Monumental 6000-Year-Old Long Barrow Unearthed in England

Ancient Origins

Excavations have begun at a 6,000-year-old long barrow found northeast of Cirencester in the Cotswolds, England. The prehistoric burial monument was created by some of the first farmers in the area.

According to Heritage Daily, the summer 2016 dig led by archaeologists at Bournemouth University  is the first real excavation at the site - even though the long barrow was found about ten years ago. It measures 60 meters (196.9 ft.) long by 15 meters (49.2 ft.) wide.

Aerial shot of students at the long barrow excavation site. (Bournemouth University)

During the recent excavations, the team of 80 students, graduates, and archaeologists were working to identify the structure’s stonework and possible burial chamber locations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that the structure was made up of soil and stone.
A Bournemouth University press release says that “Traditionally, up to 50 men, women and children were buried in such monuments over a period of several centuries.” However, as things are still in the early stages at the site, there are no details provided on any human remains found there to date.

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Dr. Martin Smith, senior lecturer in Forensic and Biological Anthropology at Bournemouth University, described one of the more interesting discoveries at the site to Heritage Daily, he said, “We had a cattle skull placed in what we call the ‘forecourt’ of the monument – a wide arena edged by a tall façade at the front of the structure where we think various sorts of ceremonies and communal rituals would have been performed. This seems to be a theatrical space.”
Prehistoric long barrows can be found all over the British Isles and became more popular around 4000 BC with the advent of more intensive farming and more permanent settlements – which promoted population growth. However, new challenges also arose with these changes, one of which being the disposal of the dead.

Reconstruction of a 4000 BC farmer’s hut. Irish National Heritage Park. (David Hawgood/CC BY SA 2.0)

The Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum points out that the long barrow was one solution.:

“Faced with the problem of disposing of the remains of their dead, many Neolithic communities chose to inter the bodies (or sometimes the cremated remains) in chambered tombs constructed inside distinctively shaped stone and soil mounds. These burial chambers and the access passages to them from outside were built of large slabs of stone (orthostats) and dry stone walling. The covering mound was usually pear-shaped or roughly trapezoidal, often with a shallow ‘horned’ forecourt at one end, the whole surrounded by a low dry stone wall. It has been estimated that each barrow could have taken 10 men some 7 months to build.”

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The Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum says that the thickest concentration of long barrows is in the Cotswolds. Together they make up a group which is known as the Cotswold-Severn tombs. The most famous of these sites are Belas Knap, Notgrove and West Tump. Now another long barrow may be added to the list.

One of the excavated burial chambers at Belas Knap, a Neolithic long barrow situated on Cleeve Hill, near Cheltenham and Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, England. (Pahazzard/CC BY SA 3.0)

Professor Tim Darvill, director of the Centre for Archaeology and Anthropology at Bournemouth University explained the importance of finding the recent long barrow near Cirencester:

 “It's very exciting to have found this barrow because of the opportunities it offers for researching the first farmers on the Cotswolds. Long barrows were amongst the first substantial structures to be built in Britain – the earliest monumental architecture we know of. Previously unknown, examples do not turn up very often and no barrow like this has been excavated for more than 20 years. It really is a fantastic opportunity to bring to bear some of the recent advances in archaeological and anthropological science in order to find out more about these sites.”

Picture of the front Chamber of Belas Knap, a famous Cotswold-Severn tomb. (Public Domain)

For example, one creative second year archaeology student has tried out a new form of archaeological exploration at the site. Luke Jenkins used “an auger to bore small holes that allow measurements of what lies below the ground surface. Data taken from the holes is then interpreted and used to create a 3D model of the below-ground structures.” [Via Bournemouth University]
He emphasized how the technique can allow archaeologists to extract information while conserving a site:

“It differs from a formal excavation in that you’re not taking out large trenches: you’re effectively doing keyhole surgery using the archaeological equivalent of a large drill. You don’t see the end picture until it is uploaded into a computer. The idea is that it doesn’t ruin archaeology – you’re building up a model without doing anything destructive.”

Work will resume at the prehistoric long barrow near Cirencester in the summer of 2017.
Top Image: Rolling hills of the Cotswolds near Coberley. (Saffron Blaze/CC BY SA 3.0) Aerial shot of students at the long barrow excavation site. (Bournemouth University)
By Alicia McDermott

Excavations at British sites are Revolutionizing Prehistoric Studies and Revealing Secrets of the Past

Ancient Origins

You might say British archaeology is in a golden age, especially with excavations and discoveries at two sites that are adding great knowledge of the prehistory of the islands. One site, from about 2500 BC, is on the Orkney Islands off Scotland’s northern coast, and the other, from about 1000 BC, is not far from London.

The excavations at the two sites coincide with a two-week British Festival of Archaeology that wraps up this weekend.
Though they are separated by many years and about 650 miles (1,050 km), the two sites are providing insights into what life was like in the British Isles before there were written language and historians to record the lives of the people.
In the Orkneys are a settlement, monumental stone circle and temple complex called Ness of Brodgar that has been under excavation since 2003. For about 4,500 years, the earth held the secrets of an ancient people who worshiped, farmed and lived there. Over the years archaeologists have been extracting those secrets and now want to share them with the world. (See here for a website about Brodgar.)

The site in England, at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, was a settlement of roundhouses that burned, perhaps in an attack by hostiles, and fell into the river, where the silt preserved the settlers’ stuff so well that some are calling it Britain’s Pompeii.

A bronze socketed ax was one of many Bronze Age tools found at Must Farm, a site that dates back about 3,000 years and is the finest site of that era ever found in Britain and one of the finest in Europe. Photo by Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

And though they are so far removed from each other in time—one site is from the Neolithic (Stone Age), the other from later Bronze Age—the sites hold some similarities. The ancient people of both sites farmed, kept animals, had pottery and tools.
At these sites and at a thousand other places across the width and length of the British Isles, the Council of British Archaeology’s Festival of Archaeology is being celebrated in the last two weeks of July.
“The festival showcases the very best of archaeology, with special events right across the UK, organised and hosted by museums, heritage organisations, national and countryside parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists,” says the council’s website.
The festival’s Facebook page announces events about the Dark Ages, the Iron Age, the Roman era and many other historic and prehistoric features and eras of the British Isles.
Before all those eras came was the new Stone Age and its Ness of Brodgar in the Orkneys. The site is in part a temple complex of 21 buildings and covers an area of over 6 acres. It consists of the ruins of housing, remnants of slate roofs, paved walkways, colored facades, decorated stone slabs, and a massive stone wall with foundations. It also includes a large building described as a Neolithic ‘cathedral’ or ‘palace’, inhabited from at least 3,500 BC to the close of the Neolithic period more than 1,500 years later.

Excavations at the Ness of Brodgar on mainland Orkney (genevieveromier photo/ Flickr)

The Ness of Brodgar is on the largest island of Orkney, called The Mainland. It includes a henge and stone circle known as The Ring of Brodgar. It is the third largest stone circle in the British Isles after Avebury and Stonehenge. Built in a true circle, the Ring of Brodgar is thought to have been originally composed of 60 individual stones, though presently 27 are intact. The stones themselves are of red sandstone and vary in height from 7-15 feet. The stones are surrounded by a large circular ditch or henge.
Excavations have discovered thousands of artifacts at the Ness of Brodgar, including ceremonial mace heads, polished stone axes, flint knives, a human figurine and miniature thumb pots. Archaeologists have found beautifully crafted stone spatulas, highly-refined colored pottery, and more than 650 pieces of Neolithic art, by far the largest collection ever found in Britain.
Far to the south, about 120 km (75 miles) north of London in Wittlesey is the Must Farm archaeological site, where that possible arson occurred. An archaeologist discovered the site in 1999 when he saw wooden stakes or palisades sticking out of the mud and silt, which preserved them and many other artifacts as well. Scorching and charring of the wood from when the settlement burned also helped to preserve some of the material.
While the entire site is fantastic, with its nine log boats found nearby, five roundhouses and many important artifacts, two of the most important finds were textiles and vitrified foods. Also, beads, likely from the Balkans and the Middle East, showed there was long-distance trade in Britain, where the Bronze Age began about 4,000 to 4,500 years ago.

The purpose of this tiny, finely made pot from Must Farm is unknown. Photo by Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

The Must Farm website states: “We’ve found everything from textiles and boxes to wheels and axes. The Must Farm settlement has one of the most complete bronze age assemblages ever discovered in Britain and it is giving us an unprecedented insight into the lives of the people there 3,000 years ago. Two artefact types we haven’t discussed are metalwork and textiles, both of which offer another important layer of detail to the homes we are excavating.”
The British Archaeological Council’s Festival of Archaeology continues through Sunday. For more events, see the Facebook page or council website linked to above.
Featured image: The Ring of Brodgar. Photo source: geography.org.uk
By Mark Miller

Following the success of the Richard III excavation, is it time to dig up other famous skeletons?

History Extra

Emma McFarnon

 

Rarely, in recent weeks, has archaeology been out of the history headlines: the coffin-within-a-coffin in Leicester that was found to contain a woman; the medieval bodies discovered underneath a Paris supermarket; and, of course, the countdown to Richard III’s reinterment at the end of March

The remains of Richard III © the University of Leicester

These discoveries offer unique insights into the lives of individuals and populations past, helping us to understand where, when and how people once lived. British Museum curator, Alexandra Fletcher, last year wrote that human remains “advance knowledge of the history of disease, epidemiology and human biology…. [and offer] valuable insight into different cultural approaches to death, burial and beliefs.”
As in the case of Richard III, exhumations can also help to answer burning questions such as how the last Plantagenet king died (by two blows to the head and one to his pelvis), and from what conditions he suffered (scoliosis, malnutrition and a roundworm infection). We even know his probable hair colour (blonde, with blue eyes), and that he enjoyed a diet of swan, crane and heron!
What’s more, we are, as historian Dan Jones argued late last year, “better equipped to study historical remains than ever before”. Is it time, then, in pursuit of knowledge, to dig up other famous skeletons? Look inside, say, the urn in Westminster Abbey containing the supposed remains of the princes in the Tower; place a camera inside Elizabeth I's tomb?
There are, of course, a number of ethical issues to consider. As Mike Parker Pearson, Tim Schadla-Hall and Gabe Moshenska state in their 2011 paper ‘Resolving the Human Remains Crisis in British Archaeology’: “Given the powerful emotional, social and religious meanings attached to the dead body, it is perhaps unsurprising that human remains pose a distinctive set of ethical questions for archaeologists.” Likewise, Dan Jones points out that despite living in a “relatively secular age… we are so squeamish and prissy about meddling with the dead”.
Of particular importance is the treatment of human remains: as archaeologist Grahame Johnston writes, whereas in centuries past “the remains of native people and their artefacts were torn from their locations and displayed in foreign museums or sold to high-bidding collectors with little thought for the living descendents… [today] a more respectful approach of dealing with human remains has entered into the academic stream. It is now not uncommon to have a Rabbi, at least on-call, if not on-site, on major archaeological excavations in Israel.”
The issue is often complicated further by the fact people of varying traditions and faiths may prefer to treat remains differently. As The Economist explained in 2002: “However scientifically respectable their methods, archaeologists have been forced to acknowledge that they do not operate in a vacuum, and must take the values of others into account.” The British Museum echoed this sentiment when, last year, curator Alexandra Fletcher wrote: “There is no justification for the voyeuristic display of human remains simply as objects of morbid curiosity. As in storage, displays of human remains must acknowledge that the remains were once a living person and respect this fact.”

_{Queen Elizabeth I's tomb and monument by Maximilian Colt, 1603, in Westminster Abbey. © Angelo Hornak / Alamy}
A second consideration, illustrated by the battle between the University of Leicester and the Plantagenet Alliance over where Richard III’s remains should be reburied, is ownership: to whom do newly discovered human remains – and artefacts – ‘belong’? The Economist writes: “Around the world, the general question of who has the first claim on buried items – local people, the descendants of the original owners or archaeologists – is deeply controversial.”
We ought also to consider whether there is sufficient justification for disturbing the resting places of famous skeletons. According to the ethical guidelines drawn up by the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology: “No burial should be disturbed without good reason. Archaeological excavation of burial grounds is normally carried out as a response to a threat to the cemetery due to modern development. Disturbance of unthreatened sites should only be contemplated if it is essential to an adequately funded, peer-reviewed research project orientated toward specific and well-justified research aims.”
And while we might be, in the words of Dan Jones, “better equipped than ever to glean new information from… long-dead bones”, surely future generations will be better prepared still? As the Council for British Archaeology states: “In many cases, it is better to wait, to leave objects and other evidence in the ground where it has been lying safely for hundreds or thousands of years. As long as it remains safe then it is better to leave the evidence for future generations to investigate with better techniques and with better-informed questions to ask.”
It is, says The Economist, “a central paradox of archaeology… discovery involves destruction; investigation requires intrusion. Where should archaeologists draw the line when deciding how much of an important site to excavate, if they are not to hinder future investigations?”

Tourists to gain access to excavations for hominid bones in South Africa

David Smith
Viewing platform and webcams at Cradle of Humankind site will allow visitors to look into pit during digs for early human fossils

Paleoanthropologist Prof Lee Berger, who discovered the Australopithecus sediba, peers into the Cradle Of Humankind site in South Africa. Photograph: Barcroft Media

With brio and a brown fedora that have earned comparisons with Indiana Jones, Professor Lee Berger leaps into a pit where he is hunting the remains of our ancestors who lived here 2 million years ago.
Typically such digs have taken place in remote corners of Africa, their discoveries announced in scientific journals and eventually visible to the public only inside glass cases at museums. But this week Berger announced that tourists will soon be able to watch the search for fossils that could rewrite our understanding of evolution at the Cradle of Humankind, a UN world heritage site north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa.
"It will be, to my knowledge – and I'm pretty sure I've got a comprehensive one – the only place in the world where you can sit and watch early hominids being excavated," the US paleoanthropologist said. "I think that will be a very special thing. These fossils of early humans are extraordinarily rare. They are some of the rarest sought after objects on earth."
Berger, who in 2008 discovered the Australopithecus sediba species here with the help of Google Earth and his nine-year-old son Matthew, unveiled an elegant 3m rand (£171,509) structure that combines a mobile laboratory, a mechanism capable of lifting one tonne of rocks and a viewing platform allowing visitors to look directly into the pit.
Its proximity to South Africa's commercial capital makes it accessible to travellers in a way that would have been unthinkable when the Leakey family began uncovering fossils in rural Tanzania and Kenya.
Standing on the 14-metre-tall structure, conceived to blend amid the trees, Berger said: "Right on the edge of Johannesburg is a critical wilderness area with some of the most important fossil discoveries on the planet. We had to build a structure that does justice to that. Part of making it magnificent when you enter it is to do justice to the finds that it protects.
"The design had to recognise that it's undeniable tourism would occur here. These are rare locations so people wish to come to places where extraordinary things have been discovered and also to see the process."
The scientists working here are being trained as tour guides, he continued, and visitors will be taken on a game drive that shows the region's landscape, flora and fauna, as well as its paleoanthropological significance. The concept will be tested in the next six to eight weeks after an agreement with the family that owns the private reserve. "Fossils belong to the people of South Africa, found or unfound," Berger said.
There are also plans to set up webcams so that people around the world can follow the excavations via live streaming on the internet.
Berger and the site, known as Malapa, shot to fame when his son picked up a fossilised clavicle (collar bone) that, it transpired, belonged to the previously unknown Australopithecus sediba. A second skeleton was recovered soon after, and there is evidence of at least four more and even organic material.
"Rather than fragments, there were literally skeletons coming out of this site," the Wits University academic continued. "As we began to first just clear the old miner debris that was over this very tiny hole, we began to hit hominids every time we moved earth. It literally was littered with them. We moved from two skeletons to six without ever actually excavating. Those who follow this field will know extraordinary that is."
Given such density, there could be dozens of individuals under the ground, Berger believes, meaning that work will continue here indefinitely in search of answers. "This is 2 million years ago. We hypothesised when we first had the discovery of this site that this must be some form of death trap, a sinkhole they were falling in, because there's no carnivore or scavenging damage on these bones.
"That's exactly what these excavations will test: how does something so unusual and previously unique to our science occur? I can't answer that right now. Whether or not our first hypothesis will hold or not is hard to tell."
Malapa is just one of several sites at the Cradle of Humankind, best known for the hominid fossils the Taung Child and "Mrs Ples",examples of Australopithecus africanus from 2 to 3 million years ago. An expedition led by Berger in November uncovered an even richer hominid deposit than Malapa. "Those papers are presently under review so I really can't talk about them, but you won't have to wait long," he promised with a smile.


The Guardian