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Huge circular cropmarks, visible only from the air, mark the existence of some intriguing archaeological remains in a field near Peterborough, on the edge of the Fens. Archaeologists believe the two concentric circles are what they call a causewayed enclosure, dating from the Neolithic era.
Large ditches mark out the circles, which could be as much as 6,000 years old – more than 2,000 years older than the main structures at Stonehenge. In the bottom of the ditches, which have been undisturbed by later human activity, there could be all sorts of finds – human and animal bones, pottery, waste and ritual offerings. Some archaeologists believe that these circles are enclosures connected with early farming activity; others believe that they represent some kind of religious or ritual sites.
Time Team's expert on prehistoric Britain, Francis Pryor (fresh from his TV successes presenting Britain AD and Britain BC), joined the team for this programme. Together with the rest of the team and other experts, he hoped to cast fresh light on the purposes of these ancient structures.
Time Trail
The Neolithic era in Britain lasted from around 4500 to 2300 BC. It saw the introduction of a number of innovations that marked the transition from a nomadic, hunter-gather lifestyle to a settled, more complex social structure. These included monument building, the first engineering projects, the use of pottery and, most importantly, the increasing cultivation and domestication of plants and animals. Many of Britain's most famous ancient monuments, including the first phases of construction at Stonehenge and Avebury, date from this period. So too do the first elaborate burials, as well as still-unexplained structures such as the causewayed enclosure found at Northborough.
Finds on Neolithic sites are often sparse, so even small discoveries can have important implications for our understanding of the period. Many of the objects used in everyday life would have been made of wood or other organic materials, little of which has survived to the present day. This means that experimental archaeology, such as the woodworking using flint tools carried out by Time Team as part of the Northborough programme, is especially valuable in trying to reconstruct the techniques and materials that would have been used so long ago.
Details of other Time Team digs on prehistoric sites, together with information on everything from prehistoric cooking to cannibalism and human sacrifice, can be found on our Prehistoric Britain pages. When you've browsed the pages, why not try this week's Time Trial quiz to see how much you know?
Test your knowledge with our quick quiz. You'll find all the answers by digging around in this week's pages and following our Time Trail for the Northborough programme.
Time Trial
Which came first?
Mesolithic
Palaeolithic
Neolithic
In which era was the first phase of Stonehenge built?
Mesolithic
Palaeolithic
Neolithic
The wooden bowls that Time Team made for the reconstruction cameo at Northborough were based on examples found at the nearby causewayed enclosure site of Etton. What was unusual about the way they were made?
They were chiselled out
They were carved from a living tree
They were made by charring and scraping
What coppiced tree provided the wood for the bowls found at Etton and made by Time Team?
Willow
Elder
Alder
Phil Harding has a controversial theory about many flint tools. What is it?
That they are better than metal ones
That they had handles for ease of use
That they were purely decorative
What did phosphate analysis reveal about the site at Northborough?
The presence of cattle during the Neolithic
The absence of cattle during the Neolithic
The use of modern fertilisers
Answers here.
Cropmarks identified from an aerial photograph were the only indication that a Neolithic causewayed enclosure lay under a field at Northborough, near Peterborough. Time Team, in close collaboration with Francis Pryor and Ben Robinson, the Peterborough City Council archaeologist, had the rare opportunity to evaluate this enigmatic monument, which is located just two kilometres east of the previously excavated causewayed enclosure site at Etton.
The geophysics survey covered six hectares of the site. This successfully identified the two sets of concentric segmented ditches, which were visible in the aerial photograph. It also highlighted a higher magnetic response in the interior of the monument than between the sets of ring ditches.
Excavation over the inner circuits on the west and east sides revealed that the Neolithic ground surface and the ditches were buried under alluvium. No evidence for banks was found but the patterning of segmented ditches and causeways was clearly visible. Areas of burning were discovered on the raised ditch infill on the west side. Mildenhall pottery found in the ditch and a broken flint arrowhead dated the inner circuits to about 3500 BC.
On the west side, Beaker pottery sealed a ditch and a poorly fired pot containing burnt grain was excavated from the bottom of the ditch. Phosphate analysis across the site highlighted the presence of cattle within the circuits; and environmental archaeology specialist Peter Rowley-Conwy concluded that butchered bones, from the ditches on the west side, indicated that bulls were being castrated here. (Large hindlimb bones found on the site could only have come from bullocks, as they would not have developed to such a size in bulls or cows.)
Trenches across the outer circuits on the west side revealed shorter, shallower segments of ditch. An auroch bone was discovered at the bottom of one ditch. While it was interpreted that the Team had excavated entrances through the inner and outer circuits on the west site, finds were very scarce. Although the water table was high, organic remains were not prevalent.
Ros Ereira, Cameo Producer
Ros Ereira, Time Team cameo producer, explains the experimental archaeology involved in the reconstruction cameo for the Northborough programme.
Initially, I was struggling to think of what the cameo for this Neolithic site could be, as we'll see Phil making flint tools at South Perrott later in this series. However, we thought it might be a nice idea to see these tools in action, and see how they work.
Maisie Taylor told me about the wooden bowls that had been found at Etton, another causewayed enclosure that is very near our site, and I was fascinated. It seemed that there had been no research done into how these bowls were made. So we had a perfect opportunity to do some original experimental archaeology into the techniques that might have been used to produce them; which parts of the tree were best suited to the purpose (which in turn might tell us something about the way that trees were maintained in the period); and how the flint tools stood up to such vigorous usage.
Phil made us some beautiful tools to use, including a chisel and a scraper, and added handles onto them. The idea that these tools may have been hafted is controversial, but we certainly found them easier to use than those that were not. In spite of this, I still managed to get myself completely covered in charcoal during the process!
The bowls we ended up with were really very lovely objects, and Maisie was able to take them away to put in the reconstructed roundhouses at Flag Fen.
The Etton bowls
When we were excavating the causewayed enclosure at Etton in the 1980s, some fragments of wooden bowls were found. Although none of the bowls was complete there was enough surviving from at least two vessels to see the sizes and shapes. Prehistoric bowls are very unusual but Neolithic wooden bowls are extraordinarily unusual. These particular ones dated to around 3800 BC.
A detailed examination of the fragments gave lots of clues as to how the vessels might have been made. First, they were all made of the wood of the alder tree. Alder trees, now quite rare, were once very common in the fens. Alder trees are happiest growing in very wet conditions and as the Fens have been drained the alder has gradually disappeared except for riverbanks and areas that have remained wet.
Under the microscope, the wood of alder is very similar to the wood of hazel, but the two trees are quite different to look at and grow in different environments. In the Neolithic Fens, as they grew wetter and wetter, the alder trees, like the willows, must have spread into the wet areas making extensive wet woods, known as alder carr.
The main wood found in the ditch of the causewayed enclosure at Etton was alder; and in one particular segment the bases of alders that had been growing in the Neolithic were found. These had not been allowed to grow into full-sized trees but had been cut to the ground repeatedly. This process, which is known as coppicing, was practised from the Neolithic until modern times. Many native trees, when cut down, don't simply regenerate but produce lots of stems instead of one trunk. Prehistoric people were quick to realise how useful this could be, returning again and again to coppice the same plants until a solid 'stool' built up at ground level. These stools slowly accumulated more and more wood until they were bulging and rounded.
These rounded lumps of coppice stool were chosen to make the Etton bowls. Already roughly the right shape, they were hollowed out to produce a round-bottomed vessel. They were shaped, not by carving but apparently by a combination of charring and scraping. This is not a technique used by modern bowl makers and as far as we know was unique to this site.
Phil's flint scrapers
When Time Team came to dig the site at Northborough we remembered the Etton bowls and realised that this might be a good opportunity to experiment with this strange method of production. Phil was wildly excited and went into production knapping a selection of beautiful flint scrapers of an appropriate size and type for the job. He hafted one scraper and a polished flint chisel. Phil has had a theory for a long time that many flint tools must have been hafted to be completely effective. So as well as me experimenting with the burn/scrape production technique, Phil was experimenting with his hafted tools.
The third member of the cameo team was James Beatty. James is a coppicer by profession. He spends a lot of time at the Flag Fen Bronze Age centre, near Peterborough, and the beautiful wattle hurdles and fences he makes there always astound visitors to the site. James always works with coppiced hazel, so the suggestion that we would go looking for coppiced alder intrigued him.
Imagine our delight when we found an overgrown alder that had been coppiced and had good bowl-shaped bulges. Even better, the alder, (which was in the nature reserve) was rotten and dangerous, being next to a footpath, and the reserve managers were delighted that James should remove it for them. The tree was felled and off we went with several reasonable potential bowls.
Use of fire
Work on the bowls started slowly, mainly because we weren't entirely sure where to start, and partly because I have an unfailing ability to put fires out. It seemed sensible to get James to sort out the fire instead of me. He started a small charcoal fire and heaped a pile of glowing charcoals onto the surface of one of our bowl-shaped bulges of wood. Eventually he discovered that by blowing and turning the fire into the wind he could get a reasonable amount of control over the burning. The effects of the burning were not very dramatic, and after quite some time we had only burnt a slight hollow in the surface. The effects of Phil's tools, however, were quite dramatic, and the charred layer was rapidly removed and a very smooth surface left. If this was what the finished surface was going to look like, it was rather nice. The deadline for having something to show for all our work hurtled towards us as we burnt and scraped, scraped and burnt.
Phil's tools were amazing and after all our scraping, sometimes when the charred wood was really hot, the edges of the flints looked virtually as good as new. There was a nervous few minutes when the resin in the hafts melted and started to flow but even that settled down once the surplus had run out from the bindings. James knocked up a mallet for Phil; and then Phil, with undisguised glee, started using his polished flint chisel. It was most effective, and it seemed extraordinary that a flint tool could be hammered so hard and made to bite so strongly into the wood without shattering. The scrapers, and particularly the hafted scraper, were real workhorses and were simple and effective to use.
Lessons learnt
At the end of the experiment we certainly had vaguely bowl-shaped objects to show for all our work, but more importantly, we all felt that we had begun to master the technique and were keen to do more. We all learnt a great deal: the best choice of wood for the job; the way to control and exploit the charring; the behaviour and effectiveness of the flint tools; the effectiveness of the hafting; and the way it changed the tools that were hafted. We all agreed that we had to do more: more experiments with the time it takes to produce a bowl; different species of charcoal; edge-wear analysis on the flint tools; the behaviour of wood of different species; and so on and so on.
The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic causewayed enclosures in the British Isles by Alastair Oswald, Carolyn Dyer and Martyn Barber (English Heritage, 2001) hardback £30
Causewayed enclosures are among the oldest of our ancient monuments. This book presents a synthesis of the current knowledge from recent archaeological findings and aerial surveys across the British Isles.
Neolithic Britain and Ireland by Caroline Malone (Tempus, 2001) paperback £10.75
Well-illustrated guide covering how Neolithic people lived off the land; domestic settlements; causewayed enclosures; burials and tombs; monumental landscapes (including henges and circles); artefacts, technology and craftsmen; and the 'neolithic achievement' in developing the new skills and customs that led to 'new levels of social complexity'.
Prehistoric Settlements by Robert Bewley (Tempus, 2003) paperback £17.99
This book traces the variety and development of prehistoric settlements in Britain through 8,000 years, from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to the tribes of the Iron Age in the years before the Roman invasion. Examining key sites such as Star Carr, Bodmin Moor, the Dartmoor reaves, and hillforts and farmsteads, Bewley concentrates on two central themes: the close relationship between the individual settlement site and the wider landscape; and the ways in which archaeologists discover, interpret, and reinterpret prehistoric settlements.
The Significance of Monuments by Richard Bradley (Routledge, 1998)
The author traces the history of Neolithic and Bronze-Age burial mounds, henges, stone circles and barrows since their first appearance 6,000 years or more ago. He provides insights into what they might have meant to, and their role in the lives of, prehistoric people in Europe.
Understanding the Neolithic by Julian Thomas (Routledge, 1999) paperback £22.99
Julian Thomas presents a sometimes controversial investigation of the period 4000-2200 BC. Whilst examining the archaeological evidence of the period, the book challenges the assumptions and prejudices that have shaped archaeologists' accounts of the distant past and presents fresh interpretations informed by social theory, anthropology and other disciplines.
Farmers in Prehistoric Britain by Francis Pryor (Tempus, 1998) hardback £18.99
Wearing both his hats as archaeologist and farmer, Pryor has produced an empathic work on the life and methods of prehistoric farmers. Often what survives is just a few cropmarks, but this work brings what is now obscure into vivid reality.
Which came first?
Palaeolithic
In which era was the first phase of Stonehenge built?
Neolithic
The wooden bowls that Time Team made for the reconstruction cameo at Northborough were based on examples found at the nearby causewayed enclosure site of Etton. What was unusual about the way they were made?
They were made by charring and scraping
What coppiced tree provided the wood for the bowls found at Etton and made by Time Team?
Alder
Phil Harding has a controversial theory about many flint tools. What is it?
That they had handles for ease of use
What did phosphate analysis reveal about the site at Northborough?
The presence of cattle during the Neolithic