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By THOMAS H. MAUGH II
Times Staff Writer
At the
Sea's Edge, a Glimpse of the Bronze Age Winter storms on
England's eastern coast have uncovered the remains of two
4,000-year-old wooden monuments that archeologists hope
will provide new information about the life of Stonehenge-era
Britons.
Stone
monuments can last virtually forever, but wood is much more
perishable. Unless it is carefully preserved in a tomb,
it generally disintegrates and disappears in a few hundred
years.
Researchers have thus been pleasantly surprised to discover
two 4,000-year-old wooden monuments on a remote beach on
the east coast of England. Preserved by silt and water,
the Bronze Age structures remained hidden until they were
uncovered by winter storms--one three years ago and one
just last month.
The two structures--large circles defined by buried timbers--were
built about the same time as the much more famous British
monument Stonehenge. Perhaps inevitably, the first of the
two to be discovered has been named Seahenge.
Archeologists hope the discoveries will tell them a great
deal about the lives of the early Britons who built them.
"This is the first time we've ever found a timber circle
intact in Britain," said archeologist Mark Brennand
of the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, which is in charge of
its excavation. "The sites of timber circles are not
uncommon, but up to now all we have seen are the soil markings
where the timbers once stood before they crumbled away."
The discovery has already cleared up one perplexing mystery.
Some sites of previously discovered timber circles had large
holes in the center, whose purpose was unknown. The center
of Seahenge is occupied by the stump of a large oak tree,
turned upside down so that its roots form a kind of primitive
altar.
Britons of the Bronze Age are believed to have practiced
a ritual called excarnation, in which the bodies of dead
loved ones were left out in the open air to decay, perhaps
to be picked clean by birds.
The central altar of sites like Seahenge, researchers now
believe, was where bodies were laid. It was protected from
predators by the surrounding wooden fence.
Many archeologists, said Brian Ayers of the Norfolk unit,
believe the Bronze Age people looked on the henge as a "bridge"
to the next world. The clear division at the shore between
ocean and land, perhaps, reflected the division between
the real world and the spirit world.
The discovery of Seahenge, he said, "raises questions
about the spirituality of these people and how they were
thinking."
Seahenge was found in 1998 when residents walking the beach
at Holme-Next-the-Sea stumbled upon the strange configuration
of timbers after a winter storm.
The remains of 55 posts are sunk into the earth in a roughly
circular pattern about 21 feet in diameter.
The wood was initially left in its original location, but
the timbers began deteriorating more rapidly than expected.
They were therefore dug up--over the opposition of Druid
groups who claimed them as part of their heritage--and taken
to a research center at nearby Flag Fen.
Carbon dating first showed the wood to be 4,000 to 4,200
years old. But dendrochronology--more commonly known as
tree-ring dating--was able to narrow it down to a precise
season and year.
Dendrochronology relies on the fact that trees grow more
in wet years, producing a characteristic pattern of large
and small rings that is unique to the region.
Once researchers have established a profile of tree rings,
it is possible to compare a given piece of wood with the
profile and determine precisely when it was harvested. Ayers
and his colleagues determined that the central stump was
harvested in the late spring or summer of 2050 BC, and the
surrounding stumps were harvested during the same time of
year in 2049 BC.
Because oak trees are not common near the site, they would
have been imported from some distance, reinforcing the idea
that this particular site was very important.
The bases of the timbers, once they were excavated, were
found to be in remarkably good condition. "We can see
that over three dozen different bronze tools were used,"
said David Miles, chief archeologist for English Heritage,
which provided funding for the excavation of Seahenge.
That group's original goal was to conserve the timbers for
a special museum that would be built to house the artifacts,
but funds have not been available to do so. Instead, the
plan now is to rebury the wood at or close to the original
site so that it will be protected for future generations.
That could happen as soon as this month.
Last August, archeologist John Lorimer spotted two flattened
logs on the beach, little more than 100 yards from Seahenge.
After storms in January, another timber circle emerged surrounding
the two logs, this one about twice as big as Seahenge.
But while the newly revealed circle probably dates to about
the same period as Seahenge, Ayers and others believe it
is not a henge, but the rotting timber supports of a burial
mound or barrow. Ayers said there are at least 40,000 such
burial mounds around the country. Generally, they are marked
by mounds of dirt, with only holes to indicate where posts
once were.
"Here, if it is a barrow, we've lost the earth but
we've retained the posts," he said.
Ayers and his colleagues have no plans to excavate the new
circle because they don't believe it is as important as
Sea-henge.
"When you have an exceptional feature like [Seahenge],
you have to take exceptional measures," such as digging
it up for study, he said. "But the norm is simply to
record things and monitor them."
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