Industrious and Fairly Civilized: The Glastonbury Lake Village.

Industrious and Fairly Civilized: The Glastonbury Lake Village. Some sites are quite simply extraordinary. Looming large, they cometo rack the archaeological imagination; their totality evading us nomatter how many times they are re-excavated and re-interpreted. Alongwith, for example, Clarks Star Carr Star Carr is a Mesolithic archaeological site in Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. It is around five miles south of Scarborough.It belongs to the early Mesolithic Maglemosian culture, evidence for which is present across the lowlands of Northern Europe, and was occupied or Wheeler's Maiden Castle Maiden Castle,prehistoric fortress, Dorset, S England, near Dorchester. The finest earthwork in the British Isles, c.120 acres (50 hectares) in area, is there. ,such is the case with Bulleid and Gray's Glastonbury - `the marshvillage of the imagination' (cf. Clark 1939:44). The Somerset IronAge Lake Village, excavated between 1893 and 1907, was published in twoimpressive volumes in the ensuing decade (1911 & 1917). Although forits time the reportage was fulsome, little attention was given tophasing and structure. Consequently, the site has inspired a series ofimportant papers, primarily David Clarke's renowned 1972 model andJohn Barrett's 1987 exercise in source criticism. It is telling ofthe excavation's exceptional status that it should encourage suchkey theoretical works. Although suffering the `typos' of hasty production, at a costof 8[pounds] this 200-page hardback volume is remarkably good value.Following on the heels of their 1992 booklet concerning the history ofthe site (Coles et al. 1992), the authors review the site'sbackground, present a new phasing structure supported by specialistreports, discuss at length previous reinterpretations and offer theirown. Amongst its more major contributions to the study of the site areRupert Housely's environmental researches and the nine newradiocarbon dates. The authors' re-interpretation is essentially based upon aninternationalist in��ter��na��tion��al��ism?n.1. The condition or quality of being international in character, principles, concern, or attitude.2. A policy or practice of cooperation among nations, especially in politics and economic matters. cross-chronological `logic' of wetland studies -there is little sense of a specifically Iron Age context. This isreflected in the volume's specialist reports, whereas the potteryis dealt with in a single page, environment and woodworking get sixteenand six respectively. Whilst evidently not well versed in recenttheoretical debates within the period's study, the final summaryand characterization of the site as a `tribal liminal' centre - aborder-zone settlement with `more' (e.g. trade and ritual) - isappropriately open-ended. Despite its specific lake-/carr-side situation, due to the greatquantity of finds recovered (especially the waterlogged preservation ofa range of wooden artefacts) earlier this century Glastonbury provided ageneral basis for reconstruction of later prehistoric life Prehistoric life are the diverse organisms that have inhabited Earth from the origin of life about 3.8 billion years ago (b.y.a.) to the Historic period (about 3500 BC) when humans began to keep written records. . FirstForestier's evocative illustrations which accompaniedBulleid's little 1911 article in the Illustrated London News Illustrated London NewsHistoric magazine of news and the arts, published in London. Founded in 1842 as a weekly, it became a monthly in 1971. A pioneer in the use of various graphic arts, it was London's first illustrated periodical, the first periodical to make extensive (whichpunctuate punc��tu��ate?v. punc��tu��at��ed, punc��tu��at��ing, punc��tu��atesv.tr.1. To provide (a text) with punctuation marks.2. the Coles A Minnitt volume but are little remarked upon),which later inspired many of the figures in the Quennells, Everyday lifein prehistoric times (1922). Often cited, it was the completeness of theexcavation - the totality of the window, it provided - that led to itsunique status. Conversely, over the last 25 years, it is theincompleteness of its record that has drawn attention, variously leadingto re-interpretation and re-excavation. Of course, this is to somedegree but a trick of time and study - the `caravan' ofdisciplinary history. A century of research and survey has shown that asite held to be typical of later Prehistoric life seems (Flag Fen Flag Fen near Peterborough, England is a Bronze Age site, probably religious. It comprises a large number of poles arranged in five very long rows (around 1 km) connecting Whittlesey Island with Peterborough across the wet fenland. aside)unique. Unlike the regionally near-uniform distribution of hillforts,Glastonburys are apparently not to be found in every wetland embayment.(That so many `unduplicatable' sites were found early must tell ofthe physical apparentness of `importance' and also theorchestration orchestrationArt of choosing which instruments to use for a given piece of music. The sections of the orchestra historically were separate ensembles: the stringed instruments for indoors, the woodwind instruments for outdoors, the horns for hunting, and trumpets and drums of broad public appreciation during the infancy of thesubject). The volume is significant for a number of reasons and will surelyhave a major place in the Glastonbury pantheon. It is amongst the firstmajor studies to address seriously the many problems of indeterminableorganic, settlement structure. Claiming, moreover, to depose To make a deposition; to give evidence in the shape of a deposition; to make statements that are written down and sworn to; to give testimony that is reduced to writing by a duly qualified officer and sworn to by the deponent. a majormodel of prehistoric settlement (Clarke 1972), it inadvertently raisesthe critical issue of what site reports do - do they represent proof orare they acts of authoritative faith? Structurally `componented', Clarke's model clearly drewheavily upon African village studies, and both Celtic and classicalliterary sources. It has been tremendously influential in the study oflater prehistoric settlements within Britain, particularly concerningthe pairing of round houses. Whether as Clarke proposed, this relates toengendered male/ female structures is extremely questionable, but thetwo-fold pattern is certainly real. This building pairing is apparentfor approximately half of the contemporary structures in Coles &Minnitt's phase plans (present within all but their terminalhorizon). No explanation is offered for this pattern, which must lead usto question whether (negative) evidence alone can dismantle anattractive model, or only a further model. Whilst immensely stimulating,there is no getting around the fact that Clarke's model isunconvincing un��con��vinc��ing?adj.Not convincing: gave an unconvincing excuse.un - the module is too `neat' to be true. Few Africanvillages ever obey their `type' model, nor kinship patterns theirproclaimed norm. The point, of course, is whether people were thinkingthat they were following, however vaguely, an established pattern. The authors of this volume are damning in their dismissal ofClarke's analysis and (considering the eight pages given to itscritique) it would seem that a major tenet of their agenda was to laythe model to rest. A key issue in all this is the proof that Coles &Minnitt muster for their interpretation, which ultimately rests upontheir demonstration of floor sequences. Employing many lists and tables,they are probably closer to `the truth', but for all the assembleddata they do not actually prove their point. The matrices from the siteare not published in full (figure 4.3. is partial), there are very fewsections (either Bulleid & Gray's originals or reconstructions)and, in the end, it is difficult to understand the basis of phasing. Itappears to operate on a principle of uniformitarianism - eachre-surfacing represents a standard unit of use or time - if so, Idon't believe it. This, amidst so much organic mess, is toomechanical. It lacks a concept of specific household history andreference to pottery sequences. The `proof' at the core of theargument is missing and much of the volume reads rather like an archivereport - the approach is promising but requires further development. To facilitate what they hoped to achieve would take a much largeranalysis project (one suspects that pottery re-fitting might be thekey). Therefore, whilst a major contribution to the site, it is unlikelyto be the last word. Glastonbury now exists as a series or lineage ofhistoriographic entities - Forestier's Valhalla-likereconstructions and Clarke's seductively neat illustrationsindelibly mark the discipline's imagination - one suspects that itwill long continue to haunt us, evading our concepts, tables and models. ReferencesBARRETT, J. 1987. The Glastonbury Lake Village: models and sourcecritisism, Archaeological Journal 144: 409-23. CLARK, J.G.D. 1939.Archaeology and society. London: Methuen. CLARKE, D.L. 1972. Aprovisional model of an Iron Age society and its settlement system, inD.L. Clarke (ed.), Models in archaeology: 801-85. London: Methuen.COLES, J., A. GOODALL & S. MINNITT. 1992. Arthur Bulleid and theGlastonbury Lake Village (1892-1922). Taunton: Somerset Levels The Somerset Levels (or Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly, but more correctly, called) is a sparsely populated wetland area of central Somerset, England, between the Quantock and Mendip hills. Project& Somerset County Somerset County is the name of four counties in the United States and one in England.See: Somerset, England Somerset County, Maine Somerset County, Maryland Somerset County, New Jersey Somerset County, Pennsylvania Museums Service. QUENNELL, M. & C.H.B.QUENNELL. 1922. Everyday life in the New Stone, Bronze and Early IronAges. London.