Buried Treasure 13

Hello. Field walking is standard practice for archaeologists conducting surveys and typically carried out in a very disciplined fashion with an area marked out into grids into which finds can be carefully plotted to indicate where there might have been human activity or occupation. And in a way beachcombing is similar but it tends to be a more relaxed, hobbyist pursuit. The River Thames of course has its mudlarks, although modern practitioners are very different from the poor of Victorian London. And there have been some very significant finds from beaches. If we think back to the early 19th century, Mary Anning's finds of fossils on the coast of Dorset changed scientific thinking about prehistory and knowledge of the dinosaurs. In more recent times there was a significant find in 1998 that was made on the beach at Holm next to the sea in Norfolk. And it all began in spring 1998 when an amateur archaeologist and beachcomber, a man called John Lorimer, who was catching shrimps with his brother-in-law, found a mystery object which intrigued him and encouraged him to return to the area on a number of occasions. And on one of his visits he noticed that a tree stump had been exposed on the beach, but it was unusual because it was upside down. He reported this to the Castle Museum at Norwich. Now they had a look at his mystery object and confirmed that what it was, was an early Bronze Age axehead. Now these are quite simple tools and they date from the very beginnings of metalworking in Britain. They're cast in a single one-piece mould and hafted in the same way as stone axes, slotted through a perforation in a wooden handle. And a second axehead was found nearby soon after. He continued to monitor the area and as more of the beach surface was worn away it revealed around the inverted tree stump a ring of oak stakes, confirming that this was something man-made. Now first thoughts were that it might be an Anglo-Saxon fish trap, not uncommon on this part of the coast, but it would need excavation to be sure. And a team from Norfolk Archaeology under the direction of Mark Brennan undertook the task. What a difficult excavation! The team only had four hours to work in between the tides. Most of that time was taken up clearing the water from the last tide. But they uncovered 55 oak stakes side by side surrounding the inverted tree stump. The stakes are about six feet high and the circle is about 20 feet across. It was dubbed Seahenge in the press. It's now known as Holm 1 because a second similar monument was found nearby which is Holm 2. Now using a variety of scientific techniques it was concluded that the trees used to construct the monument had all been felled in the same year 2049 BC and from the condition of the sapwood around the same time of year. From the axe marks used to cut and shape the timbers it was estimated that over 50 different axes had been used. Now say early days of metalworking these bronze axes were rare items. So the building of this monument had taken place as a single event and it would have involved a lot of work felling the trees, transporting them, cutting, shaping, erecting etc. So most likely a large number of people involved will have those 50 plus axes for a start. So possibly an entire community working together. Now when this had been put in place the area was salt marsh. But over time sea levels had risen and the henge had found itself on the beach and covered up. And then 4,000 years later the action of the sea had began to uncover it. The contemporary ground surface of course had long since washed away so it was impossible to determine what had gone on at Seahenge and no clues really to its purpose. But pottery was found that dated over several centuries of the Bronze Age which suggested that it had been a focal point for that period of time. Theories about the site centre on the inversion of that tree stump because we find inversion with a lot of Bronze Age graves. Now the thinking is that this might have been a mortuary site perhaps where bodies were left for excarnation. It's sometimes called sky burial for natural processes to take away the flesh and the organs and leaving the bones which can then be ceremonially disposed of, buried etc. But once exposed what to do with the site? It was impossible to preserve it in situ and there was a tourist problem. So many people coming to see it. They were disturbing the breeding wading birds in the area and there are other problems. So it was decided to lift it and send it for conservation to the Fenland Trust Archaeological Centre at Flagfen, 50 miles away. They sent it on to Portsmouth where the team that had been involved in preserving the timbers from the Mary Rose used the same techniques to preserve the timbers of Seahenge. And laser scanning enabled a replica to be built which is now in Kings Lynn Museum. And Time Team did a special programme where they worked with tools from the age to try and see what they could learn from reconstructing something similar. There's so much controversy about whether this should have been moved that English Heritage decided to leave Holm 2 where it was. But of course it is vulnerable to tidal erosion. Now the further back we go the less likely it is that we find evidence of material culture. There were less people, there were less objects, organic material decomposes. Metal has a better chance of surviving but that can be recycled as well. So when we do find early metal work and examples from early culture it's always very significant. And in my next session I'm going to look at two gold items that date to the Middle Bronze Age and ask what can we learn from them. If you've enjoyed this video hit the like and subscribe buttons and click on the notification bell to be informed when the next video is published.