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Culture in the clitter
As soon as we started surveying the clitter masses with as much attention to detail as we had surveyed the walls and houses we started finding structures. During the1997 field season we identified about forty clitter structures on the hill. By these we refer to patterned arrangements of stones within clitter stripes or masses as opposed to perched boulders virtually all of which on Leskernick hill are clearly of cultural origin according to the criteria discussed above. We used the following archaeological criteria to identify these structures:
1. Morphology: the structures we identified are generally circular or semi-circular in form. None are perfect geometric forms.
2. Size: this varies between 1.5 and 20 m in diameter
3. Overall stone orientation or angle of rest: long axis is vertical or leaning
4. Shape: generally thin 'artifical' looking slabs with regular sides, often rectangular or square in form, and always contrasting with the other stones in the clitter.
5: Spacing: some degree of regularity in spacing between the stones in the cluster but, as with the shape, this is usually approximate
6: Viewing angle: many of these structures were meant to be seen from below, looking up-slope
7: Stone size: Frequently a contrast, or anomaly, is evident between these stones and the surrounding clitter.
Suddenly the clitter masses appeared to us to be no longer amorphous, essentially random masses of natural stones which had moved by themselves but appeared to be an ordered intentional product of human agency. The heaviest concentration of these clitter structures is in the corridor separating the western and southern settlement areas on the hill. The rest are in the western settlement (see Fig. 4 [pdf]). There are none in the southern settlement. There is no clitter stream or clitter mass of significant size without such structures although they are differentially concentrated. For the most part they consist of approximately circular or semi-circular rings or arcs of stones situated within the clitter masses. All are small usually being 5 m or less in diameter. In some cases the stones simply define a 'space' that is entirely cluttered with other stones and the stones defining this 'space,' or place, are themselves surrounded by stones. There are no clearings, no openings, no paths, no stone-free areas. In other words we are identifying roughly circular or arc-like patterns of stones within an overall ground or field of stones. In about half the cases the structures encircle a central stone or boulder or radiate out from both ends of a stone or boulder curving down-slope in a semi-circular arrangement. In no cases are we dealing with perfect geometric forms: the circles and arcs are irregular. These structures are, quite literally, hidden in the clitter and can often only be seen from within the clitter mass or standing immediately outside of it. As soon as one moves a distance of a few metres or alters the tilt of one's head, or the angle of view, these structures are instantly lost and have to be rediscovered.
Scales of engagement
Excavating on Leskernick hill involves learning to practically 'navigate' in this world of stones. Approximately 260 square meters of the hill have currently been excavated. As archaeologists our understanding of the natural and architectural elements of Leskernick's stoney landscape is articulated down to the level of the detailed description, planning, removal and interpretation of individual stones.
There are various scales of engagement. When Leskernick hill comes into view from a distance (from the south side), it immediately appears to be an extremely stoney hill. On coming nearer it is possible to distinguish long stoney lines, some of which are the wall boundaries and divisions running up and down and around the hill. Eventually, one focusses in on the possibility of circular stone walls belonging to its numerous Bronze Age houses. These images have to be picked out of the clitter. From this outsider's point of view it is possible to formulate the gross patterns of what is humanly constructed, but it is as if one is constructing a map without having to decide, stone by stone, what to put on the map.
Once inside the settlement, the houses are of such a scale that a meaningful wall circuit can be embraced with a single eye view. By contrast, the boundary walls and clitter now begin to shift out of focus because they are on too big a scale for a sense of their directionality to remain constantly in view. Then there are the stoney 'cairns', many of which are quite small and discrete, and seemingly merge into the clitter. These prompted a series of questions such as are they burial cairns, or clearance cairns, piles of 'raw material', or clitter agglomerates? The possible origins of clearings and spaces between the stones also became increasingly problematic. Particularly dramatic stones, for example, are visually emphasized by the existence of stone-free surfaces around them. But are these stone-free areas clearings or products of geomorphological processes or a combination of the two? Overall, there is a sense that the particular scale at which the eye focuses on the patterns also alters the accommodation, recognition, and questioning of the commonsense constructs of 'natural' and 'cultural'
In excavation each stone 'demands' a history. We are challenged to classify, describe and make decisions at a series of macro and micro levels as to which stones are humanly placed and which are naturally in situ. From the perspective of both the geomorphological criteria and the archaeological criteria, discussed above, we now consider four very different cases of the ways in which 'culture' and 'nature', humanly placed stones and stones which were not moved, become articulated in a manner which transcends this very distinction.
1: Clitter circles
Clitter structure 30 (see Fig. 4 [pdf]) is a large roughly circular arrangement of slabs within a central depression in a hollow in a clitter stripe located to the west of some large and impressive grounders (earth-fast clitter blocks). It consists of at least one internal arc of stones 6.5 m in diameter north-south and 3.5 m in diameter west-east with some possible side-set slabs around the northern and eastern sides of the depression defining an area 14 m in diameter north-south and 6 m west-east. More prominent stones that were identified as forming part of the arc, or arcs, were wrapped in cling film and painted white (Fig. 5). Closer examination of these wrapped stones revealed that about half of them could be accounted for in terms of solifluction processes. The rest had been moved (almost certainly from the immediate vicinity) so as to enhance a natural pattern.
2: Clitter cairns
Cairn 5, approximately 2.5 m in diameter, was built in a liminal position on the western edge of the southern settlement within a discrete concentration of surface clitter (Fig. 4 [pdf]). While the RCHME describes it as a kerbed cairn (Johnson and Rose 1994, Fig. 28), the status of it as cairn became increasingly ambiguous as excavation proceeded (Fig. 6 [pdf]). The roughly circular piled 'cairn' stones in fact enclosed a void, subsequently naturally filled with in-washed silt (Fig. 6b). The original constructed configuration would have been (i) a ring of elongated stones (Fig 6c: upper course) on top of (ii) a 'base' of smaller, squarer stones (Fig 6d): lower course), over (iii) a natural base of elongated clitter stones 'rafted' on a natural surface of overlapping (imbricated clitter cobbles (Fig. 6e). There was no central cist or other mortuary evidence. The sole small find was a flat piece of shaped slate (possibly a pot lid) from the clitter surface under the 'cairn' ring. Architecturally, the construction had actively transformed a lobed clitter flow of large boulders into a circular configuration- a vortex which with time and increasing silting and vegetation growth mutated into something that looked like, but was not, a kerbed cairn.
3: Clitter walling
From the results of surface survey it was evident that the enclosure and boundary walls of Leskernick connect together large, apparently natural, boulders and surface clitter concentrations (see Fig. 4). No single wall building technique was used, but in each specific case a structural dialogue was apparent between the wall and the clitter. Three walls were sectioned by excavation (Fig. 4 [pdf]). Two of these walls followed the contours at the downslope limits of surface clitter flows (Fig 4: BSB and BSC). The third wall crossed the contours of the hill (Fig 4: BSA), following a linear clitter flow. Two walls were coursed (Fig. 7: BSA, Fig. 9 [pdf]: BSC), the wall stones being in horizontal layers, using earthfast clitter boulders as foundation stones. BSA was additionally faced with orthostats (BSB: Fig. 7). The third wall was constructed of orthostats placed vertically in between the earthfast boulders (BSB: Fig. 9 [pdf]). While this might be regarded as minimising construction effort by maximising the use and characteristics of stable insitu stone, the walls persistently follow alignments to do this that cannot be explained in terms of practical, functional or utilitarian considerations (e.g. in the vicinity of BSA, Fig. 4 [pdf]). The wall excavations indicate that the hill was even stonier in the Bronze Age. Many of the earthfast boulders incorporated in the walls are hidden markedly below the present turfline. The excavated surfaces around the walls revealed further clitter no longer evident on the modern surface (Fig. 9 [pdf]: plan). Thus the inhabitants of Leskernick chose to inhabit, even in their field systems, an extraordinarily dense world of stones, the major axes of which formed the basis of their bounded space.
4: Clitter arenas focusing on and structurally enhancing boulder flow patterns and disruptions
The corridor area between the two Bronze Age settlements of Leskernick has a dramatic clitter stream which jaggedly dominates the surface of the hill (Fig. 4 [pdf]). At the surface this jungle of stones is self-supporting and free of vegetation and turf development. The stones in its linear downslope flow become progressively denser and dramatically up-ended as the flow terminates against a massive lozenge-shaped boulder with a stone-free area in front of it (Fig. 4: FF1; Fig. 12). The geomorphological explanation of the emplacement of this great stone and the dense collection of stones immediately abutting it upslope is that it is a result of the periglacial displacement of boulders and the stresses of compaction against the more massive, less mobile boulders. Even with this knowledge the visual impact remains un-nerving. The great boulder appears to defie nature being 'fixed' half-way up a slope with a stream of massive stones bearing down on it. From downslope it is a focal point. Its massiveness has forced the clitter flow to bifurcate either side of it creating the present-day 'stone- free' turf covered zone in front of it.
This is the only lozenge-shaped stone of any size on the hill. It also has unusual weathering lines on its down-slope face. It must have had some considerable significance to the Bronze Age populations who chose to build a particularly large, isolated and impressive house, with its own enclosure, immediately to the east of it. This is the only house in the liminal space of the corridor separating the two settlement areas. It was evident from surface survey that the natural pattern of the clitter flow had been disrupted by the construction of two circular structures on either side of the stone (see Fig. 10 [pdf]).
The circular structure which abutted the downslope side of the stone was excavated to reveal a small ring of self-supporting placed stones subsequently filled with in-washed silt (Fig. 11 [pdf]: left-hand plan). The structure was resting on a natural surface comprising small cobble-sized imbricated clitter (Fig. 11: right-hand plan) which, downslope of the 'ring' has occasional larger boulders 'rafted' on top of it. Under the western edge of this ring structure, and partly within its interior, was a silt and charcoal filled hollow cut through the clitter. A late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age flint flake and patches of pinky burnt granite occurred on the clitter surface immediately around the structure (Fig. 11). The ring structure was therefore placed on a land surface which would have provided a stone-free arena with a cobbled effect (dependent on land use) in front of a dramatic clitter backstone. This 'shrine circle', as we named it, structurally uses the large lozenge-shaped stone as a backdrop and it was almost certainly a focal point for the Bronze Age communities of Leskernick.
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