Loose Howe; A North Yorkshire Log Coffin Boat Burial(s) Revisited

In 1937 a large barrow in north‐east Yorkshire was excavated by Mrs H. W. and Dr F. Elgee. A primary deposit comprising a ‘canoe’‐shaped log coffin and what were described as two ‘log boats’ or ‘canoes’ was uncovered beneath the mound. The burial did not survive; however, the ‘canoe’‐shaped coffin was found to contain an Early Bronze Age Merthyr Mawr‐type dagger, flints and some hazelnuts. Subsequently, a cremation was inserted into the top of the mound. This was accompanied by a Camerton‐Snowshill‐type dagger, a stone battle axe, a copper alloy pin, an accessory vessel and fragments from a Collared Urn. As part of a log coffin radiocarbon‐dating project, one of the hazelnuts was radiocarbon‐dated to 2008–1772 cal BC (95.4%) and a fragment of cremated bone from the secondary burial was dated to 1890–1741 cal BC (93.2%). This paper discusses the dating results and reconsiders the interpretation of the log coffin as a boat.     

Reviews of books

Historical Archaeology -     

Archaeometry and materiality: materials‐based analysis in theory and practice*

Due to the diversity of contemporary archaeology, the aims and approaches of archaeological scientists and archaeological theorists are often at odds. I suggest that this position is problematic, both intellectually and methodologically, as both groups are fundamentally engaged in the same task: an understanding of past societies through the medium of material culture. This paper offers a review of the intellectual positions of both groups, with a brief discussion of the history of archaeological theory and an appraisal of its current trajectory. I will discuss how and why contemporary theoretical perspectives have fundamentally diverged from the perspectives of archaeological scientists and how the recent theoretical emphasis upon materiality offers a rapprochement between theoreticians and archaeological scientists.     

An Independent Palestine: The Security Dimension

If negotiations produce an end to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict then a sovereign, independent Palestine may emerge. But what is required for it to succeed? Nothing is more important than the security of a Palestinian state–for itself, for Israel, and for the region: security trumps all else. In addition to the problem of dealing effectively with opposition to a peace agreement within Palestine or directed against it from outside, the nature and magnitude of the security challenge will depend in large part on three issues: the drawing of borders between Israel and Palestine–and whether they are porous or marked by a rigid line of barriers; whether Israeli settlements are withdrawn, or in part incorporated into Israel, perhaps through land swaps with Palestine; and what arrangements are made for Jerusalem. One answer is the creation of effective Palestinian military forces (in addition to police), but this course could be divisive; a second is the development of a series of Israeli–Palestinian confidence‐building and share–security measures, including intelligence cooperation; a third is progress towards reducing external threats to Israel–Palestine, including success in Iraq and in defusing other Middle East problems. Most useful, however, would be the creation of an American‐led peace enabling force, ideally modelled on NATO. This force would need to be agreed by both Israel and Palestine; it must be adequately staffed, trained and equipped; its duties and rules of engagement must make sense to all parties; and it must be part of a network of dispute‐resolution and confidence‐building measures in full partnership with Israeli and Palestinian authorities.     

Shelley’s “Letter to Maria Gisborne” as Workshop Poetry

ABSTRACT

Shelley’s “Letter to Maria Gisborne” is a playful improvisational verse epistle, widely praised for its urbanity and its display of the poet’s invention. The verses turn on a catalogue of the collection of odd scientific and mechanical objects that Shelley found scattered around him in the place he composed the letter, the Livorno workshop of Gisborne’s son, a young engineer who was building a new-model steamboat at the time (with Shelley’s financial and intellectual backing). In the context of that space, the poem reads as a response to competing notions of invention. For Shelley, the engineer’s workshop is an attractive alternative to the poet’s tower—which was uncomfortably close to a Grub Street garret. Verbal and visual images of poets’ and scientists’ workshops, from Hogarth and Mary Robinson, to Joseph Wright of Derby and Frankenstein, illustrate the tensions embodied in the physical location and poetic performance of Shelley’s celebrated “Letter.”     

Miliacin in palaeosols from an Early Iron Age in Ukraine reveal in situ cultivation of broomcorn millet

During the archaeobotanical investigation of Scythian–Sarmatian period (Early Iron Age), pits with crop processing waste, discovered in the floodplain of Donets River, eastern Ukraine, and charred remains of cereal grains, dominated by broomcorn millet, were recorded. The grains from the pits were radiocarbon dated to the fifth to first century BC. Those pits are distant from any known contemporaneous settlement. The apparent disconnection of these pits from any local settlement suggests that (1) millet was brought from other locations by mobile groups, or (2) millet was cultivated locally by populations whose settlements have left no discernible archaeological trace. The analysis of molecular biomarkers preserved in palaeosols that are stratigraphically connected to the pits revealed high levels of miliacin, a molecule that can be preserved in ancient soils and sediments, and that is consistent with broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). High levels in miliacin in soils stratigraphically connected to the pits are interpreted as the result of a large biomass of P. miliaceum produced at time of soil formation. Our biogeochemical results applied to a palaeosol thus attest to the in situ cultivation of crops dominated by the broomcorn millet during the early Iron Age in the floodplain of Donets River. Biochemical examination of soils and palaeosols can thus provide useful information on past dynamics of land-use by ancient population, especially when settlements or macrobotanical remains are absent.