argued to represent a series of smaller stone settings, typical of ceremonial sites in south- west Wales. Meanwhile the Aubrey Holes are shown to reflect a well-established regional sequence in which post circles are followed by pit circles. A Welsh source-circlefor Stonehenge cannot be excluded but, the author argues, the claim is unsupported by the current evidence."

The full article is at https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.82


Mike Parker Pearson et al have responded: 

How Waun Mawn stone circle was designed and built, and when the Bluestones arrived at Stonehenge: a response to Darvill
"In response to Timothy Darvill's article, ‘Mythical rings?’ (this issue), which argues for an alternative interpretation of Waun Mawn circle and its relationship with Stonehenge, Parker Pearson and colleagues report new evidence from the Welsh site and elaborate on aspects of their original argument. The discovery of a hearth at the centre of the circle, as well as further features around its circumference, reinforces the authors’ original interpretation. The authors explore the evidence for the construction sequence, which was abandoned before the completion of the monument. Contesting Darvill's argument that the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge originally held posts, the authors reassert their interpretation of this circle of cut features as Bluestone settings."

The response is at:  https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.132



Darvill plan showing the recorded stones and stone-sockets at Waun Mawn, Pembrokeshire (gure by G. Belmont after Grimes 1964: g. 36 and Parker Pearson et al. 2021: g. 4a).

 

MPP et al "the reader should ignore Darvill's Figure 1 and refer only to our plan to understand the site. How do we know that Waun Mawn is an unfinished circle? Because it has an entrance, convincing arcs of stoneholes, and—most significantly—a centre."




Plan of the unfinished and dismantled stone circle of Waun Mawn, Pembrokeshire. Remaining stones, standing and recumbent (purple), are shown, with stoneholes of dismantled standing stones (red), pits dug for standing stones but never used (green) and other features (black). Viewed from the hearth (131) at the centre of the circle, the midsummer solstice sun rose within the entrance formed by stoneholes 128 and 21 (figure by C. Casswell)  

Tuesday, 11 October 2022

The 52 Hillforts of Wiltshire

 


Rybury Camp - Tim Daw

My list of the 52 Hillforts of Wiltshire. 

I visited them all in 2022 - some aren't accessible so I went as close as I could legally and safely. But where I could I walked within each one.

Thoroughly enjoyable way to visit the whole of Wiltshire and experience some wonderful places and views - I recommend doing it thoroughly.


Name

Longitude

Latitude

1

Castle Hill, Blunsdon St Andrew

-1.77441

51.61914

2

Bury Hill Camp, Purton

-1.9183

51.60967

3

Nuns Walk, Malmesbury.

-2.09482

51.58369

4

Ringsbury Camp

-1.89333

51.57961

5

Liddington Castle

-1.70066

51.51583

6

Bincknoll Castle

-1.84618

51.51221

7

Barbury Castle

-1.78635

51.48527

8

Membury Camp

-1.56636

51.47567

9

Bury Wood Camp

-2.2632

51.46427

10

Nash Hill

-2.09702

51.42346

11

Oldbury Castle

-1.93037

51.42246

12

Chisbury Camp

-1.60051

51.39205

13

Oliver's Castle

-1.99994

51.38113

14

Rybury Camp

-1.88173

51.37463

15

Martinsell Hill Camp

-1.7514

51.37447

16

Giant's Grave

-1.76244

51.36796

17

Budbury

-2.25754

51.34854

18

Godsbury

-1.68904

51.31853

19

Fosbury Camp

-1.54311

51.30692

20

Broadbury Banks

-1.86838

51.29888

21

Castle Combe

-2.14601

51.29561

22

Sunton

-1.65939

51.28765

23

Chisenbury Camp

-1.78358

51.28374

24

Casterley Camp

-1.83531

51.28101

25

Bratton Castle

-2.14302

51.26376

26

Sidbury Camp

-1.6913

51.25365

27

Battlesbury Camp

-2.14668

51.20994

28

Cley Hill Camp

-2.23204

51.20298

29

Scratchbury Camp

-2.1262

51.19727

30

Knook Castle

-2.05856

51.19553

31

Vespasian's Camp

-1.79108

51.17399

32

Codford Circle

-2.02644

51.16419

33

Yarnbury Castle

-1.95097

51.16271

34

Ludgershall Castle

-1.37222

51.15252

35

Ogbury Camp

-1.79669

51.14368

36

Bilbury Rings

-1.98711

51.12541

37

Grovely Castle

-1.93238

51.12132

38

Ebsbury Hill

-1.91339

51.11762

39

Park Hill Camp

-2.33901

51.11122

40

White Sheet Castle

-2.28097

51.11032

41

Figsbury Ring

-1.73232

51.10337

42

Kenwalch's Castle

-2.36163

51.10056

43

Old Sarum

-1.80464

51.09337

44

Wick Ball Camp

-2.00071

51.08687

45

Castle Ditches, Tisbury

-2.0533

51.05463

46

Chiselbury

-1.97559

51.05239

47

Great Woodbury

-1.79653

51.04969

48

Odstock Copse

-1.79517

51.02569

49

Castle Rings, Donhead St Mary

-2.16153

51.02501

50

Clearbury Ring

-1.78401

51.01836

51

Winklebury Camp

-2.06945

50.99478

52

The Earldoms

-1.64684

50.99299

 Listed North to South

Information from The Oxford Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland: Lock, G. and Ralston, I. 2017. which includes much more information about each Hillfort.
Ordnance Survey and Google Street View to preview parking also highly recommended.

(Castle Combe and Ludgershall added as there is enough evidence for them be classed as Hillforts)
Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.



Saturday, 8 October 2022

Strontium Values Reappraisal - The South-West not Scotland?

That pigs, cattle, humans and even a dog came to the Stonehenge area from distant parts in prehistory has been one of the more interesting scientific discoveries of recent times. The links to Orcadian culture has also been speculated on. 

Behind the headlines and speculation there is solid research - some links to start from:

Evans, J., Parker Pearson, M., Madgwick, R. et al. Strontium and oxygen isotope evidence for the origin and movement of cattle at Late Neolithic Durrington Walls, UK. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 5181–5197 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00849-w 

Snoeck, C., Pouncett, J., Claeys, P. et al. Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales. Sci Rep 8, 10790 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28969-8 

The interpretations of Strontium and other isotope analysis lead to controversy. 

Gordon J. Barclay & Kenneth Brophy (2020): ‘A veritable chauvinism of prehistory’: nationalist prehistories and the ‘British’ late Neolithic mythos, Archaeological Journal, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2020.1769399

Richard Madgwick, Angela Lamb, Hilary Sloane, Alexandra Nederbragt, Umberto Albarella, Mike Parker Pearson & Jane Evans (2021) A veritable confusion: use and abuse of isotope analysis in archaeology, Archaeological Journal, 178:2, 361-385, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2021.1911099

The ‘omphalos of Britain’: iconic sites and landscapes, methodological nationalism and conceptual conservatism in the writing of ‘British’ prehistory. A reply to Madgwick and collaborators 2021 Gordon J. Barclay and Kenneth Brophy DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.17296994

So a reappraisal is warranted: The high strontium levels that have been taken to indicate movement from Scotland might now indicate the South-West instead.  A recent paper:

Müldner, Gundula & Frémondeau, Delphine & Evans, Jane & Jordan, Alexis & Rippon, Steven. (2022). Putting South-West England on the (strontium isotope) map: A possible origin for highly radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr values from southern Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science. 144. 105628. 10.1016/j.jas.2022.105628.

"Reconstructions of ancient mobility based on strontium isotopes are only ever as reliable as estimates for baseline values of bioavailable strontium in the study area. Current biosphere mapping for Britain suggests that there are no sizeable areas hosting 87Sr/86Sr values above 0.714 south of Cumbria. As a result, archaeological humans or animals with such (for Britain) ‘highly radiogenic’ strontium isotope values are commonly interpreted as having moved either from Scotland or abroad. This paper presents the first dedicated strontium isotope map for South-West England based on 98 modern biosphere samples (including 68 new measurements). Numerous samples from the Cornubian granite (Dartmoor) have 87Sr/86Sr values above 0.714 (maximum 0.7287) and, based on their distribution, it is suggested that the previously elusive ‘highly radiogenic’ values are characteristic for areas where the soil has with high rubidium concentrations. These occur at lower elevations which are better suited for agriculture and permanent human settlement than the high moors. Previous interpretations of archaeological samples from southern Britain may need to be revised considering these new results, but they also highlight the continued need for biosphere sampling and the usefulness of geochemical maps as a routine part of strontium isotope investigations in archaeology."