Bydd yn gyfle i’r genhedlaeth ifanc ddychmygu eu bod yn adeiladwyr siambr gladdu Neolithig, wrth iddynt ail-greu perfformiad defodol ar y safle… Ymunwch a ni… Is-lwythiwch pdf yma, a’i arddangos os hoffech chi: Make and Break handout – Pan-Wales

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The ‘Make and Break’ project has spread across Wales! Come and see a school perform at a burial chamber near you this summer!

It will be a chance for the younger generation to imagine what it was like to be a Neolithic tomb builder, re-creating a Neolithic ritual of their own at the site… Join us! Download a pdf and print out a poster here: Taflen Creu a Chracio

The week started at the National Museum Wales, where the children of Class 4 (Key Stage 2), got a chance to see the real bones and artefacts excavated from Tinkinswood back in 1914 by John Ward, the Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum Wales at the time. We also dressed their teacher up in a Neolithic costume! In the afternoon, we went for a visit to explore the archaeology of Tinkinswood itself. The children had a chance to reflect on what they had learnt in the museum:

The second day, the children worked on the music side of their performance, and got a chance to re-create their own Neolithic pot – designing and making a coil pot:

We discussed the value of things in the modern world, and asked what were their most treasured possessions? Lots of computers, footballs, football boots in there, but also some poignant examples of objects passed down through the family. We talked about why people in the Neolithic broke and gave away their most treasured possessions, and the children responded well and gave revealing answers. Scroll down to find out what some of the children said!

On the last day we were to perform at Tinkinswood. It was very exciting, and lots of parents came to watch. I felt privileged to be there really, watching as the younger generation embraced the past with such enthusiasm…

I worked with Dylan Adams on the project, a sound artist and primary school music teacher, who shared his experience on his own blog, which can be found here http://wp.me/s26AYB-232. 

“Working with St Nicholas Primary school in the Vale of Glamorgan has been a revelatory experience this week! Dr. Ffion Reynolds and myself have embarked on what I feel is the start of an extremely exciting journey. Thanks to Ffion’s insight, foresight and Cadw’s support we were able to recreate a Neolithic style ceremony at the 6000 year old site. I have been lucky enough to take other school groups for musical performances at the site, but nothing on the scale of what was achieved last Thursday (the day after the Spring equinox).

One of the big differences was the number of drums used (it seems I need to purchase even more!). This coupled with the positioning of the performance in the forecourt meant that we experienced new acoustical sensations outside the ancient burial site.

Vibrations were reverberating off the walls and the outside of the chamber. In the words of one of the children, the physical sensations of the drumming “felt like you were moving even when you were still”. Next week we hope to explore the acoustical possibilities even further including using the inside of the chamber for part of the musical performance. The reactions of the children mirrored our own excitement and it was wonderful witnessing the transformative power of sound!”

The children gave feedback on their experiences. Here are some of their comments:

“The reason we did the ceremony was to bring back the Neolithic memories so that everyone would remember what the Neolithic people did. The ceremony made me feel like I had just lost a family member because it was about someone going into the burial chamber to the world of spirits, I think it would have felt the same except it was in the Neolithic instead. It had a strange, dark feeling like I, well it’s very hard to explain, it might have felt like a funeral if I knew what a funeral felt like. It felt quite exciting at the start because the drums had a catchy beat, but then we got to the pot breaking and then it got spooky and a bit eerie because it seemed like we were in a trance to smash all the pots”.

“The Neolithic people had a ceremony for the people who died and buried them in the burial chamber at Tinkinswood. Some times people smashed their most valuable possessions, which was the pots and they smashed them because I think they were saying to the ones who has passed, you are much greater than this pot”.

Many thanks to Class 4 at St Nicholas Church in Wales Primary School for all their hard work!

Join us on the 30th of March at 2.30pm to see Peterston-Super-Ely’s interpretation…

]]> http://tinkinswoodarchaeology.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/make-and-break-new-or-old-acoustical-sensations-experienced-at-tinkinswood/feed/ 2 Shamans at Tinkinswood! ffioncadw Museum visit / Tinkinswood visit Making coil pots Performing at Tinkinswood Taking the skull into the chamber http://tinkinswoodarchaeology.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/allestyn-cymunedol-creu-a-chracio-school-outreach-make-and-break/ http://tinkinswoodarchaeology.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/allestyn-cymunedol-creu-a-chracio-school-outreach-make-and-break/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:30:09 +0000 Ffion Cadw http://tinkinswoodarchaeology.wordpress.com/?p=490 Continue reading »]]> CREU A CHRACIO!

Byddwn yn cynnal prosiect gyffrous ar gyfer ysgolion lleol yn Siamber Gladdu Tinkinswood diwedd mis Mawrth 2012. Bydd yn gyfle i’r genhedlaeth ifanc ddychmygu eu bod yn adeiladwyr siamber gladdu Neolithig, wrth iddynt ail-greu perfformiad defodol ar y safle… Ymunwch a ni! Is-lwythiwch pdf yma, a’i arddangos os hoffech chi: Make and Break handout

MAKE AND BREAK!

We will be running an exciting school outreach project at Tinkinswood end of March 2012. It will be a chance for the younger generation to imagine what it was like to be a Neolithic tomb builder, re-creating a Neolithic ritual of their own at the site… Join us! Download a pdf and print out a poster here: Taflen Creu a Chracio

St Lythan’s chamber, by Adam Stanford

It’s been a while since we were digging at Tinkinswood and St Lythan’s, but we had an exciting and revealing time! Soon, we will be starting our outreach project, ‘Make and Break’, which will give the younger generation the chance to imagine themselves as Neolithic tomb builders, recreating their own performance at Tinkinswood in March.

People in the Neolithic are known to have deliberately broken, and given away their most treasured possessions. You are invited to join us at Tinkinswood to find out more, and watch as local schools make – and then break – their own prehistoric artefacts, recreating a Neolithic ritual ceremony.

The project aims to present children of KS2 with the opportunity to create their own prehistoric pots and then decide whether or not to then break them. ‘Make and Break’ gives people a chance to learn more about the prehistoric practices of the Neolithic, bringing to life the objects encountered in the archaeological field and inside museum cases. So, watch this space – exciting things to come!

Before we move on to the next stage of the project, here’s Anne, a local volunteer reflecting on her time with us as a volunteer at both Tinkinswood and St Lythan’s. She has been living in the village of St Nicholas since she was four, before moving up the road to St Lythan’s in later life. Her great uncle wrote a small leaflet describing the monuments, while he was working as a librarian at Cardiff University in the 30s. Here is Anne, talking to me inside the chamber at St Lythan’s, on a particularly pleasant day – weather-wise!

Anne, during her first week at Area 1, Tinkinswood, October 2011

Anne digging Trench 1 at St Lythan’s chambered tomb, November 2011

View along the long cairn towards the chamber

So, that’s it, we have finished our excavations at St Lythans! It has been an absolutely fantastic few weeks and we have found some amazing finds and discovered a lot about the monument. We have had an amazing time, have been extremely lucky with the weather (thanks to Ffion and her appeasing the weather gods!), met some fantastic people and made some exciting discoveries. Here’s a round up of what we have unearthed at this wonderful monument:

At the end of last week we had opened several trenches on the mound itself, including one running the length of the monument and two cutting across the width of the cairn. These showed us that the cairn was originally 30m in length and about 12m wide, constructed from locally collected limestone slabs and boulders. The cairn material was carefully laid on the ground, with the edges of the monument defined by a low revetment (dry stone walling). This revetment was very poorly preserved unfortunately, but was just about identifiable at the western end of the cairn. The upper surface of the cairn had been badly damaged from many thousands of years of robbing and more recent episodes of ploughing (we found a broken piece of a plough on the surface of the cairn!!) and what we saw in our trenches was probably only the lowest levels of the original monument, however it is clear that this was a substantial structure. We excavated through a section of the monument, the south-western corner, to investigate the structure and found that it comprised a single layer of stones and slabs laid on top of what appears to be a low earthen mound. We have taken lots of samples of this mound material and hope to be able to get dating and environmental information from them.

The end of the long cairn before we excavated it

The section cut through the cairn - the earthen mound is clearly seen below the layer of stones

At the eastern end of the monument we opened a large trench to investigate the forecourt area in front of the chamber and the structure of the cairn surrounding the chamber. We also excavated through the upper surface of the cairn in the area immediately behind the rear chamber upright to further investigate the structure of the cairn. The cairn here is very different from at the western end, comprising a substantial structure made up of large boulders and slabs. Several of the slabs are set at a 45° angle and are positioned up against the outer side of the chamber uprights acting as support for the uprights which were probably set onto the original ground surface – we were not able to investigate this though. Our initial thoughts are that the cairn immediately surrounding the chamber was probably constructed first, with the long cairn added later.

Our investigations in the forecourt area revealed some really interesting information about the structure and use of the monument. The cairn the to south of the chamber entrance would have been defined by a façade constructed from dry stone walling that was built up against the outer edge of the cairn surrounding the chamber. This façade would have extended either side of the chamber and would have formed a striking feature similar to that at Tinkinswood. The façade appears to have collapsed forward into the forecourt area at some point, although today Gavin, our rock star volunteer (shady past life as a member of a punk band!) found a small fragment of intact walling which is absolutely fantastic! The façade material had collapsed over a layer of stones that had been used to block the entrance to the chamber when it had gone out of use. Unfortunately this part of the monument has been really badly disturbed, probably as a result of the clearance of the chamber in the 1800s and its subsequent use as a shelter and scratching post by cows! Despite the disturbance we have made some absolutely amazing finds in this area, including Neolithic pottery fragments, the fragment of a bone needle, struck flint and human bone and teeth. We think that most of these artefacts probably came from the chamber and ended up spread out across the area in front of the chamber as a result of Lukis’ clearance. Hopefully a specialist will be able to give us a definite date for the pottery, but it looks (to our untrained eyes) to be early Neolithic. The flint we have found certainly is early Neolithic in date, which is very exciting!

The forecourt area in front of the chamber - the facade is just visible as a line of thin upright slabs running left to right in the centre of the image, the chamber blocking is the stones in the foreground

The facade in the forecourt - the intact facade slabs are in the centre of the image lying flat, the collapsed section is immediately to the left and partly overlying the intact section (it is, I promise!!)

The really exciting find was the pre-monument ground surface below the edge of the cairn which contains charcoal. We will be able to get some radiocarbon dates from this charcoal that will tell us exactly when the cairn was built which is absolutely fantastic!

So, now the excavation is finished we will start to think about the post-excavation analysis and dating and will hopefully be able to increase our understanding of the monument even more. We will keep the blog updated on our progress so keep checking in!

Oh, and for anyone who missed our appearance on Country Focus on BBC Wales this morning, you can catch it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017cjr6/Country_Focus_04_12_2011/ – available until 11th december!

Meli (Archaeology Wales) and Ffion (Cadw)

In lieu of a full update, here are a couple of fantastic photographs taken by Adam Stanford of aerial-cam. The structure of the monument is very clear to see, and in the forecourt in front of the chamber the facade and blocking material can be seen as the grey rubble (the yellow is the natural bedrock).

Aerial view over the cairn - the end of the long mound can be seen in the trench at the top left of the picture

Cleaning the forecourt area in lovely november sunshine

View over the forecourt with the collapsed facade running down through the centre of the picture from the edge of the chamber, and the blocking rubble to the right of the facade

More soon!

Meli (Archaeology Wales) and Ffion (Cadw)

Everyone has an opinion about Tinkinswood (as we have seen over the last few weeks!) and monuments can be viewed and understood in different ways by different people. Today we bring you a blog by Ginny, who tells us what it’s like to visit and experience Tinkinswood today – from a modern pagan perspective:

Ginny and Al and their son at Tinkinswood burial chamber

Hi. My name is Ginny, and I come to Tinkinswood on a very regular basis. In fact I call Tinkinswood my spiritual home. I feel at ease here, and I suspect that this feeling comes from the thousands of years of occupation and the coming together of people and ideas at this one very special site. I believe, that to understand the significance of ancient sites as sacred areas like Tinkinswood for neo-pagans like myself, we all need to go back and look at the practices and beliefs of the people who lived in the Stone Age.

When we look at the visual evidence of man’s early beliefs and artistic culture, we need to return to the Palaeolithic period. We see wonderful cave paintings dating from about 20,000 years before present, at the Lascaux caves, Dordogne region, France. Here we find hundreds of horses, deer, bison, and ibex amongst others, which are all typical images of the Magdalenian age. Interestingly no depictions of fighting or warfare as in later cultures. It is significant to note that a single human figure wearing skins and stag horn is depicted. We believe him to be a Shamanic god at a time when humans were dependant on animals for survival as they provided meat, furs and bone.

It is thought that the paintings represent an aid in the performance of ritual hunting magic, honouring the animals but also bringing good fortune to the hunters. The Horned God/Shaman is transformed in later Celtic culture to Cernunnos, Pan in Greek mythology and Herne the Hunter (possibly early middle ages). He represents the male element, the primal hunter and provider and protector. Neo-paganism is a polytheistic religion of the God and the Goddess in their various forms.

The female element is provided by the Goddess or Earth Mother who is also depicted in the Palaeolithic Stone Age culture. She represents fertility and nature. Venus images date at least as far back as the Ice Age and commonly take the shape of the fertile rounded female form interpreted as the Mother Goddess.

Near to home the “Red Lady” of Paviland Cave, Gower show signs of ritual burial. This 33,000 year old male is the oldest ceremonial burial in Western Europe. His body was covered in red ochre and provided with the grave goods necessary for the next life. Many Pagans believe in reincarnation and have a view that death, rebirth and regeneration is a stage of spiritual development during each incarnation.

A similarity between ancient and modern Pagan belief is ancestral worship and the fact that ancient forebears were always present. Indeed it has been suggested that ancestral remains were removed from chambers at times and brought together with the living to be present at rituals and celebrations. We believe that Neolithic burial chambers such as Tinkinswood represent the female womb where the departed would be returned to the womb of Mother Earth.

It is interesting to look at the recent archaeological finds from the Tinkinswood site. A Mesolithic microlith indicates activity that pre-dates the main Tinkinswood chamber and could indicate an already important presence. The person who left this flint probably lived in a small nomadic community. Then the Neolithic evidence in the form of pottery and a flint scraper. “Cromlech 2″ which has turned out to be a Bronze Age round barrow is interesting as this indicates a continuity of religious reverence by Bronze Age people, and then even later activity shown by the discovery of a Roman coin. It is thought that older Neolithic tombs have been re-used at later periods by the Bronze Age Beaker people for example, and this could indicate a link between their dead and the original tomb builders. It seems that even though ideas about burial had changed, the site remained significant to later populations. Then we see finds from later periods in particular a strong Roman presence in the form of a coin and some Greyware pottery. It seems that there has been human activity on this site for possibly 7-8 thousand years.

Living human activity has continued within sight of the ancients at Tinkinswood: we continue to visit and practice our own commemorative acts and rituals, culminating with our own Handfasting (a Pagan marriage). We also perform our rituals throughout the seasons. A communal group of people share food, drinks and gifts and do so at every seasonal ritual or Full Moon celebration. These are done in a respectful way in which we believe our ancestors would approve.

Blessed Be and Love and Light, Ginny

(Tinkinswood White Witch)

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. Marcus Aurelius

Fate. Such a strong word for one so small. As I was finishing another blog post I had no idea that a very timely hit on the Twitter button would lead me to another excavation. There was no way I could have known who was online at the time of publishing, let alone if they would read it, but they did.

The Council for British Archeology have very generously sponsored Cadw to enable them to employ a community archaeological officer. The officer read on my blog that I had enjoyed taking the general public around Caerleon and mentioned that there was an opportunity to do the same at an up and coming community excavation. This had been organised near a Scheduled Ancient Monument called Tinkinswood. I couldn’t refuse. The site is an early Neolithic burial chamber of the Severn Cotswold type and is thought to hold the largest capstone in Britain, weighing in at an impressive forty tonnes.

First excavated in 1914 by John Ward, the keeper of archaeology at the newly built national museum, the  burial chamber was found to contain nearly a thousand individual bones. The bones were a variety of ages, of both genders, with about fifty individuals present. Pottery was also found, although the majority of this was near the entrance of the chamber and has been linked to ceremonial purposes.

That is not the whole story, nearby were other strange features and these were not understood. So an excavation proposal was created and the funding sought. With all of the T’s crossed, the I’s dotted and the go ahead given, we all met up on the 22nd October to investigate these features with the hope of some answers being forthcoming. And they were.

There were three areas that were to be looked at through archaeological investigation. Two of the areas are on the link above, the third was a potential quarry where the huge capstone was thought to have been lifted from. It was in this area that I was to spend the majority of the next two weeks. We had a remit for up to ten test pits as we were charged with looking for any signs that prehistoric quarrying would have left.

So what were we looking for? Hammer stones for one thing, quite literally prehistoric hammers. We were also on the look out for antler picks. Formed from the antler of a red deer, these tools were commonly used by Neolithic communities in north west Europe for the excavation of soil and quarrying out stone and bedrock. If these were present then other finds, such as worked flint and pottery, would help us date when quarrying had been undertaken.

We only managed to open up six test pits for a variety of reasons. The ground was like concrete as the tree roots had naturally sucked up any moisture from the ground that was present. Secondly the roots themselves were in every test pit that was opened up. Some of these were very large and it was time consuming trying to remove them.

Another reason for only opening up six test pits was the fact that were under quite a dense tree canopy. Don’t get me wrong, we had great weather over the two weeks, but the canopy was just too dense for sunshine to penetrate it adequately. When it was overcast it was particularly bad to spot things like soil colour change or even small finds. On one overcast day, I was standing in the quarry area looking out towards where people gathered at the start of the day.

Hopefully this picture will illustrate how bad the conditions could get if the sun didnt shine. I turned my flash off for that picture and you may be surprised to know that there is a test pit in the bottom of the photograph, just to the left of the tree on the right.

Anyway, enough of my griping and moaning, what did we find in the quarry area? The answer to that is, not much evidence of prehistoric quarrying material at all! It has to be said though, my favourite find from the whole excavation popped up out of test pit two. A volunteer had been placed in there and it was hard going due to the reasons given above. As I walked past the pit the volunteer asked me ‘is this anything because if it isn’t, I would like to take it home as it sits so nicely in my hand’! Alarm bells started ringing!