John Lewis et al. Landscape Evolution in the Middle Thames Valley: Heathrow Terminal 5 Excavations Volume 1, Perry Oaks (Framework Archaeology Monograph 1).

John Lewis et al. Landscape Evolution in the Middle Thames Valley: Heathrow Terminal 5 Excavations Volume 1, Perry Oaks (Framework Archaeology Monograph 1). JOHN LEWIS et al. Landscape Evolution in the Middle Thames Valley This article is about the Thames Valley in southern England. For New Zealand's Thames Valley region, see Thames Valley, New Zealand, or for the ITV region in the United Kingdom, see ITV Thames Valley. :Heathrow Terminal 5 Excavations Volume 1, Perry Oaks (FrameworkArchaeology Monograph 1). xii+250 pages, 122 b&w & colourfigures, 56 colour plates, 30 tables, CD-ROM. 2006. Oxford &Salisbury: BAA, Oxford Archaeology Oxford Archaeology (formerly the Oxford Archaeological Unit) is, along with MoLAS and Wessex Archaeology, one of the big three private archaeological organisations in the United Kingdom. & Wessex Archaeology Wessex Archaeology is one of the largest private archaeological organisations operating in the United Kingdom, based near Salisbury in WiltshireFounded in 1974 as the Trust for Wessex Archaeology by members of the earlier Wessex Archaeological Committee, it took its present ;978-0-9554519-0-4 hardback 15 [pounds sterling]. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Seeing the working partnership of Britain's premierarchaeological units-Oxford and Wessex (re-branded on the occasion oftheir shared mega-development projects, 'FrameworkArchaeology')--this, the first volume of their flagship,'landscape-scale' excavations for Terminal 5 at HeathrowAirport, has been much-anticipated. Its Barrett-led interpretativemanifesto was published in this journal seven years ago (Andrews et al.2000) and, coming from a project costing millions, with all thiscorporate and intellectual might behind it, this should have been a big,challenging powerhouse of a book. Instead, what we have is a slim,glossy, all-colour narrative account that aspires to be'user-friendly' (its specialist work being relegated to anaccompanying CD), but which can only be classed as a majordisappointment. This volume is concerned with the Perry Oaks sludge works sites tothe west of the airfield, where some 26ha were excavated between 1996and 2000. Twenty-one of these were dug between March and September 1999;given the feature density, this is a staggering achievement. At thispace, the project had to rely on cutting-edge technology, and both itsarchives and publication are very much GIS and data-base oriented. As aconsequence, however, the volume's illustrative figures exhibit acomputer-generated uniformity. They are colourful, but lack detail,there being no large-scale cut-plans of major structures; the sectionsare little more than line-profiles and, generally, the quality of thesite photography is poor. Indeed, what seems an extraordinary omissionis the lack of any overall plan of the excavated segments('interventions'), which is only included on the CD. Whateverthe many concepts that underpin this project's much-vauntedinterpretation, the adjudication The legal process of resolving a dispute. The formal giving or pronouncing of a judgment or decree in a court proceeding; also the judgment or decision given. The entry of a decree by a court in respect to the parties in a case. of archaeological arguments ultimatelypivots on what and how much of any 'thing'--be it a roundhouseor ditch--was dug and this, the most basic information, the (book)reader has no access to. In the volume much attention is, justifiably, paid to two cursusesand an associated small henge monument Archaeologists use the term henge monument to describe a site where a henge is combined with other features such as stone circles, standing stones, barrows, cairns or timber circles.It is different from a hengiform monument which does not involve a true henge. . Otherwise, the sequence isfairly typical of southern England's gravel terraces: minimalevidence of Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the occupation, extensiveMiddle Bronze Age fieldsystems (with six contemporary settlementclusters), a relatively localised swathe swathe?1?tr.v. swathed, swath��ing, swathes1. To wrap or bind with or as if with bandages.2. To enfold or constrict.n.A wrapping, binding, or bandage. of Middle Iron Age settlement(including 18 roundhouses) and widespread Late Iron Age andRomano-British fieldsystems and enclosures. What is atypical is thedegree of truncation incurred through the site's later use as asludge works, accounting for a loss of deposits of 0.50-1.00m acrossmuch of the area; this has implications for the survival of features andmust, in part, account for the generally low finds numbers from thesite, in turn limiting any interpretative potential. With only justunder 6000 animal bone fragments recovered (c. 800 identifiable), it isdifficult to discuss economy in any substantive manner. Indeed,essentially due to the areas truncation, it is a challenge to posit anymeaningful long-term landscape narrative when there is no convincingsettlement evidence (e.g. structures) prior to the Middle Iron Age. Thequestion could, in fact, be raised whether Perry Oaks was actually anappropriate site to launch such an ambitious interpretativeprogramme--truncated sequences will, after all, invariably in��var��i��a��ble?adj.Not changing or subject to change; constant.in��vari��a��bil engendertruncated accounts. Be this as it may, the volume's discussion ofthe layout of the Bronze Age fieldsystem and the teasing-out of itsprobable settlement locales (in light of the loss of the shallowfeatures that are so characteristic of the period's buildings) isboth thorough and nuanced. Arguably, the high point of the volume is theanalysis of the many waterholes contemporary with this system,especially their richly detailed environmental studies, which providemajor insights concerning immediate land-use, economic practices andtheir distance from and interrelationship in��ter��re��late?tr. & intr.v. in��ter��re��lat��ed, in��ter��re��lat��ing, in��ter��re��latesTo place in or come into mutual relationship.in with settlement. Generally, of the volume's approach to interpretation, thereseems to be a yawning chasm between Barrett's introductory'academic aims' and what follows. His structuralconditions/principles of the 'archaeology ofinhabitation'--and advocation that it is the clear interpretativeresponsibility of the excavators that 'ensures that the productionof a coherent and empirically validated site narrative remains thefundamental objective of the excavation programme' (p. 15; asopposed to the primacy of the 'record')--seem to get littleshrift in what comes after (to which Barrett did not contribute per se).This discrepancy is nowhere more apparent than in the volume'ssingle-page 'epilogue' (there being no final discussionchapter), whose key terms of reference--imbalances and equilibriums('structure/-ing' gets no look-in) -while perhaps appropriateto landscape evolution, are actually those of systems theory. Throughout the book, there is basically only a unified'landscape narrative' (aside from colour-highlightedspecialist quotations); there is no specific or dissenting'excavator's voices or interpretation', nor any sense ofthe 'on-site construction of history' or 'free text'(Andrews et al. 2000: 530). In this regard, given their respectivevolume's results, Hodder's Catalhoyuk series has been moresuccessful, providing much specialist detail but retaining throughout adegree of multivocality; as such, it seems truer to its 'missionstatement' (Hodder 1997). (It is, though, difficult to establishwhether a more explicitly 'open' interpretative text wasintended for the Heathrow volumes or if this is limited to its database,which eventually will be available through ADS.) In contrast to its aspirations, this volume displays a certaininterpretative naivete na��ive��t��or na��?ve��t�� ?n.1. The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical.2. An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act. . Emphasising long-term continuity,ritual/ceremony and 'place' (e.g. Neolithic pit deposits arede facto [Latin, In fact.] In fact, in deed, actually.This phrase is used to characterize an officer, a government, a past action, or a state of affairs that must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. assumed to only mark the latter; p. 30), it oscillates betweenwell-rehearsed, generic modes of landscape development/explanation andface-value 'immediacy'. By way of example, as it saw no newmonument construction, Heathrow's Peterborough Ware Peterborough ware is a decorated pottery style of the later British Neolithic. It is known for the impressed pits made by bone or wood implements in its sides. Whipped cord was also used to make circular 'maggot' patterns. phase is termed'The Period of Contentment' (p. 86). Equally, not seeingobvious harbingers of high status during the earlier Bronze Age withinits environs, the advent of second millennium BC fieldsystems is thoughtto reflect the 'egalitarian' nature of its community (p. 92).In much the same way, the establishment of Heathrow's first cursusis held to mark a 'revolution' within the local landscape (p.30), but no attempt is made to relate this monument to others nearby(i.e. off-site), such as the Staines causewayed enclosure Causewayed enclosures are a type of large prehistoric earthworks common to the early Neolithic Europe. More than 100 examples are recorded in France, 70 in England and further sites are known in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland and Slovakia. .Landscape-sequence interpretation curtailed by theedge-of-excavation--no matter how vast the site--will always seem, ifnot arbitrary, then conveniently 'over-complete'. There is, infact, a self-contained quality to the volume as a whole, giving littlesense of the wider area (the background setting section is rathercursory and with insufficient reference to specific plans or maps; p.11-14). Highly questionable is the volume's arguments relating to thelong continuity of the first cursus with the Mesolithic activity in thearea. This hinges upon three severely truncated burnt flint pits(producing no diagnostic finds of the period whatsoever), which feltwithin its ditch axis and which are dated, by thermoluminescence thermoluminescenceEmission of light from certain heated substances as a result of previous exposure to high-energy radiation. The radiation causes displacement of electrons within the crystal lattice of the substance. alone,to the seventh millennium cal BC. While argued in reference to theMesolithic post settings now known at Stonehenge, to so construe construev. to determine the meaning of the words of a written document, statute or legal decision, based upon rules of legal interpretation as well as normal meanings. a'mountain' of millennium-long continuity on such a'molehill' of evidence seems flimsy at best. With its narrative 'hard-copy' so pruned of specialist ordata content, a measure of fulsomeness and innovation might have beenexpected of the volume's accompanying CD, but this is not the case.Certainly, it is a privilege to have direct access to the project'sGIS, period-based artefact See artifact. distribution plots. Yet, for the most part,the accompanying specialist reports are perfunctory, with an absoluteminimum of finds illustration (e.g. only one Romano-British vessel and10 flints). Generally, these contributions are rather pedestrian,reminiscent of 'grey-literature'. Like so much of the bookitself, they are under-developed. Part of one's unease with this volume is the knowledge thatthe Heathrow project has been held up as a model format for'new' site publication and promoted in English Heritage/CountyCuratorial-sponsored 'how to publish sites' seminars. In fact,earlier this year (before the publication of Heathrow), I was the readerfor a landscape-excavation volume by an entirely different organisation,and that was pretty well exactly in this format. Also consigning allspecialist work to CD and with colourful GIS-style graphics throughout,its inexperienced author had felt pressurised to produce a'data-unencumbered' excavation narrative; it was not asuccess. Strip away the subtlety of specialist detail, and most of thelandscapes of southern England--and their ensuing narratives--willsuffer from an intrinsic 'same-ness'. Their sequences, untothemselves, are not necessarily 'interesting' and all become asimilar and often banal story of the long-term taming of the Mesolithic'wildwood'. While certainly acknowledging that there is greatscope for innovation in the balance of interpretation and presentationof data, one has to question whether volumes of this ilk are the bestthat British developer-funded archaeology can aspire to, and only hopethat such 'easy' formats are not the sole future of sitepublication. References ANDREWS, G., J.C. BARRETT & J.S.C. LEWIS. 2000. Interpretationnot record: the practice of archaeology. Antiquity 74: 525-30. HODDER, I. 1997. 'Always momentary, fluid and flexible':towards a reflexive excavation methodology. Antiquity 71: 691-700. CHRISTOPHER EVANS Cambridge Archaeological Unit, University of Cambridge, UK (Email: cje30@cam.ac.uk)