Etton: excavations at a Neolithic causewayed enclosure near Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982-7.

Etton: excavations at a Neolithic causewayed enclosure near Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982-7. FRANCIS PRYOR Francis Pryor is a British archaeologist who is famous for his role in the discovery of Flag Fen, a Bronze Age archeological site near Peterborough, and for his frequent appearances on the Channel 4 television series Time Team. . Etton: excavations at a Neolithic causewayedenclosure 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. near Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982-7 (English Heritage English Heritage is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. It was set up under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983. Archaeological Report 18). xxi+429 pages, 255 figures, 96 tables, 77microfiche Pronounced "micro-feesh." A 4x6" sheet of film that holds several hundred miniaturized document pages. See micrographics. tables. 1999. London: English Heritage; 1-85074-681-8paperback [pounds sterling]70. As `first enclosures," causewayed enclosures have proven a keyproblem in European archaeology and certainly they dominate thearchaeological landscape of the earlier British Neolithic. Like blindmen describing the elephant, our apparent inability adequately tocharacterize these multi-faceted sites must essentially reflect afailure to conceive of Verb 1. conceive of - form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case; "Can you conceive of him as the president?"envisage, ideate, imagine their totality and, ultimately, of analogy -- arethey ritual and/or domestic? Etton, which, with Sharpies' MaidenCastle (1991), sees the first publication of a series of excavations onsuch enclosures undertaken throughout the 1980s, is a welcome additionto `scale the elephant'. Marking `time' and disciplinary change, Etton resonates beyondits immediate results. Aside from its waterlogged remains, the enclosurebecame renowned for the placed ritual `packages' along itssegmented ditches. Over the decade since its excavation, much discussedand cited, it is one of the sites that have been central to theestablishment of a near-ritual orthodoxy in later British prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to .Between its excavation and publication a sea-change occurred ininterpretation, which attests to the dominance of vaguelyethnographically-inspired structuralist approaches. Typical of thesedevelopments, Etton does not reflect the impact of subsequentpost-structuralist theory, that is the historical andpractical/disciplinary construction of knowledge. To this extent, whiletheoretically informed and having a strong narrative quality, keycategories and concepts are left `unproblematized'. Be that as itmay, the site's publication is disproportionately important forwhat it tells of disciplinary change and the actual role ofdemonstration -- how minor a part the latter seems to have played inthis wider process and whether a distinct post-processual methodologyexists or if it is just a matter of revitalising pre-New archaeologicalpractices. Of course, this equally reflects upon the much-ponderedquestion the role of the site report. Given the inevitable delay betweenfinal publication and the immediate impact of conference papers andinterim reports (and the pace of theoretical change), can they or shouldthey strive to be theoretically challenging or should their main thrustbe towards `usefulness'? Etton follows a traditional format and approximately two-thirds ofits length is given to specialist reportage. Particularly noteworthy areTaylor's (wood), Edmonds' (axes) and the collective impact ofits many environmental studies. Yet, presented as a 244-page long blockin the middle of the volume (with little prime author comment), theproblem with this formula is that any sense of overview must ultimatelyrely on the final discussion. This is entirely without illustration, sothat the reader must wade back through the text trying to trace keydistributions and phasing figures. Given the detail of much of theargument, additional illustrations or a back-pocket master plan wouldsurely have been of assistance. Little justice has otherwise been doneto the site through the volume's production -- some tables arereproduced much too large, there are problems with computer-generatedgrey-scale and a number of the distribution figures are over-reduced andverge on being unintelligible UNINTELLIGIBLE. That which cannot be understood. 2. When a law, a contract, or will, is unintelligible, it has no effect whatever. Vide Construction, and the authorities there referred to. . Its overall quality certainly pales incontrast to Andersen's Sarup (1997). Is this the best that EnglishHeritage can stretch to? One suspects, moreover, heavy-handed editing.While the report abounds in lists and there are numerous tables relatingto the site's ditch phasing, the figures are simply not there tosupport it and the sequencing is not easy to fathom. Invariably in��var��i��a��ble?adj.Not changing or subject to change; constant.in��vari��a��bil involving the mobilization (and pruning) of mountains ofdata, reportage of complex sites is made all the more difficult astechnical competence technical competence,n the ability of the practitioner, during the treatment phase of dental care and with respect to those procedures combining psychomotor and cognitive skills, consistently to provide services at a professionally acceptable level. increases and, for example, the distinction ofintense sequences of ditch re-cut becomes increasingly commonplace. Thechoice, particularly in the case of causewayed enclosures -- already afractured site form -- is whether to present data and distributions inphase-determined fragmentation (to the point that they compete withurban sequences) or instead emphasize their elusive `totality'. Itis not so much that Etton is over-phased, but whether phase-blocking, atleast for its Neolithic usage, should so dominate the findspresentation. With its impending destruction through quarrying, Etton offered arare opportunity to investigate an enclosure in its near entirety.Including phosphate/magnetic susceptibility surveys and extensivetesting of artefact See artifact. densities, the sampling programme across itsinterior was both thorough and innovative, and this is amongst the firstpublications to present a methodology to tackle buried soildistributions. Much is made of the apparent bipartite division betweenthe enclosure's western and eastern halves -- respectively, ifcrudely paraphrased, the domains of the living and dead. Lacking anoverall plot of human bone remains, this is not particularly convincingand one's unease with this interpretation is furthered by the factthat the slight ditch and fence-line thought to demarcate de��mar��cate?tr.v. de��mar��cat��ed, de��mar��cat��ing, de��mar��cates1. To set the boundaries of; delimit.2. To separate clearly as if by boundaries; distinguish: demarcate categories. this divideseems to exactly complement the Iron Age/Roman fieldsystem. Yet, whilstperhaps questioning the `grand' interpretative blocking of theenclosure, Pryor's discussion of the interaction of ritual depositsand how association may have altered the symbolic attributes ofsame-type artefacts (e.g. Mildenhall bowls) is stimulating andthought-provoking. Spread across the interior of the enclosure were some 120 `smallfilled pits'. With a number having `pyre-like' fills (i.e.burnt) and high artefact densities, seemingly backfilled almostimmediately upon their digging, these are also allotted to ritualactivity. Having strong parallels with Clark's Hurst Fen (whereunfortunately the finds from only a small proportion of such featureswere quantified; Clark 1960), given all that is otherwise listed inEtton, it is surprising that full finds concordance tables are notprovided for these (artefact frequency by weight/ number). As it isthese pits that have the greatest affinity to what is generallyunderstood to be Neolithic settlement `architecture', their defacto [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. ritual assignment seems arbitrary. The Etton enclosure certainly saw many incontestable ritualdeposits. From the recovery of human skulls at the ditch terminals --not an infrequent find in causewayed enclosures -- a chain oftransformations are proposed, by which inverted pots and pecked stoneselsewhere along the circuit come to symbolise such cranial cranial/cra��ni��al/ (-al)1. pertaining to the cranium.2. toward the head end of the body; a synonym of superior in humans and other bipeds.cra��ni��aladj. settings.While the logic behind such associations is compelling, it is difficultto demonstrate and present. Less convincing are arguments relating tothe finds `packages' along the length of ditch segments, for whichthe very linearity of the arrangements -- rather than just being aby-product of deposition within weathered profiles -- becomes itself anattribute of ritual activity. What seems to be largely missing here isany potential redeposition Noun 1. redeposition - deposition from one deposit to anotherdeposition, deposit - the natural process of laying down a deposit of something of middened refuse. This is surprising givenhow midden-related depositional studies featured in the first Maxeyvolume (Crowther in Pryor & French 1985) and this omission dismissesany possible domestic interaction in favour of ritual placement.Generally, Etton's ritual `logic' risks becoming much tooall-embracing and verges on circularity. In the final paragraphs, Pryor remarks that the approach taken mayperhaps have been too local. The volume must, of course, be set withinthe context of Pryor's great and now long-term project of workwithin the Lower Welland valley and at Fengate/ Flag Fen, with much ofthe relevant landscape and site context for Etton still forthcoming.Nevertheless, the framing of Etton is very much within a sequence ofmonument construction: the Maxey henge hengeNouna circular monument, often containing a circle of stones, dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages [from Stonehenge] , its many ring-ditches, and twocursuses. Despite the intensity of work in the landscape, littleEarly/Middle Neolithic occupation has been recovered. Longterm landscapesequences will always tell a story, but the local-only may be aninadequate framework to address such near-pan-European phenomenon ascausewayed enclosures. Despite whatever shortcomings, Etton is an impressive and importantreport. This is not only as a further contribution to the archaeology ofthe Lower Welland Valley and Fenland studies, but also as marking aphase or trend in prehistoric practice in general. While testifying tothe advances made over the last two decades within the `archaeology ofmonuments', it equally emphasises the need to articulate theirstudy with the domestic. Unlike, for example, henges, it is clear in thecase of causewayed enclosures that ritual/domestic is not a matter ofeither/or. Both are components of `the elephant' and the challengeremains to find an appropriate language to integrate them. References Andersen. N.H. 1997. The Sarup Enclosures (I). Moesgaard: JutlandArchaeological Society Publications 33. Clark, J.G.D. 1960. Excavations at the Neolithic Site at Hurst Fen,Mildenhall, Suffolk (1954,1957 and 1958). Proceedings of the PrehistoricSociety 11,202-45. Pryor, F.M.M. and French, C.A.I. 1985. The Fenland Project 1.Archaeology and Environment in the Lower Welland Valley. Cambridge: EastAnglian Research Report 27. CHRISTOPHER EVANS Cambridge Archaeological Unit