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Horse power in Westminster
It was good to see archived material being put to use in your article on Exeter University’s study of late medieval and Tudor horses in CA 411 [Thanks again for your help with sourcing the photos! Carly]. In fairness to other MoLAS staff involved in the excavations, I should say that the plan of the burial pits in the article was of a trench dug by Pat Miller and her team in 1994, while the photographs were of the larger excavation I undertook on a neighbouring property in 1996, which brought the total number of burial pits to 197 (CA 162). The man in the dark boiler suit is Alan Pipe, an animal bone specialist and co-author of the excavation report in The Archaeological Journal. The 1996 team photograph was taken by Maggie Cox, shown in the article taking a photograph from a ladder.
During the four-week dig in 1996, I was struck by the large number of clustered pits that were contiguous but not overlapping – suggesting that use of the burial ground had been long and economical with space. Bayesian modelling has narrowed the radiocarbon dating of the burial ground, by taking account of documented sand and gravel quarrying from the locality from 1605 (the burial of horses must have ended before this). The samples in the latest study were apparently taken from remains found at the 1994 site, probably near the eastern edge of the burial ground. Sampling this peripheral location raises the question: how representative is the sample of the burial population? Would it be worthwhile applying the same analytical techniques and radiocarbon dating to samples from parts of the 1996 excavation site, to either reinforce current findings or see if other patterns emerge?
Robert Cowie, Twickenham, Middlesex
Red-deer antler and Burnswark Hill comments
I would like to comment on CA 412, which was as usual very interesting – thank you.
First, in ‘Context’, a scale would have been helpful to give some idea of the actual size of the Viking combs. Red-deer antler would be ideal for the two pieces riveted together to form the back of the comb, holding them and the actual comb teeth sections together. Having some limited experience of working with red-deer antler, I have not come across any examples from which it would be possible to get pieces wide enough to create the large, flat plates required to form the teeth. It is also incredibly hard to work and carve, unless there is some secret to softening it of which I am unaware.
With regard to the sling bullets mentioned in the feature on the Roman assault on Burnswark Hill digital model, I have read that many were found to have holes bored in them, and trials showed that they would literally whistle through the air. Apparently ballistic trials also showed that they had the stopping force of a Magnum handgun bullet.
I am sure that somewhere I have read one archaeological investigation on Burnswark Hill that queried the massacre theory, suggesting it had been a major training exercise for an element of the Roman Army. I think this was based on a paucity of evidence for a massacre of a native population on the hilltop itself.
Andrew Smith, Bristol
Editor’s note:
Hi Andrew, thanks for your interest in the combs. You’ll hopefully be delighted to see that this issue has a feature exploing them in greater detail – and with scales!
Prehistoric anti-theft technology?
During my Ribble Valley research, I came across an account of two Bronze Age logboats discovered in the River Ribble near Preston docks in 1887. Although the Bronze Age lies outside my primary interest, the connection to the Ribble Valley prompted me to explore further.
The account mentions that the logboat (Preston 1) had a sternboard (a vertical board at the rear end of a boat, that stops water entering the boat). It isn’t understood why some logboats have a sternboard and some don’t, as making a logboat with a sternboard and groove for it to sit in would be more difficult than simply hollowing out the stern, the same as the front.
‘The motive for making these canoes with an open stern and then closing it with a moveable sternboard, at some little distance from the extreme end, is not at all clear, nor the advantage to be gained thereby very intelligible’ (Manchester Geological Society, vol.20, 1890). The mystery of sternboards in logboats continued into the modern era: ‘[sternboards] may be individual styles of boatbuilding. There is insufficient evidence to resolve this point at present’ (Seán McGrail, Ancient Boats in North-West Europe, 1998).
Several explanations have been proposed: ‘it increases the boat’s load capacity’, ‘it enhances its rigidity’, ‘it improves stability’, ‘sternboards are repairs’, and maybe the most unlikely: ‘the stern is closed by a separate sternboard, making construction easier since slices of wood could be adzed out vigorously towards the stern’.
Eight logboats with sternboards, dated between 1925 BC and 295 BC, have been found with their sternboard grooves still containing caulking (usually moss). None of the reports mention birch tar or any kind of sealing agent, which you might expect if the sternboard was intended to be a permanent fixture.
I suggest that the sternboard functioned much like a car key, making the logboat unusable without it. I can imagine the boat being hauled on to a riverbank stern first, and the sternboard removed and taken away: much like a bicycle with a quick-release saddle, removal of this key feature would render the boat difficult to use. Before the next outing, the groove would be re-caulked with moss, and the sternboard re-inserted and secured, preparing it for the water again. Making a precise profile duplicate sternboard and maybe a new groove would be very time-intensive, unless you had the original. This seems like a fairly simple way to protect hundreds of hours invested in carving a logboat.
Logboats featuring a sternboard set in a groove were used for more than 5,000 years, from Stralsund, Germany, in 3574 BC to the Scottish Crannogs in about AD 1650, but it’s not only the length of time this design endured that is surprising. Incredibly, it seems that this design was also being used in Bronze Age Vietnam. Peter Bellwood, in his article ‘Ancient Boats, Boat Timbers, and Locked Mortise-and-Tenon Joints from Bronze/Iron Age Northern Vietnam’, discusses and includes photographs of a Bronze Age Vietnamese logboat, the Viet Khe logboat from 810-390 BC, that has a sternboard remarkably similar to those found in Europe around the same time.
If this idea is correct, it raises all sorts of questions about Bronze Age society. While a lot of logboats have sternboards, not all do. Did only logboats for a specific purpose have sternboards? Or does it mean that some areas of Britain and the rest of the world were ‘rougher’ than others?
Paul Townson, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This letter has been edited for length, but a longer version, setting out more suggestions, can be found at https://archaeology.co.uk/?p=37510.
Edible Archaeology
Peterborough Archaeology, FRAG (Fane Road Archaeology Group), celebrated its tenth anniversary with a delicious cake depicting the Itter Crescent Roman Villa (see CA 269), made by Rachel Twinley. The group arose from a community excavation of the villa, and the cake was cut by Wendy Gamble who participated in the original project, and who helped fire a replica Roman kiln. The group has been able to follow numerous local excavations, including Must Farm (see CA 312, CA 319, and CA 412), and the Rutland Roman villa (CA 383) which was the subject of the anniversary talk.
Rex Gibson, Fane Road Archaeology Group https://peterborougharchaeology.org/frag-fane-road-archaeology-group
CA ONLINE: What you shared with us this month
Humble History @humblehist
Reading in @CurrentArchaeo about how the brain is the most commonly surviving soft tissue in archaeological remains going back 12,000 years, and all I can think about is: what a gift to the writers of science fiction!
Dr Tom Horne @HorneSupremacy
To get @ArchaeologyRed’s brilliant teamwork for Barratt and David Wilson Homes on the Brookside Meadows #Roman villa at on the cover of @CurrentArchaeo is testament to my Red River Archaeology colleagues, both on site and in the office, and to the kindness of CA Editor Carly Hilts.
Oxbow Books @OxbowBooks
It’s another happy #hillfortswednesday for us thanks to this review of Excavations at Tlachtga, Hill of Ward, Co. Meath, Ireland in the latest issue of @CurrentArchaeo!
Write to us at: CA Letters, Current Publishing, Office 120, 295 Chiswick High Road, London, W4 4HH, or by email to: letters@archaeology.co.uk. For publication: 300 words max; letters may be edited.
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