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Wiltonia sive Comitatus Wiltoniensis; Anglice Wilshire (1649) by Atlas van Loon
Reviewing in the 27 April-3 May edition of The Radio Times, Gill Crawford writes -
Archaeology isn’t a new, rigidly scientific discipline. According to Dr Richard Miles (presenter of 2010’s Ancient Worlds), the first person to set out to dig up the past was the Emperor Constantine’s aged mother Helena, who searched the Near East in the early fourth century for physical evidence of the life and death of Christ.
Richard Miles charts the history of archaeological breakthroughs in a mission to understand the ancient past. In the first programme [the first of three], he explores how the profession began by trying to prove a biblical truth.
The series begins Tuesday, 30 April from 9:00-10:00pm on BBC4 television with Archaeology: A Secret History. Episode one: In the Beginning. More here.
Mary Leakey. Source Wikipedia. Image credit National Institutes of Health
Mary Leakey (6 February 1913 – 9 December 1996) would have been 100 last Wednesday. She spent a great deal of her life at Olduvai Gorge in eastern Africa with her husband Louis. Olduvai Gorge is seen as the cradle of humanity, though there would be some who would disagree with that. As far as evolution goes however you’ve got to start somewhere. It is still good though to recognise a woman who actually began as a so-called amateur and ended up being an expert in her subject (her son still continues the family tradition).
So, to all explorers and archaeologists who work ‘in the field’ a toast, and a belated happy birthday.
More on Mary Leakey here .
Historic sites in Wiltshire, England
The General, The Scientist & The Banker: The Birth of Archaeology and the Battle for the Past. An exhibition at the Quadriga Gallery, Wellington Arch, London from the 6 February to 21 April 2013.
English Heritage’s press release reads -
In 1859 two extraordinary events changed the way people considered human existence: a flint handaxe was found in a gravel quarry level with bones of extinct animals, and Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s big idea and the discovery of the axe broke the Biblical version of history.Opening with the book and the rarely seen axe, this exhibition tells the story of what happened next, as archaeological pioneers battled to save Britain’s great prehistoric sites from destruction.
“Rare objects, drawings and manuscripts will bring to life a tale of Victorian prejudice and vision as well as illustrate the achievements of three men: scientist Charles Darwin, archaeologist General Pitt-Rivers and finally, banker and politician John Lubbock. Together they revealed how the landscape is rich with ancient history, as they fought to bring recognition and legal protection for Britain’s ancient monuments.
John Aubrey (1626-1697)
John Aubrey may have been described by his friends as, “Shiftless, roving and magotie-headed…” but he was among the first to examine and record Stonehenge, Avebury and other megalithic structures with any degree of accuracy. Writing about Avebury and Stonehenge Aubrey says, “I have brought (them) from an inner darkness to a thin mist.” Extracts from the Wikipedia entry on Aubrey describes him as -
…an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, and who is particularly noted as the discoverer of the Avebury henge monument. The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge are named after him, although there is considerable doubt as to whether the holes that he observed are those that currently bear the name… He spent much of his time in the country, and in 1649 he first ‘discovered’ the megalithic remains at Avebury, which he later mapped and discussed in his important antiquarian work Monumenta Britannica. He was to show Avebury to Charles II at the King’s request in 1663.
John Aubrey’s map of Avebury
He was also a pioneer folklorist, collecting together a miscellany of material on customs, traditions and beliefs under the title “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme”. He set out to compile county histories of both Wiltshire and Surrey, although both projects remained unfinished. His “Interpretation of Villare Anglicanum” (also unfinished) was the first attempt to compile a full-length study of English place-names. He had wider interests in applied mathematics and astronomy, and was friendly with many of the greatest scientists of the day.
Star motif over the door of the porch at The Church of St Peter, Clyffe Pypard where Aubrey visited in or around 1660
Britain’s largest meteorite and tumulus artefact? Image credit The Open University
Culture24 reports on the 20 August that -
A 30,000-year-old meteorite, thought to be the largest rock ever to have landed in Britain and preserved by the freezing conditions of the last Ice Age, will go on show within striking distance of the house where it was found in a 12-day visit to the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.
The stone, which weighs 90kg, sat near the front door of Lake House, at Wilsford-cum-Lake, for at least 80 years. The Natural History Museum confirmed its meteorite status and kept it in storage after the house was sold. Researchers have been studying it ever since, concluding that cold and ice saved it from disintegration before it was built into a burial mound close to the house, where the local chalk environment helped preserve it further.Edward Duke, an antiquarian and excavator with his own private museum, may have been the man who found the meteorite during the 19th century, although photo evidence pictures it on the doorstep of Lake House when the property was owned by Joseph Lovibond, a brewer who had year-long stints as the Mayor of Salisbury in 1878 and 1890.
Professor Colin Pillinger, an expert on the Beagle 2 Mars spacecraft who has linked the meteorite to a smaller one found at Danebury Hill Fort in Hampshire, will also give a lecture on the discovery on September 11.
A map of the UK with Doggerland marked as red. Image credit and © University of St Andrews
The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London this year showcases an exhibition titled Drowned landscapes -
The only lands on Earth that have not been extensively explored are those that have been lost to the oceans. After the end of the last Ice Age extensive landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people were inundated by the sea. Although scientists predicted their existence for many years, exploration has only recently become a reality.
This exhibit explores those drowned landscapes around the UK and shows how they are being rediscovered through pioneering scientific research. It reveals their human story through the artefacts left by the people – a story of a dramatic past that featured lost lands, devastating tsunamis and massive climate change. These were the challenges that our ancestors met and that we face once more today.
How it works
Current climate change and associated sea level rise are at the forefront of social and scientific discussion, but research shows that dramatic changes in the environment have occurred numerous times in the past.
One of the most significant landscapes lost to sea level rise is the European world of Doggerland. Occupying much of the North Sea basin, this inundated landscape, bigger than many modern European countries, was slowly submerged between 18,000 BC and 5,500 BC. Archaeologists now consider Doggerland to have been the heartland of human occupation within Northern Europe at that time, but understanding it depends on being able to locate and visualise the landscape.
The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, Drowned landscapes, is running until Sunday, 8 July 2012. More here and here.
Unknown aspects of the British Museum. Series 3, Japan. 知られざる大英博物館 第3集は、日本
©
NHK
ピラミッドや始皇帝陵とならぶ世界最大級の墓、巨大古墳。 3世紀から350年に渡る古墳時代は、文字資料がほとんどないため、未だ謎に満ちています。 その謎を解く鍵も、日本から遠く離れた大英博物館にありました。 今から120年前に、一人のイギリス人が日本から持ち帰った膨大な古墳のコレクション。 日英の合同チームは、収蔵庫に眠り続けていたコレクションの本格的な調査を開始しました。 そこからは、日本独自の進化を遂げた巨大古墳の知られざる実像が、浮かび上がってきます。
On Sunday, 8 July, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) will be airing a special programme in its Shirarezaru Daiei-Hakubustukan (Unknown aspects of the British Museum) series. The Sunday programme will focus on the 19th century British archaeologist William Gowland (see our earlier feature on Gowland) and his pioneering archaeological work in Japan.
The Sainsbury Institute reports that the programme about Gowland -
…whose exceptional collection of materials relating to ancient Japanese mounded tombs can be seen at the British Museum. These mounded tombs, or kofun, date from the 3rd to 7th centuries and include the final resting places of the ancestors of the Japanese Imperial family, and many are inaccessible today. The Sainsbury Institute is currently working with the British Museum and a team of specialists from Japan to survey this collection of artefacts and archives, including early photographs of many tombs which have long since disappeared, and materials excavated by Gowland from the Shibayama tomb in Osaka, where Gowland worked as a foreign specialist at the Mint between 1872 and 1888. Gowland?s meticulous excavation techniques and record-keeping allowed the team to reconstruct the inside of the Shibayama tomb. The programme features the Gowland Collection and ongoing related research in Japan, including at the Maruyama tomb, which has the largest burial chamber of any of Japan’s ancient kofun. Sainsbury Institute Research Director Nicole Rousmaniere and Head of the Centre for Archaeology and Heritage, Simon Kaner appear in the programme, one of three showing highlights from the British Museum marking the year of the London Olympics.
The programme will be broadcast on the 8 July at 9pm Japanese time (1pm British summer time).
Phil Harding introduces the Wiltshire Heritage Museum
The Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Library and Gallery were set up and are administered by the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (WANHS), founded in Devizes in 1853, after the acquisition of the John Britton library of topographical and antiquarian books and manuscripts by a group of Wiltshire gentlemen. The inaugural meeting resolved to form a society ‘to cultivate and collect information on archaeology and Natural History in their various branches and to form a Library and Museum illustrating the History, natural, civic and ecclesiastic of the County of Wilts’. Most of the original members were clergymen and landed gentry.
The Museum and Library have been at their current location in Long Street since 1873, occupying first the old Victorian Devizes Grammar School, then the two Georgian houses on either side of the Entrance Hall. Further extensions have increased its size to the present day. It has overseen many of the famous excavations on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs made by the Cunnington family and is a repository of the artefacts and writings of earlier antiquaries such as Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead House.
Andrea Hahn writing for The Southern reports today that -
CARBONDALE – Stonehenge is much closer to home, but some of the sites a group of British archaeologists want to see are in Southern Illinois.
The Prehistoric Society Tour, a British archaeological society based in London and led by British archaeologist Pete Topping, includes two Southern Illinois sites on a whirlwind tour of prehistoric sites in the Eastern United States. Southern Illinois University Carbondale archaeologist and prehistoric rock art expert Mark J. Wagner will guide the group through the Piney Creek Rock Art site and to the Millstone Bluff site. The tour group will be in Southern Illinois on Thursday, June 21, beginning mid-morning.
“I’ve worked as an archaeologist in Southern Illinois for 20 years, and this is the first time I’ve been asked to guide a tour group of British archaeologists,” Wagner said. “I think this whole thing is pretty cool, that we have archaeologists from as far away as Great Britain that know we have sites worth seeing in Southern Illinois and want to visit them. It is definitely something out of the ordinary.”
Wagner is the right person to lead the group. He is the author of an official survey of prehistoric rock art in Illinois commissioned by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and has made the study of the rock art his research specialty.
Full article here.
William Gowland (1842-1922)
Source Wikimedia/Osaka Mint Archives (Zoheikyoku gojyu-nin-shi 造幣局八十年史) circa 1888
To commemorate the 90th anniversary today of the death of William Gowland, ‘Father of Japanese Archaeology’, the following are some extracts from the Wikipedia entry on him -
William Gowland (1842 – 9 June 1922) was an English mining engineer most famous for his archaeological work at Stonehenge and in Japan. He is known in Japan as the “Father of Japanese Archaeology”, which is an exaggeration. He was a major founding figure.
Gowland was born in Sunderland, in County Durham in northern England. He attended the Royal College of Chemistry and Royal School of Mines at South Kensington specializing in metallurgy, and worked as a chemist and metallurgist at the Broughton Copper Company from 1870-1872. However, in 1872, at the age of 30, he was recruited by the Meiji government of the Empire of Japan as a foreign engineering advisor at the Osaka Zōheikyoku, the forerunner of the Japan Mint.
On New Year’s Eve 1900, Stone 22 of the Sarsen Circle fell over, taking with it a lintel. Following public pressure and a letter to The Times by William Flinders Petrie, The owner, Edmund Antrobus, agreed to remedial engineering work under archaeological supervision so that records could be made of the below ground archaeology.
Antrobus appointed Gowland to manage the job, who despite having no formal archaeological training, produced some of the finest, most detailed excavation records ever made at the monument. The only area he opened was that around the then precariously leaning Stone 56 (the western stone of the Great Trilithon), an area measuring around 17 ft by 13 ft, and the difficulty was compounded in that only small areas were dug at each time to allow concrete to be poured and set.
Despite these difficulties, he established that antler picks had been used to dig the stone holes and that the stones themselves had been worked to shape on site. His work identified the ‘Stonehenge layer’, a thin strata of bluestone chips that sealed many of the non-megalithic features at the site and proved that they predated the standing stones.
Gowland died in London on 9 June 1922 at the age of 80, and was buried at Marylebone Cemetery.
Full Wikipedia entry here.
