Liz's choices

This page is intended to help you with the course essay. I will also be talking about these three examples in a lecture towards the end of the Spring term.

For the essay you are told "Use your choice of an object or a site to illustrate significant changes in how this would have been regarded and investigated at different points in the development of the discipline of archaeology. You must choose at least two distinct viewpoints from which to describe and discuss your choice."

My choices all come from Sussex and are (1) a handaxe from Boxgrove; (2 ) Mount Caburn; (3 ) Bignor Roman Villa. The first of these is an object and the second two are sites.

I have chosen three Sussex examples not to claim any pre-eminence for the county, but to show that you can trace the development of archaeology without having to travel to the exotic locations beloved of TV producers!

I have deliberately chosen three quite diverse items to try to show you different possible approaches to the task of writing the essay. You should be able to spot similarities in the general ways in which I suggest these choices could be used in the context of the essay. Obviously, my choices also betray my prejudices. I find some aspects of the history and development of archaeology more interesting than others, and to a certain extent I am using this exercise to explore aspects I find interesting - I would expect you to be doing the same!

This is why you are also asked to include a piece of free-writing about your initial choice in your portfolio - a portion of my own free writing about the first of my choices is given below:

Initial text: "Handaxe from slindon aka Boxgrove. Why? because there is the most tremendous thrill in simply handling something half a million years old yes half a million and trying to relate to the person who made it and think of what has happened since. The patina shows that the ax was exposed, but not broken by the plough or cracked by fire .."

A slightly more polished version of this might read: "My choice is a "Handaxe" from Slindon - i.e. from the same geological formation as the Boxgrove site. Why? Because there is a tremendous thrill in simply handling something that old - half a million years - and whilst holding it trying to relate to the maker and thinking of all that has happened since. The patina shows that the handaxe lay on the surface of the ground for many years, but, thankfully, it has not suffered plough damage nor been fire-cracked .."

Each of the sections below begins with a short description as background information. I then outline a number of possible avenues to work on for the essay. An important general point is that it is often impossible to continue to focus exclusively on my own chosen object/site/monument and I have to draw on what is generally considered to be important about the class of object etc from which I have chosen an example. Since this is a webpage, there are links as well as references (given as numbers in square brackets) throughout.

Handaxe from Boxgrove:

1. What is known about the object - facts of what it is and where it was found.

A "handaxe" is a stone tool which has been worked on both sides (just one is shown here). Some archaeologists prefer the name "biface" which refers to the way in which the stone has been worked, but does not imply function in the way "handaxe" does. The rounghly oval shape of the worked surface is quite typical, although there is considerable variation in both the shape and size of these artefacts. Roger Grace gives a useful summary of the different ways in which handaxes have been classified in this part of a more extensive site. As a tool type, handaxes can be recognised in the archaeological record for more than a million years! The earliest examples we have come from Africa and are dated to about 1.5 MYA. The Lower Palaeolithic ends about 300,000 years ago in Europe, but some of the later Middle Palaeolithic industries also contain small handaxes. A lot of modern archaeologists also make handaxes to use in experiments - this allows us to state that a skilled knapper can make a handaxe like the one shown in about 20 minutes.

The handaxe from Boxgrove pictured here was found on the modern land surface from the same geological formation (the Slindon raised beach) as the lower palaeolithic site of Boxgrove[1]. This site was excavated over a long period of time by a team of archaeologists based at the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London. This web-site describes the main results of their work. The text of two articles published in British Archaeology about the site can be found at the following links - "Man the Hunter" returns at Boxgrove ; And then came clothing and speech ; - NB you have to scroll down the page to find the article.

Why did I choose this object? There is an undeniable thrill in holding something that, in all likelihood, was made some half-a-million years ago! This direct contact with the past, through objects, is a powerful motivation for many people who study archaeology.

2. How would this have been viewed in the past? From thunderbolt to the Swiss army knife of the palaeolithic.

Handaxes, as a group, are recognisably "unnatural". They appear to have been regarded as "thunderbolts" in medieval Europe, but by the eighteenth century were clearly recognised as artefacts and generally ascribed to the peoples of Europe before the Romans. Once recognised as artefacts of much greater antiquity (see below) they were treated in much the same way as any other class of artefact, i.e. classified according to various schemes (see below). This was an endeavour to find order in their geographical and chronological distribution. More recently, they have been come to be regarded as all-purpose tools - the "swiss-army knife of the palaeolithic", and the issue of a relationship between their shape and their function has almost been dropped. There is a clear contrast here between the approcah of the typologist and the approach of the experimentalist.

3. Significance of this type of artefact in establishing the antiquity of man in mid nineteenth century

Handaxes, as a group, are recognisably artefacts (i.e. objects which have been made). Not all stone tools, let alone the waste products of knapping, are as instantly recognisable. Handaxes played an important part in the establishment of the antiquity of humans in the nineteenth century. John Frere's 1797 discovery of a handaxe at Hoxne is the first documented account (published in Archaeologia XII, 1800 - In the lecture on "The Early Days of Archaeology" I show you a photocopy of the drawing from this) which clearly associates this evidence of a tool-maker as a contemporary of extinct animals. A quote gives the flavour: "They are, I think, evidently weapons of war, fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of metals. They lay in great numbers at the depth of about twelve feet ... the situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed; even beyond that of the present world."

The set of discoveries which established such "antediluvian" humans were those made by Boucher de Perthes in the gravels of the Somme near Abbeville [2]. I spent a happy afternoon in the Musée Boucher-de-Perthes looking at the wealth of material discovered by him and later workers.

4. Not much interest by early twentieth-century prehistorians - palaeolithic viewed as rather uninteresting precursor to "real" prehistory by those who like the culture history approach to the past

Trying to find much about the palaeolithic in general in the writing of eminent prehistorians (e.g. V. Gordon Childe) of the first part of the twentieth century is a depressing business! There is more information in the books written on human evolution but no full analysis since those authors were more interested in the human fossils that in the associated archaeology.

5. Once interest revived (not entirely clear why - possibly because of finds in Africa) typology ruling supreme - Roe's classification [3] - attempts to make this into a chronology - this ultimately fails.

It would be important to try to capture what this approach was about. It would not be necessary to be sure where in the typological scheme(s) the handaxe pictured above actually falls.

6. Nowadays, much more functional approach - how are handaxes made and used - knapping and butchery experiments at Boxgrove [1]

7. Other possibilities - do handaxes tell us anything about cognition (symmetry) and the social conditions of learning? - can "overproduced" handaxes be interpreted as sexual advertising? - where does the "aesthetic" element fit in all of this?

In treating these questions it would be possible to bring in a number of different approaches current in archaeology as well as, perhaps, linking more broadly to general questions about human evolution [e.g. 4]

Symmetry is clearly integral to the "design" of the archetypal handaxe (but quite a large number do not show these properties). Typological thinking may overemphasise this aspect of handaxes. Looking at how handaxes were made has given some insight on this. For a description of this approach, but not in the context of handaxes see "The 'chaîne opératoire' approach to lithic analysis" by Roger Grace (1997) in Internet Archaeology 2 (campus access only).

But analysing manufacture is only a small part of the work that can be done in analysing stone tools, especially if the preservation is good enough to look at microwear. In the case of "my" handaxe, this would not be possible, the patina covering the artefact, developed as it was exposed in the topsoil, would have obscured all such traces. This would not, however, be a bar to talking about what can be learnt from this approach!

Can you learn to make a handaxe without talking about it? This is a step further along the lines of reasoning which start with functional analysis, but then brings in the social context. To judge from the archaeology at Boxgrove, handaxes were not "curated" - i.e. carried long distances. The numbers which were made and discarded at the various butchery sites indicates a very expedient technology (i.e. one carried out there and then). However, Boxgrove may be unusual in its setting with plenty of decent quality flint to hand in the chalk cliffs.

Handaxes have also been considered in a completely different light by Marek Kohn and Steven Mithen [5], when they propose that the elaborately finished handaxes, which often show little sign of use, may have been a signal produced during courting - in their scenario by the males.

I mentioned the "aesthetic" element because I was very struck by the choice of a handaxe ( a very large and well-made one) as the first exhibit in the Royal Academy's exhibition on "Africa, the Art of a Continent". There are a few handaxes where the flint used includes a fossil - this is usually not a good choice for knapping! - and the flint has been worked so as to place this centrally - is this aesthetics or is it an example of skill which could be considered in the context Kohn and Mithen suggest?

[1] Pitts, M. & Roberts, M. (1997) Fairweather Eden. Century. [QP 1050 Pit]; Roberts, M.B. & Parfitt, S.A. (1999) Boxgrove: A Middle Pleistocene hominid site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex. English Heritage [QP 1050 Rob]
[2] Sackett, J. (2000) Human Antiquity and the Old Stone Age: The Nineteenth Century Background to Paleoanthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology 9 37-49
[3] Roe, D. A. (1981) The lower and Middle Palaeolithic Periods in Britain. Routledge [GN 772.22.G7 Roe]
[4] Klein, R.G. (2000) Archeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior. Evol Anth 9 17-36
[5] Kohn, M. & Mithen, S.(1999) Handaxes: products of sexual selection? Antiquity 73: 518-26.

Mount Caburn:

1. What is known about the site:

To the east of Lewes is an isolated block of chalk downland - the Malling-Caburn block. Mount Caburn is the highest point on this, at the southern end. On the top of the conical hill are the ramparts of an Iron-Age fort - the Caburn. David Staveley has included this information about Mount Caburn on his Sussex Archaeology & Folklore site.

I chose Mount Caburn because it has many of the attributes of a downland site, including modern conservation value. Archaeological work at the Caburn has been carried out by many people, including Pitt-Rivers and the Curwens, as well as recent work by the Sussex Archaeological Society.

2. Recorded by Pitt-Rivers (1868)

This was part of a general survey he made. The tone of the published reports [1] is topographical and, unsurprisingly, very military. He uses the discovery of struck flake in their interior to deduce a "British" origin - this is in line with the general approach of the time which collapsed the pre-Roman timescale. But Pitt-Rivers is also very clear on the criteria he used to argue that the structures were not Roman, criteria which included the way in which the defences were inversely proportional to the natural strength of the position and that these defences surrounded the hilltop.

There is an interesting little set of connections between Pitt-Rivers and Sussex. His major Sussex excavation was at Cissbury, but the description of the stratigraphy is rather poor. However, this work was undertaken before he refined his technique by his extensive series of excavations on his own estate in Dorset. Herbert Toms, who was Curator of the Brighton & Hove Museum at the beginning of the 20th century, and a noted Sussex archaeologist got his early training working for Pitt-Rivers in Dorset.

3. Check out any early references in Sussex Archaeological Collections/Victoria County History

For any Sussex site the journal of the county society - the Sussex Archaeological Society - has to be checked. Luckily there are a series of cumulative indices to help with this. The University Library has a complete run of the Sussex Archaeological Collections, and also the comparable journals for Kent and Surrey. Barbican House in Lewes contains the library of the Sussex Archaeological Society and this may be of use to you since it has a good coverage of the county journals for England. There may be a small fee, but it is likely to be less than any bill you would run up using inter-library loan.

The University Library has a complete set of the Victoria County Histories.

"Few commemorative projects have proved as long-lasting or monumental as the Victoria History of the Counties of England. The VCH, as it is popularly known, was first conceived as part of the
celebrations of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897. Still dedicated to the memory of the queen, it has now published over 220 volumes of meticulously researched histories of hundreds of different cities, towns and villages throughout England, and is one of the most respected and widely used English historical works of reference. Now, thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, it is about to go on-line."[2]

In the context of this essay, you can use the relevant VCH volume to give you a time-capsule of what was known about your site/monument.

4. Work by "the Curwens" and others - excavation plans and reports.

Sussex had some very good archaeologists working in it in the 1930's to 1950's. Pre-eminent amongst these were the father-and-son team of "the Curwens". They excavated at the Caburn and published their results in the Susex Archaeological Collections. The site was still interpreted as per Pitt-Rivers as a fortification, although the contents of the pits is not entirely consistent with this.

5. Not Caburn specifically, but should mention general approach to Iron-Age.

Again, it is important to place your choice of site/monument within the general framework used by the people whose views you are discussing. For the Caburn the issue is how the Iron Age was viewed. Changes in metal-work and pottery led to the view that there were a series of "invasions", with the general social context being taken from classical accounts of the "Celts". Thus the hill forts were seen as part of this culture of warring chieftains.

6. General revision of "Iron-Age hill-forts" - are they Iron Age, are they actually fortifications. Recent approaches - re-excavation, re-survey, inter-visibility studies.

Still keeping to a general theme, the framework of invasions collapsed. There is an excellent review of the Sussex Iron Age in a recent volume of the Sussex Archaeological Collections [3]

7. Re-interpretation of pit-contents (ritual and rubbish?)

Recent work at the Caburn by Sue Hamilton and colleagues has shown that the Caburn has a much longer and more complex history than the term "hill fort" would imply. This work is published in Sussex Archaeological Collections and has been summarised in a recent article for Current Archaeology [4]. A combination of environmental work, re-excavation, re-analysis of finds from previous excavations and topographical survey shows that the Caburn may have remained covered with dark yew woodland from c.3450 BC to c.2000 BC - an striking landmark in the Downs which was also marked out by a line of Bronze Age round barrows which end at the Caburn. The pits inside the ramparts at the caburn are very small for storage pits and appear to have a high proportion of "special finds". Finally, the shape of the Caburn itself makes it a very poor prospect for defence, since communication between any defenders would have been difficult.

8. Views of Caburn

As a prominent landmark, Caburn has been included in many artist's images. Looking at these may restore "feeling" to our appreciation of the site. There is an interesting article on the Caburn from an artist's point of view by Carolyn Trant [5].

[1] Lane Fox, A. (1869) An Examination into the character and probable origin of the Hill Forts of Sussex. Archaeologia 42 27-52; Further remarks on the Hill Forts of Sussex: being an Account of Excavations in the Forts at Cissbury and Highdown. Ibid 53-76. NB Lane Fox was Pitt Rivers "birth name" - it was a condition of the will under which he inherited the Dorset estate that he change his name to Pitt Rivers.
[2] Article by Professor Andrew Prescott published in the T.H.E.S. on December 4th 2000.
[3] Hamilton, S. & Gregory, K. (2000) Updating the Sussex Iron Age. SAC 138 57-74
[4] Drewett, P. & Hamilton, S. (2001) Caburn: Sacred mount or classic hillfort? Current Archaeology 174 256-262
[5] in Molyneaux, B.L. ed (1997) The Cultural Life of Images. Routledge [CC79.I44 Cul].

Bignor Roman Villa:

1. What is known about the site

Linda Lees's Heritage Trail has this page about Bignor Roman Villa. It shows some of the mosaics.

This shows the North Corridor, with a simple geometric mosaic running along it. As you can see, the mosaics are housed in low buildings, many of which were built to protect the mosaics as they were first discovered. This presentation of the archaeology is on a small, almost cosy, scale, which bears little resemblance to the final appearance of the villa in the fourth century AD, when the full extent of the courtyard and corridors were occupied, possibly by several families. The extent of the villa at this time must indicate the success of the surrounding estate - and it is notable that the villa is situated on the rich farming land just to the north of the Downs. The Downs may also have protected Bignor from the raids which marked the end of the Roman period in Southern Britain.

2. History of discovery of the site

One reason why I picked this site - it was first discovered in 1811, and therefore you can look at the way in which it has been excavated, described and displayed to the public as a microcosm of the changes in archaeology over two centuries.

This rather blurred map shows the villa complex set against the field layout at the time of its discovery. I have included this because, despite the poor quality of my photography, you can see that the layout of the nineteenth-century field boundaries show no relationship to the villa itself. As a point of interest, the holdings in the town field can clearly be seen to be strips, a remnant of the medieval organisation of land tenure. However, the name of the large field to the west of the common fields is "Old Berry" or "Old Bury", and "bury" as a field-name element is often found associated with villa sites.

3. Earlier excavations and interpretations

The basic story of Bignor is in terms of its development, as is true for many Roman villas, from a small "cottage villa" to an extensive aisled building with an enclosed courtyard. There is a lot of background information on this - to be found in almost any book on Roman Britain! David Rudling has written a review of the Sussex material [1].

4. More recent interpretations

Somewhat less easy to come across are the ideas put forward by Ernest Black, as a general framework of interpretation for Roman Villas in South-East England, which look at the structures in terms of seeking out individual "dwelling units" - i.e. these large buildings should not be seen as the exclusive propoerty of one very wealthy and powerful family but as "multiple occupancy" by several families, probably inter-related, but of differing levels of wealth and status.

5. Current programme of excavations

These are looking at the farmyard buildings and trying to see what has been left by centuries of ploughing to help us work out the sequence of building and rebuilding of the more utilitarian structures at Bignor

6. Where's the theory?

Apart from being able to trace changes in the techniques of excavation, there seems to be much less in the way of changes in the views taken by archaeologists of the site at Bignor. I have a feeling that this is general for Roman sites and the Roman period - despite TRAC (Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference) e.g. in 2000 & 2001. However, other viewpoints peep in when you look at how people start to consider the economy of villas, and their position in the way the Roman countryside worked. Bignor is rather late, and therefore may not be a good site to use to try to investigate the transition from the Iron Age to Roman Britain, an obvious spin on this approach. It's very lateness is puzzling and may only be soluble by establishing the pattern of landuse prior to the villa.

[1] Rudling, D. (1998) The development of Roman villas in Sussex. Sussex Archaeological Collections 136 41-65

This page is part of the course website for History & Development of Archaeology at the University of Sussex. If it has become detached from its frame please use the link given here by the course title to return to the homepage of the course website.