Review Article

Forest monumentality and marshland domesticity? The changing landscape of Haddenham

Bryony Coles
Dept of Archaeology. Laver Building, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK

Antiquity 81 no. 312 June 2007

CHRISTOPHER EVANS & IAN HODDER. A woodland archaeology: Neolithic sites at Haddenham (The Haddenham Project Volume 1). xxii+390 pages, 189 illustrations, 102 tables. 2006. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research; 9871-902937-31-1 hardback £35.

CHRISTOPHER EVANS & IAN HODDER. Marshland communities and cultural landscapes from the Bronze Age to present day (The Haddenham Project Volume 2). xxvi+510 pages, 293 illustrations, 160 tables. 2006. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research; 9871-902937-32-8 hardback £35.

The books under review are a pair of closely related volumes rather than studies independent of each other. They contain the reports on a series of excavations undertaken in eastern England in the 1980s, which together formed the Haddenham Project. Located along the lower course of the River Great Ouse, where historically it emerged into the wetlands of the Fenland Basin, the Haddenham excavations, as many readers will know, formed part of a major research effort undertaken by several co-operating groups in the Fens since the 1970s; however, they will find that this is not wetland archaeology so much as the archaeology of a place that became wet. The lead authors, Chris Evans and Ian Hodder, are supported by numerous specialists and other contributors who between them present the Neolithic sites and findings in A woodland archaeology and those of later prehistory onwards in Marshland communities and cultural landscapes from the Bronze Age to the present day. Environmental matters are treated mainly in the first volume, while analogous word-and-picture essays are inserted throughout.

News of significant sites often percolates through the archaeological community long before definitive publication occurs, as here with the Haddenham Neolithic long barrow and Iron Age settlement, and also the causewayed enclosure and the Romano-British shrine. These are the sites that rightly dominate the volumes, and I will return to them after dealing with one or two niggling aspects of the volumes. Results from the many less-significant sites of the Haddenham Project, and from test-pitting, provide a necessary if sometimes over-wordy background matrix: many readers may skim the chapters that gather up the minor Neolithic or Iron Age findings, and a firm editorial hand might have reduced their length. More vigorous editing would also have helped this reader at least, for example attention to layout to bring text and relevant illustrations together rather than several pages apart, and adequate introduction to some of the specialist reports (the brooch from Haddenham V provided several mysteries on first reading). The vocabulary is sometimes idiosyncratic, for example the frequent use of 'abet' and the reference to a 'suspect tear-drop mound' bring connotations of criminality and policing which I am sure were not intended. Several of the figures have numbering that appears irrelevant (e.g. Vol. 2, Fig 1.3) or lack some of the identifiers used in the caption (e.g. Vol. 2, Fig. 5.109). A key for sections is provided by Fig. 1.10 in each of the volumes, but some of the section conventions are missing (for example, in Vol. 1, Chapter 5 for the ditch sections of the causewayed enclosure). In places, it is difficult to track down all the relevant information. As an example, in the concluding discussion for Volume 1, two cremations are important to the interpretation of the first phase of the Neolithic barrow, but prior to this their mention is buried in small font on pages 97 and 101, with no reference to them in the main section devoted to human remains. In Volume 2, an infant skeleton from the small Heritage Farm barrow is germane to the discussion of environmental change, but the relevant information obtained via stable isotope analysis is included in the brief section on radiocarbon dates at the beginning of the volume, not with the basic account of the burial. In addition, there are a number of textual errors; one that leapt off the page for me was the reference (Vol.1, p.308) to the god-dolly from the Somerset Levels being associated with the Sweet Track, rather than the Bell Tracks which are different in character and about a millennium later.

Now for the cultural landscapes, a good phrase to describe the contents of both volumes as each draws together environmental and cultural evidence from the Haddenham terraces. The region changed immeasurably over the long period of human habitation under consideration, from the dry river-drained forested lowlands of the Mesolithic to the fluctuating fen-edge, sea-silts and marsh peats of the first millennia BC and AD. The authors take care to explore the character, significance and implications of these changes, whether it be the opening of forest to the point that clearings in a sea of trees merged to yield woods in a farmed landscape, or the alteration from river flowing through the plains to the swamping of the lowest land.

Having set the environmental scene, A woodland archaeology moves into the report on the Haddenham long barrow, a burial mound of the early farmers in the region. In later prehistoric times the mound became engulfed and protected by the sediments of the encroaching wetland, only to be revealed again in recent times as the organic peats dried, shrank and blew away. The preservation of wood within the mound, and the lack of disturbance, are what make the site important to us now, and these qualities are well exploited by the excavators. They present a burial place that began with post settings, followed by the building of a long, narrow wooden box-chamber, a Giant's Coffin if ever there was one, with phases of facade-building and mounding such as are known from many contemporary long barrows. The work by Morgan and Darrah on the wood is crucial to the understanding of the structure, in particular Morgan's identification of planks from the same tree and, later, her construction of a floating tree-ring chronology which is then radiocarbon dated with reasonable precision to give a felling date after 3600-3550 cal BC. Other notable specialist analyses identify a long slow burning of a turf mound in the front end of the wooden box-chamber, and the spread of phosphates in the back end which indicate where human bodies lay, not just the defleshed bones which remained for archaeologists to excavate. In places, the text of this long chapter becomes somewhat impenetrable, or repetitive of the specialists' summaries, but some excellent photographs and useful summary diagrams will help the reader to pick out what they need.

The causewayed enclosure, the other major site of the Neolithic, does not have the same remarkable preservation as the burial mound, and a relatively small percentage was excavated (c. 20 per cent of the perimeter and 5 per cent of the interior). The site was large, as causewayed enclosures go, and relatively simple in its features, and possibly receives rather more discussion than it deserves in the overall context of the Haddenham Project — there is much speculation, and some valuable comparison with other sites, but it could be tightened up. The authors suggest that the large enclosure 'might have mimicked or at least resonated in relationship to forest clearances' (p. 239) and state that 'It is the “hermeneutic circle” that frames the narrative of the enclosure's investigations and provides its dominant interpretative metaphor.' (p. 241). Statements such as these will no doubt prompt some readers to pause and reflect, while others pass quickly by.

In the concluding chapter of Volume 1, the authors set out some interesting ideas, on the influence of 'island' (or hillock) size on monument size, on paths linking forest clearances, on the local expressions of new, continental types of site, and the way in which the apparent constants of the landscape, forest and river, themselves alter through time. They draw attention to 'British archaeology's now predominant concern with monumentality, as if only by participating in monuments did communities somehow become Neolithic', and with refreshing directness, in relation to England they state that 'Based on eastern evidence this simply cannot be true' (p. 361).

Marshland communities and cultural landscapes draws attention to archaeology's capacity for 'the cognitive evaluation of the landscape, but not its statistical measure' (p. 5). It deals with barrows and lynchets, enclosures and shrines, and one of the most interesting themes is the accumulation of earthworks, the overlay of later sites on top of or within earlier ones, sometimes but not always with similar apparent functions. As often with prehistoric sites, interpretation can be difficult; for example, one Iron Age site that is not quite in the normal domestic mode might or might not be a shrine. Another Iron Age site, Haddenham V, is perhaps the most significant of the later prehistoric discoveries, a settlement of people who may have specialised in the exploitation of wild resources from the wetlands that by then surrounded the Haddenham terraces. The work of Hill and Braddock on the pottery assemblage and of Serjeantson on the animal bone provides the keys to the interpretation of the site. The pottery analysis distinguishes different uses along the cooking-serving-eating spectrum for the Haddenham V buildings, and shows the inhabitants to be close to a stylistic boundary, and perhaps incomers to the locality. For the fauna, Serjeantson stresses the unusual number of bones from wild mammals and birds, with the quantity of beaver remains being of particular interest to this reviewer. It could be that over-enthusiastic exploitation by the Haddenham inhabitants contributed to the dearth of beaver remains in subsequent centuries.

The Roman shrine is one of several whose primary function was only identified on excavation. It overlay a Bronze Age barrow, with a possible Iron Age shrine built alongside. The awareness of ancient earthworks is one of the themes explored by the authors in their concluding discussion (Chapter 10), which also draws out the shifts to and fro in the character of the cultural evidence, against a changing environment which did not, however, determine the changes in land use in any direct or simple way.

Standing back a little from the individual sites and specialist studies, what has the publication of the Haddenham Project achieved? The text is at times dense and difficult to read, and often repetitive, especially in the reflective sections which return again and again to the same points, maybe almost verbatim renderings of a specialist's conclusions or moving forward only one small step from the previous iteration — an editorial chop was surely necessary in some of these places. But there is much good, thought-provoking archaeology, worth excavating from the words. The value of working in one region, over time, with co-workers and specialists who between them have built up a detailed and informed understanding of local and regional trends, conditions and questions is very evident, and an excellent example of the rewards of long-term investment in research. The confidence gained is what allows the authors to declare what they do not know, for example to admit how poor the dating is for so much of the evidence. This perhaps is one of the more significant but largely unrecognised changes of recent years, namely our expectation now of close and precise dating for many prehistoric contexts, a marked contrast to the expectations of the 1980s. The interpretations bring many minor quibbles and challenges (and no doubt each reader will have their own), but overall undoubtedly enhance our understanding both of the regional archaeology and, in a much wider sense, our understanding of the potential of past communities. At times, one can trace the development of ideas over the last two decades, as with the subtle changes in attitude to Iron Age domestic arrangements, and in this respect Sorensen's brief essay on gender and settlement interpretation is one of the more interesting 'insertions'. It is tempting to try and identify Evans' text from that of Hodder, and a tribute to the authors that this is not always possible, but I would hazard a guess that it is Evans who develops the theme of great trees, great clearances and great houses.

In the final paragraphs, the authors write of their two volumes: 'Discursive and open-ended like the landscape itself, effectively this is a study without conclusion'. For this reader, it has something of the Scandinavian ethos epitomised by the IKEA flatpack: most of the relevant bits and pieces are between the covers, but it is up to you to sort and identify them and put them together, to achieve your own finished product, and it will be good for you physically, mentally and perhaps spiritually to have a bit of a struggle so doing.