WAC Newford Pyre

1

The

Newford

pyre:

fiery

debates

at

the

trowels

edge.

Brendon Wilkins. Paper presented to WAC 06, Dublin, 2008.

Abstract

Recent

decades

have

seen

a

proliferation

of

new

scientific

approaches

to

archaeological

material.

These

studies

have

added

impetus

to

long

-

standing

archaeological

debates,

but

they

have

also

resulted

in

a

disciplinary

divergence

of

archaeological

science

from

humanities

-

based

interpretive

archaeology.

This

paper

explores

how

these

issues

connect

with

a

site

excavated

on

the

N6

Galway

to

Ballinasloe

road

scheme

in

Ireland.

The

site

posed

significant

interpretive

problems

to

excavators,

with

some

features

(such

as

a

Bronze

Age

pyre)

that

were

very

clearly

defined

but

had

few

recorded

parallels,

and

other

more

enigmatic

features

that

may

or

may

not

have

been

token

cremation

burials,

but

were

undetermined

by

the

evidence.

Interpretation

at

the

‘trowels

edge’

is

taken

to

refer

to

the

greater

involvement

of

specialists

at

excavation

stage,

enabling

the

record

to

be

interrogated

for

more

archaeologically

relevant

answers.

This

paper

is

about

what

happened

when

we

put

that

theory

into

practice.

Introduction

Why does a dog wag its tail? In the film ‘Wag the Dog,’ a Washington spin‐doctordistracts the electorate from a U.S. presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywoodproducer to construct a fake war with Albania. The thinly disguised plot satirisedthe Clinton sex scandal, with reference to the Gulf War as an electoral tactic, and itsbased on the classic Christmas cracker, “Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dogis smarter than its tail (if the tail was smarter than the dog then the tail would wagthe dog!)”. Although we have a dog at my mums that remains the exception to therule.The moral of the tale is the absurdity of something of greater significance – theelectorate (or the dog) – being driven by something of lesser significance – themedia and government (or in this case the tail). The film also drew on seriousthemes, as outlined in the book “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place” by JeanBaudrillard. The point he makes is that despite massive bloodshed, the first Gulf warwas relayed to us as a masquerade of edited images and information that bore littlerelation to the reality of war. Governments made decisions and consensus wasreached with the electorate, several steps away from what might be called by thissessions abstract, the Heart of Matters.

2

The

problem

It’s this theme I want to pursue in this very short contribution, drawing out some of the interpretive problems we had interpreting a commercially excavated Bronze agepyre. In many respects the theory/practice divide in archaeology is a wag the dogsituation. As a commercially employed field archaeologist, I enter the field with alegally binding method statement (in Ireland) or written scheme of investigation (inthe UK). Once the topsoil has been stripped by machine to the level of the naturalsubsoil, I’m confronted by a cacophony of chaos. To the untrained eye these arenothing more than dark splodges and amorphous blobs, but I can see at least 70archaeological features, and put a costed time prediction on how long the site willtake to excavate.Herein lies the nub of the interpretive dilemma. How we excavate a feature,especially in the commercial sector, will be determined to some extent by a priordecision that the feature is worth investigating, and inevitably an idea will form of what that feature is. Our methodologies box, bag, label and record finds and samplesfrom these features. These are then dispersed to a range of absentee specialists whothen report back their results for inclusion in a final integrated report. But in manyrespects this magnifies the interpretive dilemma to a new order of magnitude.In relation to this session’s theme – the archaeologies of humanity – specialists maybe called upon to investigate the meaning of a particular burial or cremation,analysing temporal and spatial distribution, sex, age or pathological conditions – but these are modern analytical categories derived from medical science. In manyrespects we have already decided the most important thing about it when we call it a burial, and the possibility of understanding anything new and surprising isdramatically lessened. This is of crucial importance, because we study the past not to mirror ourselves, but to understand past societies in terms of their social contextsand lived experiences. The first question a theoretically engaged field archaeologymust address is: how do we stop the tail wagging the dog?

The

Site

The amorphous blobs I showed you earlier were excavated in the townland of Newford

,

Co. Galway, approximately 1.5 km southwest of Athenry. The naturalsubsoil was golden brown, texture like sand. We found a pyre associated with acomplex arrangement of structural post‐holes, some of which contained burnt bonethat may have been deliberately deposited as part of final burial rites.Of the 73‐recorded features, there were 5 pits (four with burnt bone), 44 post‐holes/stake holes (seven of which contained burnt bone), and 18 post‐holes/stakeholes with multiple fills (three of which contained burnt bone). The small quantityof cremated bone recovered from 14 of these features amounted to just 3% of theoverall cremated bone recovered from the site. It occurred in such small quantities

3

that we weren’t able to identify it as definitely human. But the deposit was definitelyplaced into the primary fills, with a high composition of charcoal. If these weretoken cremation burials, the quantity of burnt bone is much less than we might expect, but this bone was unlikely to have been windblown secondary deposition,because the date estimations place this phase at the beginning of the first millennium BC, with the pyre coming at least 100 years later.The field evidence for the pyre was unequivocal. It had slightly irregular verticalsides and a flat but slightly irregular base sloping towards the south‐west. It was 2.6m in length, 2 m in width and 0.75 m deep, and contained a number of separatedeposits, including a concentration of burnt human bone. An area of iron pan andspilling of the fill was located to the west of the feature and incorporated throughout the fills, and the pyre truncated a post‐hole that may have been part of the earlierphase just outlined.So how should we characterise this site? Was this a domestic site followed someyears later by a funerary site? The pits and post‐holes didn’t make any pattern that could be readily interpreted as an upstanding building, and the lack of otherindicators for settlement debris argued against this being the site of a domesticbuilding. And what about the minute evidence for burnt bone? Was this a cremationcemetery, the location for secondary funerary rites that was then used for primaryrites of a single individual?

Theory/practice

divide

The site posed significant interpretive problems, with some features (such as aBronze Age pyre) that were very clearly defined but had few recorded parallels, andother more enigmatic features that may or may not have been token cremationburials, but were undetermined by the evidence.At least part of the problem arises from how archaeologists and its multitude of separate specialists, stand in relation to the material data. As well as archaeologicalscientists, I would also include commercially employed field archaeologists in this asa breed of specialist excavators. The disciplinary division between archaeologicalscience and interpretive archaeology is problematic, especially when attempting toincorporate knowledge produced using a scientific methodology into an interpretivesynthesis. The problem remains one of retaining a rationalist core of knowledgeonto which culturally specific understandings can be mapped. As specialists, we areconcerned with such questions as how old is the sample or feature underinvestigation, where did it come from, and how has it been modified throughtaphonomic processes. These are questions arising from difficulties in interpretingthe data rather than an attempt to understanding how the implications of suchconclusions can be used for understanding human behaviour in the past.