caroline – Page 22 – Caroline Wickham-Jones

The Power of the Periphery

Scotland as seen from the north. — Sometimes it helps to alter your focus in order to see things differently. This map was produced by Kenny Swinney of Orkney Islands Council for my book: *Between the Wind and the Water*.

There is a lot of discussion today about the power of the centre versus the power of the periphery. It is a question that transcends disciplines. In politics we see debate over the role of ordinary people in shaping both policy and institutions – there are numerous examples to be drawn from our own experience as in the Brexit vote, or the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn and we can also draw examples from the experience of others such as the continuing support for Donald Trump. Examples can be strategic and serious as in the events of the failed coup in Turkey, or more light-hearted and tactical, as in the debate (and eventual compromise) over the naming of a new polar research vessel: in this case it is the remote sub-sea vehicles that will bear the popular name of Boaty McBoatface. It occurs to me that people, us, are beginning to feel empowered as never before.

The old adage, ‘act local, think global’, is finally coming to fruition.

This is not just a matter of politics. It is something that affects many other aspects of our lives. One theme that came strongly out of the presentations and debates at CHAT2016, which I attended in Kirkwall recently (convenient), was the way in which communities are increasingly taking the lead in identifying the form and shape of their heritage. You might say that archaeologists have been keen for many years to involve local people in archaeology projects. And indeed this is so. Professionals have been working hard to give a voice to local people. But that is exactly my point. The difference today is that it is the people, not the professionals, who are leading the projects. The situation is no longer the rather patronizing one where we, as professionals, came into an area and identified ‘worthwhile projects’ with which people might like to become involved. Today, local groups are often in existence long before they bring in the archaeologists. In this way, and especially with regard to the archaeology and history of more recent years, we are beginning to create a record of the past that presents the view of those who experienced it, rather than those who have been trained to investigate it.

It is a new view of the professional: as facilitator, rather than instigator, but it is an exciting development. One in which our skills become truly worthwhile. There are numerous examples in other disciplines: self-publishing; pop-up cafes and shops; even Uber? Finally, the age of ‘Power to the People’ has arrived. I’m wondering why?

I’m wondering whether this is the real revolution of social media. The common use of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all the other platforms has fostered an atmosphere in which we have all come to believe that we have authority. We recognise now that what we have to say is worthwhile. Social media, facilitated by broadband and 4G, allows our views to be shared, picked up, passed on, and enhanced. So, for the first time, we all have a voice that can travel. We have the power to organise. Of course, it has to be used with care, but it is a voice that increasingly, collectively, has power.

I’m not sure where this is leading us. There is something inherently unsettling about breaking away from the power of authority and I have a feeling that we may be in for some challenging developments. Our new world will, no doubt, require great powers of negotiation and compromise. Things may not always be done as we might like. But, in the long run, we will get used to things and I feel, I hope, that it will be positive. It is certainly bringing new and positive angles to our experiences of the past.

House and home

camp — Camp on the Pamir plateau, 1988. Those who live in houses such as this often abide by strict social norms.

I’ve been discussing the design of Late Neolithic houses in Orkney. Is it an economic and efficient use of space or is it constrained by something else? Is it a product of a highly ritualised society, or just ‘something that works’?

I’m struck by the way in which the interior fittings of the houses resemble the layout of similar structures such as yurts and tipis. Faegri’s book ‘Architecture of the Nomads’, which has long been a favourite of mine, illustrates examples of both circular and rectangular houses where the sacred area lies across the hearth from the entrance and where the spaces to either side of the fire are separated (usually by gender, sometimes by age, and occasionally between family and visitors). Of course, there is only a limited number of ways in which a family can live in a restricted single-room space such as this. But it is interesting that over the millennia, so many communities seem to have done so very successfully. The concepts of privacy and adequate space with which we tend to judge archaeological dwellings are very western and very modern.

Everything at Skara Brae revolved around the central hearth; this is an obvious place to have your heating and cooking area, though some have expressed surprise that it takes up so much space. It is important to remember that the actual fire does not need to fill the hearth stone. The hearth stone itself can have greater significance than simply retaining fire; more prosaically, it can provide a necessary boundary between people and fire, as well as offering space on which to set pots and anything else that may need to dry or be kept warm. Immediately opposite the door, across the fire and probably only visible through smoke as you enter, lies the ‘dresser’. This was once interpreted as straightforward domestic shelving, but is now seen as something a little more complex, somewhere between an altar and show cupboard, depending on your views. To either side of the hearth are large stone compartments, interpreted as beds. In the earlier houses these are set back into the wall and bear a strong resemblance to the stone beds set into the walls of 17^th century Orkney farmhouses. The assumption is that, as with the historic box bed in Orkney, they were slept in by several members of a family group at any one time. There are other features: stone-lined pits, a compartment for rubbish, a wall-cell, together these form the principal elements that made up a home for the Neolithic inhabitants of Orkney.

We assume that each individual house was inhabited by an extended family. In order for any group to survive in this restricted space, it is clear that rules must have existed and been carefully adhered to. This is common practice, measures like this develop in any society to stop us getting on top of one another as well as to maintain the social norms afforded to gender and age. They might seem a little harsh, but in reality we all adhere strictly to social convention with regard to our own homes: when visiting a friend, it is not ‘done’ to wander into their bedroom and shuffle through the drawers; we are careful in the sitting room; and offer to help in the kitchen. Think of the number of teenagers whose rooms become a haven set apart from the rigours of the adult world. I guess that a successful social norm is one that you hardly notice.

Yurts provide a good example of the deeper meaning that can reside within a house structure. Both Faegri, and Oliver in his book ‘Dwellings’, discuss the way in which the layout of the interior has come to represent the cosmos for those who inhabit them. Interestingly, both consider how the structure, though circular, incorporates hidden rectangles representing the four corners of the Earth (pages 92 – 93). These can be indicated by the placing of posts or significant furnishings as well as by the use of a substantial hearth stone. It is of course possible to determine a similar transformation at Skara Brae not only with the hearth and other fittings but between the straight-sided interior and the curved walls of the exterior. I’ve noted a similar feature: ‘the square inside the circle’, at other monuments here in Orkney, such as Barnhouse, as well as at sites like Stonehenge. Oliver notes the way in which this is a powerful motif in Buddhist symbolism, representing the male and the female in life. Today it is used by UNESCO to signify the duality between nature (the circle) and culture (the square).

Some find the houses at Skara Brae horribly uniform and impersonal. Yet many of our own housing estates demonstrate uniformity, especially those of the immediate post-war years, but it doesn’t mean that we live in an egalitarian utopia. This would be to forget people’s ability to decorate and alter. We see the mere stone bones of the houses. The Neolithic dweller had numerous ways to personalize their space. Archaeology is always simple and monochrome, but the creative had texture, colour, and shape to make use of. Hides, felt, wool itself, plant materials: the possibilities are (and were) endless.

The houses of Late Neolithic Orkney did not arise out of nothing, though some argue that they went on to influence Neolithic house-building across the UK. With the introduction of farming there were so many changes, including, perhaps, an initial and short-lived need for accommodation that suited slightly larger groups as evidenced by the aisled (or stalled) halls at sites like Crathes, that it is not surprising to see some change through the period. Colin Richards has recently devoted much effort to discussing the transformations that triggered the appearance of the familiar Skara Brae-type house. His argument encompasses a wider field than simple construction needs to consider social and cultural developments at the time and it is a compelling theory. Of course he is right to look beyond mere physical shape, but it is also interesting to note the general trend for ‘round houses’ that both precedes and follows the Neolithic. The structures at Skara Brae do seem complex in their detail in comparison to surviving Mesolithic and Bronze Age evidence, but it is hard to judge to what extent this is a factor of the medium in which they were built. The available slabs of Orcadian stone allow for the survival of detail which the average Mesolithic and Bronze Age house-builder can only envy.

So, what is my over-riding conclusion? Are these houses special and different? Where did they come from? I’d prefer to avoid applying our value-laden urban ideas of what might have been needed and how to achieve it. Our needs differ so greatly from those of the average farmer 5000 years ago. If anything, I’d see the Early Neolithic houses as indicative of the introduction of new ideas rather than the later ones. To my eye, the type of dwelling that we see at Skara Brae represents a clever blend of Early Neolithic design with previous norms of circularity.

Whatever its origin, I am convinced that it was simply ‘what you lived in’, if you happened to be among the farming community in Orkney 5000 years ago.

No Rural Idyll

Ness of Gruting neolithic farm — Remains of the Neolithic farmstead on the hillside at Ness of Gruting

Standing on a windswept hillside in the Northern Isles one cannot help but feel the utmost admiration for our ancestors. We may think that we are technologically more advanced, but as you wander among the ruins of the small farm steadings and their fields that dot the slopes it seems nothing short of miraculous that anyone could produce enough food to support a family here. I’ve been exploring the remains from two very different periods: the Neolithic farms of western Shetland and the Viking farms of Unst. Each evening I have returned to my hotel only too glad of the trappings of modern society: hot water, a warm house, electricity and good, varied food.

The relict agricultural landscapes here are wonderful, and well worth exploring. In many places houses and fields still dot the hillside with little of the overlying debris of more recent centuries. It is an evocative experience to wander among the remains and consider the way in which a place so tranquil once rang to the sound of children, dogs, working people and beasts, together with the smells of peat fire, home cooking and farm debris.

Of course there are many factors at play here. First of all, we have the twin elements of weather and climate. I experienced Shetland during the worst summer storms for a long time (as I write this my flight home was delayed). The times when these landscapes really came alive and the farmsteads were thriving coincided with more clement periods – though not perhaps so very different: a mere change of a degree in temperature or so; a shift in the jet stream; or a few years of better weather, could all make the difference between a good harvest and a bad.

There are also the expectations of the community. Today we all rely on access to washing machines, plenty of food, adequate clothing, and warm homes. But you don’t have to go far back in time to find people for whom life was very different. It always amazes me to consider the photos of rural life a hundred years ago or so that one sees in local museums. There are women bringing peat down from the hillside in great baskets – the loads alone are impressive but what really catches my eye is the fact that in many cases the people depicted are barefoot. We might be worried about hypothermia and a host of other problems but standards were different in the past.

Nevertheless, I don’t want to denigrate the effort and hardship of previous generations. I’m sure that people felt cold, tired, miserable and hungry much of the time. Most of us have forgotten how it is to rely on our own hard work in order to survive. When we need food we go to the supermarket. When we need heat we turn up the gas or electricity. Those who farmed the hillsides of Britain in times past experienced a very basic level of survival. Life could turn on a shoestring. When times were hard, when they could not harvest an adequate crop, when they could not support the animals through a wet summer or a cold winter, then people died. The hillsides that we wander for recreation today may look romantic, but life there was no agricultural idyll in the past.

I’m still left in awe of those who made their homes here in years gone by!

Neolithic Catastrophes

I’ve recently been consulted on the reasons for the ‘end’ of the Neolithic. I find it a strange question.

Take a look around you – what do you see? Of course the Neolithic ended, or we would still be living in Skara Brae type settlements. It is called ‘the passage of time’ and it is mixed with human inquisitiveness and inventiveness.

I realise that it is a bit more complex than that. After the apparent sophistication of Neolithic Orkney, Bronze Age Orkney appears on the surface to be somewhat drab in comparison. We have far fewer sites, settlement seems to have shifted away from the coast to isolated farmsteads rather than communal villages (though the new find at Cata Sands might negate that trend), burial becomes largely an individual matter of small earthen barrows and the raising of great stone circles and other monuments seems to stop. All this at a time when research by Michelle Farrell and Jane Bunting and their colleagues indicates that the climate got wetter and perhaps windier. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that some sort of archaeological disaster must have befallen the Neolithic population of Orkney. In reality the evidence suggests that only later in the Bronze Age did farming become more difficult.

The terms ‘Neolithic’ and ‘Bronze Age’ are just archaeological constructs used by us to define suites of evidence that, to our eyes, differ from one another. They are archaeological pigeonholes. We can only apply these terms when the nature of the evidence differs enough to distinguish one ‘period’ from another. This has the effect of exaggerating the distinction between the periods. As archaeologists one of our tasks is to investigate whether the apparent distinction is actually more of a gradation.

Curiously, with regard to one transformation that one might regard as major, that from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers, archaeologists are now happy to recognise a period of two or three centuries during which the slow processes of change mean that it is very difficult to recognise whether a site actually practised farming and used all the ‘stuff’ that we now recognise as truly Neolithic. But it seems that this sort of subtlety still eludes the study of some other periods.

With regard to the ‘arrival’ of the Bronze Age, there was certainly considerable change over time. But we have long recognised that for the general farming household of the earliest Bronze Age metal objects were a rare commodity and I very much doubt that the average Neolithic farmer really woke up one morning and realised that they had become Bronze Age in the way that we sometimes seem to express it.

It is a conundrum. Many archaeologists have long recognised that the age old division system of ‘Stone’, ‘Bronze, ‘Iron’, may be a useful indicator of some sort of progression, but is also a gross oversimplification of reality. But attempts to find another way in which to express the general stages of life in the past have always failed dismally. For now, all we can do is help people to understand that the names by which we call things are just archaeological pigeonholes and that the transformation from one to another is usually a subtler change than our simple use of the terminology might actually suggest.

So, Neolithic catastrophe? End of Days scenario? I need more evidence.

Congratulations to Historic Environment Scotland

farrer-gen-view

Maeshowe in happier days: view by Farrer publshed in 1862

Congratulations to Historic Environment Scotland on their first year as a newly established body. And what better way to celebrate than to close one of their flagship sites, Maeshowe, indefinitely. This has happened apparently with no consultation with the Local Authority or local community. HES should be ashamed of themselves. While the well being of the archaeological resource and its visitors remains paramount, several different solutions to the ‘Maeshowe Problem’ have been put forward over the years and the Local Council were apparently under the impression that one was moving forward. Maeshowe is part of only six World Heritage Sites in Scotland and a site that informs and inspires thousands of visitors a year about our Neolithic ancestors. As guardians of the site, HES have a duty to continue this and I look forward to hearing very soon as to how access will be re-established. Having sat on various committees (unpaid and clearly un-valued) over the years I’d recommend running a minibus from Skara Brae (with its ticketing and cafe) as a temporary measure. Maeshowe is a popular and significant site and it deserves better than this.

Motives for travel

Visitors to Brisay — Students visiting the remains on the Brough of Birsay

I’ve been spending some time recently with a group of folk who have traveled to Orkney in order to tour the archaeological sites. In this particular case, I’ve had the opportunity (and fun), of guiding the group around Orkney and talking (perhaps too much) about the sites. Of course, one of the highlights was our visit to the Ness of Brodgar in order to see the excavation work taking place and the slow revealing of the site. It got me thinking about our motives for travel and I wondered whether they really differ so much from those of the communities who visited places like the Ness of Brodgar in the past.

In many cases, visitors travel considerable distances to reach Orkney (and my group was no exception). Orkney archaeology has always been popular but as word of the archaeology here has spread around the globe so more and more people arrive. In general, they are keen to experience the sites at first hand, to walk round them, and to learn more about the live-styles of those who originally built and used them. This can be a complex, even daunting, process. The remains that survive from the past look very different to the houses and structures that we are familiar with today and in many ways our lives bear little comparison with those of our ancestors. At first glance one might be forgiven for thinking how boring it all was – there is little colour or noise; everything seems to have comprised drab, silent, shades of stone. It seems very strange, very alien. But of course, it was not really like that at all; we are all people at heart whether we live today or in the past. Human beings have a wonderful facility for personalizing space, for finding colour and for creating sound.

But our connection with the sites that we visit is about more than understanding. It is also about attitude. Modern travel allows us to dip in and out of a range of cultures and landscapes that would have been unthinkable 500 years ago, never mind 5000 years ago. The Internet and Social Media mean that we arrive well prepared with information and, once settled, we can share our experience through images and words with a wide community of friends and acquaintances.

Are we really so very different in this to our prehistoric ancestors? They too, traveled to reach sites like the stone circles, sometimes (like us) journeying a day or more (if by different means) from their home village. They too, got to know strangers, became accustomed to different ways and clothes, tried out new foods, learnt new things, and visited iconic sites. They too had stories to share when they got home. We don’t know what, precisely, went on at the Neolithic stone circles of Orkney, or at sites like Ness of Brodgar; we are fairly certain that the activities involved communal get-togethers. They may have taken place at significant times of the year, they may have involved people from a number of separate villages, some may have travelled considerable distance, and what you came for may have varied in detail depending on specific requirements and times of the year. Or not.

In many cases these journeys seem akin to some sort of pilgrimage: defined by Wikipedia as ‘a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance’. They provided a sense of fulfillment for those who undertook them and helped them to make sense of, and to feel secure in, their world. That is precisely how I see our modern visits to these places. These are powerful locations and many visitors speak of ‘the atmosphere’. Heritage has become a significant asset for the twenty-first century. It helps us to root ourselves in place and community and to feel that we belong and have always belonged. Consider the role of travel and sight-seeing in our society. We love to tick off sites (particularly if included in some sort of list: ‘The 100 Best Sites’; ‘World Heritage’; ‘Remote Places’). We use photos to confirm our presence and validate the ‘specialness’ of the experience. Some like to theme their journeys, whether to sacred sites, Christmas Markets, or wilderness. Others are more eclectic. There is social prestige, and interest, to be gained in becoming a seasoned traveller.

Our horizons may be physically wider than those of our ancestors, but mentally they are little changed. Our technology may be more advanced, but there is little difference in its mental impact. Our trips to the stone circles of Orkney, or anywhere else, rest on the same foundations as those of the prehistoric communities who made similar journeys five thousand years ago. When I’m at the Ring of Brodgar, or exploring the Stones of Stenness, I share a purpose with those who were there in the past. I’m validating the place of the monument in the world of today: my world. That is what my recent guests were doing. And that, I feel, is exactly what my prehistoric forebears were doing.