Studies in Northern Prehistory: essays in memory of Clare Fell,
edited by P.J. Cherry
Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological
Society: 2007; 288pp; figures not listed but c. 86; hb ISBN 1 873124 44 9. (£30)
Clare Fell’s name is well known to all involved in the archaeology of north-west
England. She clearly inspired great affection as well as respect. The essays in
this volume dedicated to her memory are as various as those in any festschrift.
Some may best be described as personal (Aubrey Burl, Robert Bewley), some cover
important topics of wide interest in the prehistory of northern England (Clive Bonsall
on the late Mesolithic of the Cumbrian coast, Peter and James Cherry on finds of
Yorkshire flint in Cumbria) and others present new research.
The volume begins with Kate Sharpe’s historical consideration of the role of women,
and Clare Fell in particular, within local archaeological societies, focusing on
the Cumberland & Westmorland. Thereafter there is a chronological progression from
the Mesolithic to the Romano-British, with an entirely understandable concentration
on the Neolithic. Unfortunately much of the book is beset by minor errors, infelicities
and inconsistencies which should have been dealt with at editing or proof-reading;
this applies to the illustrations as well as to the text. Given the purpose of the
publication and the would-be high production values – art paper, hardback, quality
binding – this is a pity. Terry Manby’s paper on Neolithic pottery is a case in
point; it presents a valuable corpus that will be useful to future researchers but
it reads like a rough draft still waiting to be edited.
The paper by Davis, Davis and Markham on the sourcing and dispersal of stone implements
is also useful, though one suspects that it is in the nature of a ‘trail’ for the
forthcoming technical paper that is referred to. Their first figure is adapted from
a very badly scanned location map from an RCHME research report, with no indication
that copyright permission has been sought – had it been, a better copy could have
been supplied. More importantly, the authors misrepresent the work of Pearson and
Topping who, while considering a possible Neolithic origin for the Carrock Fell
enclosure, did not conclude that it was a henge or hengiform structure (p. 108);
they tentatively suggested, rather, that it might have been a precursor to that
group of monuments (2002, 126).
Mark Edmonds and Helen Evans present new fieldwork in an excellent example of just
how much can be gained from study of what must have seemed, initially, to be a rather
unprepossessing set of natural mounds and cairns on Sizergh Fell. My only slight
criticism is a technical one: by their own account they carried out detailed survey
(method and scale not given) of individual elements before undertaking control survey
of the whole area (p 117-19) – this reversal of the survey principle of ‘working
from the whole to the part’ runs the considerable risk of making life more difficult
if errors arise. However, the paper contains useful discussion of the sequence,
of parallels and of the close relation between natural and artificial features,
noting that this has implications for management and conservation – ‘At a time when
the conservation of landscape often creates a sharp divide between ecologists and
archaeologists, these and similar deposits erode what may be an unhelpful line of
demarcation’ (p. 137).
In a commendably brief essay Vin Davis and Jamie Quartermaine also describe the
results of new research, in this case on previously undiscovered stone axe sources
in the central fells. This is one of the better presented papers in the volume (it
is to be hoped that the detailed maps are not abused by the unscrupulous thieves
who like to fill their sheds with Neolithic stone-working debris).
Tom Clare considers ethnographic analogies for, and the phenomenology of, the Lake
District axe production areas, referring explicitly to Clare Fell’s own use of ethnographic
analogy in her work on this topic. (It is perhaps a little odd that he does not
refer to Pete Topping’s work on this subject (2005; Topping and Lynott 2005), especially
as he does refer to Cooney’s paper in the same publication. Another omission is
Mark Edmonds’ book on Langdale (2004).) The exposition is elegant and the argument
interesting but I cynically wonder whether, in relation to the phenomenological
aspect, I detect the signs of somebody scrambling onto a bandwagon that is rapidly
running away. In one respect in particular I have to question the author’s analysis:
he suggests that, when seen from the south-east, the profile of the Langdales ‘is
reminiscent of a hafted axe of the kind recovered from Ehenside and the Solway’
(p. 166); I find this less than convincing. It is the case, however, that Pike o’
Stickle looks like a steamed pudding.
In further discussion of fieldwork that has already been reported in the Proceedings
of this Society and elsewhere (eg, 2004), Andrew Hoaen and Helen Loney look at agricultural
practice in the Bronze Age through the study of cairnfields, arguing for a long
period of economic and environmental stability in the settlement of upland Britain.
The argument is attractive, and well made up to a point, but while one would not
necessarily want to go back to the Burgess model that the authors argue against,
there is no doubt that the period of equilibrium that they sketch was punctuated
eventually, and the mechanism by which that happened does need to be explored. The
evidence on which they base their argument is rather thin, or thinly presented.
The authors make several references to ‘associations’ between archaeological features
but it is not clear how robust these ‘associations’ are; they refer, for instance,
to ‘small numbers of cairns associated with charcoal burners’ platforms’ (p. 200)
but if they are ‘associated’ only by proximity then the association need not mean
anything. The authors also argue that continuous activity over long periods at cairnfields
‘is suggested by their large size and accretional nature’ (p. 195); evidence of
accretion would certainly be germane but large size absolutely cannot be assumed
to be evidence of long duration – extensive areas of the Dalmatian landscape are
covered by massive clearance cairns, much larger than anything seen in Britain,
all made within a period of a few years in the later 19th century for vine growing
which was then rapidly abandoned because of the migration of phyloxera.
Ben Edwards begins his account of excavations of the late 1970s at Pilling Moss
with a lament that they were not published earlier, largely because of ‘the then
lack of a suitable vehicle for their publication’ (p. 211); unfortunately the lack
of a county archaeological journal for Lancashire is still a problem. The report
on this later Bronze Age site is workmanlike but lacks any discussion, ending rather
abruptly, and the only suggested interpretation of the site is that it may have
been involved in pottery manufacture. This is based on the slight evidence of stones
that might have been used for tempering (p. 222) and burnt clay that might have
been part of a kiln (p. 228).
Professor David Shotter’s overview of the Roman period in southern Cumbria is scholarly
but necessarily (given the relative paucity of the evidence), somewhat speculative
– not that there is anything wrong with that. In sketching the environmental background
Shotter states that forest clearance started about 800BC; it would perhaps be more
accurate to say that extensive and prolonged clearance began at about that date
(Hodgkinson et al. 2000, 46-7). The speculative nature of the essay is illustrated
by the suggestion that a military camp existed at Kirkham on the Ribble (p. 241),
based on the discovery of a pilum murale – a sharp stick. Indeed the story relies
heavily throughout on the evidence of highly portable artefacts but, despite this,
it is a thoroughly believable and well told story.
The volume concludes with the publication of a paper even older than the Pilling
Moss report – J. Wilfred Jackson’s account of Romano-British and other artefacts
from Attermire Cave, Settle, introduced and with notes by Alan King. This paper
was prepared in 1931 but remained unpublished, for reasons which King explores briefly
here. This is a useful addition to the corpus of finds from caves, a group of artefacts
which Jackson, according to the lights of his time, took to be evidence of ‘occupation’
(p. 251) but which King quietly, and no doubt rightly, assigns to ‘continual religious
use’ lasting from the Beaker period until the 8th century AD, suggesting that ‘this
cave and the lengthy ledge approach changed through time from a passage grave to
a shrine’ (p. 270).
In summing up this book, what we have is a group of papers which are generally useful,
valuable and in some cases very interesting. There is a certain lack of coherence
that is only to be expected of a festschrift but on the other hand there is, at
the core of the book, a group of papers touching on stone axe production and other
aspects of the Neolithic of north-west England which have a unity of purpose. At
the risk of sounding too much like Lynne Truss, I find the number of typographical
errors, infelicities, inconsistencies, omissions and ‘thoughts that might have been
better expressed’ both irritating and distracting. I did not know Clare Fell personally,
and I have no insight into how she would have felt about this but, given her generation
and her educational background, I expect that she had high standards in this regard.
Mark Bowden
English Heritage
References
Edmonds, M. 2004. The Langdales: landscape and prehistory in a Lakeland valley.
Stroud,Tempus
Hoaen, A.W. & Loney, H.L. 2004. Bronze and Iron Age connections: memory and persistence
in Matterdale, Cumbria, Trans Cumberland & Westmorland Antiq & Archaeol Soc
(Series
3) 4, 39-54
Hodgkinson, D., Huckerby, E., Middleton, R. & Wells, C.E. 2000. The Lowland Wetlands
of Cumbria (North West Wetlands Survey 6) Lancaster, Lancaster Imprints 8
Pearson, T. & Topping, P. 2002. Rethinking the Carrock Fell enclosure, in G. Varndell
& P. Topping (eds), Enclosures in Neolithic Europe. Oxford, Oxbow, 121-7
Topping, P. 2005. Shaft 27 re-visited: an ethnography of Neolithic flint extraction,
in P. Topping & M. Lynott (eds), The Cultural Landscape of Prehistoric Mines
Oxbow.
Oxford. 63-93
Topping, P. & Lynott, M. 2005. Miners and mines, in P. Topping & M. Lynott (eds),
The Cultural Landscape of Prehistoric Mines. Oxford, Oxbow 181-91
Review Submitted: September 2007
The views expressed in this review are not necessarily those
of the Society or the Reviews Editor.
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