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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