MESOLITHIC OCCUPATION AT BOULDNOR CLIFF AND THE
SUBMERGED PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE SOLENT eds G
Momber, D Tomalin, R Scaife, J Satchell and J Gillespie. CBA Research Report
164, 2011. 222 pp, 164 illus include col. ISBN 9781902771847, pb £25
This report summarises long term, and ongoing, research into a very valuable Mesolithic
landscape in Southern England. This research, however, is of a very unusual kind in a British
context, as the Mesolithic landscape in question is located c. 11 metres beneath the surface of
the western Solent at the base of an eroding cliff of peat (Bouldnor Cliff, with archaeological
sites coded as BC-II and BC-V). These sites were inundated by the sea some 8000 years ago,
and became well preserved until the evolution of the open marine conditions that are now
actively causing submarine erosion (see below for detail). Archaeological materials are found
in association with the landscapes, with some, at least, resulting from "...the first known
Mesolithic archaeological excavation by a member of the lobster community" (p13). These
disturbed artefacts, however, facilitated the discovery of in site archaeological materials –
following the eviction of the lobsters.
The methodological and infrastructural challenges involved in this kind of archaeology are
extensive, and the rewards can be great; high quality preservation, especially in terms of the
organic artefacts often absent from our dry land sites, can provide dramatic insights into the
past (for a recent Danish Mesolithic example see Andersen 2009). There is also, however, a
risk with wetland archaeology of all kinds: that we allow the quality of the preservation to
overshadow the real significance of the material recovered in terms of how we understand
human lives (Van der Noort & O Sullivan 2006). This can be further complicated by the
labour intensive character of underwater archaeology – described by Benjamin (2010, 254) as
“the most technically remarkable fieldwork”– and the justifiable pride of those involved in
the work itself; especially in a situation where the methodological challenges are not widely
recognised. The 2011 report seeks to give a background to the research to date and tackle
both site specific and broader questions – with the latter aiming to look at both ‘human
occupation’ and ‘geomorphological processes’ (see p xxv). This review will consider the
book against this aims.
The history of the project is interesting and there are lessons to be learnt from it. From the
mid 1980s local fishermen began reporting finds of lithics from amongst oyster dredges and
developing collaboration between the research team and fishermen has clearly been very
important. Unfortunately, there is also a sense that the archaeological community may have
missed the boat: fisherman Mike Jones, for example, comments on the amounts of material
found when licensed trawling began in the region: "You should have been here then, Nipper,
before us lads stirred it all up and scattered it all in a litter for you”. The authors describe the
quantities of archaeological material found at that time as ‘astonishing’ (p3). The
development of the research at Bouldnor owes much to the early involvement of Isle of
Wight archaeologists in maritime and submarine archaeology, and in part, reads as a history
of how funding opportunities for projects fade in and out of focus: in the 1980s, for example,
the Isle of Wight Maritime Heritage Project with funding from the Manpower Services
Commission had employed 24 people, leading to the first maritime SMR. Changes to national
funding led to the collapse of Manpower Services Commission, and a reinvention as the Isle
of Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology and the development of the Hampshire and Wight
Trust for Maritime Archaeology. The diversity of funding obtained (see the
acknowledgements, p.xviii) and the longevity of the research is testimony to very creative
fund raising abilities. The energy expended and the skills gained over time in this aspect of
the project must have been considerable.
The unusual context of the archaeology raised methodological challenges, and these are
detailed in the report. The coordinators of the project acknowledge the high learning curve
that they embarked upon and hope that documenting this is of wider benefit. "The project has
provided the opportunity to develop the skills of those involved who were not familiar with
submerged prehistoric landscape material; in this way the site is also contributing to an
increasing capacity to recognise and investigate such sites in the future." (p. xix). The
challenges of working underwater are considerable (see p. 14-16, but passim) and include
only having an hour at a time on site, having very poor visibility (meaning that you can only
see very small amounts of the site at any one time) managing air supplies whilst moving
materials in and out of the water, and many more. Samples recovered from the sites include
long cores and a variety of box samples recovered in specially designed boxes. These were
subject to a variety of palaeoecological analyses: including pollen, diatoms, foraminfera,
micromorphology, dendrochonology and the examination of plant, insect and fish remains.
Archaeological analyses of wood and lithic remains were also carried out. These allow for
some very detailed reconstructions of the palaeoevironment of the landscapes as a whole.
The overall reconstruction of the palaeogeography of the Solent is dramatic. Momber and
colleagues suggest an unfamiliar landscape, where the Solent forms a dry land basin linking
the Isle of Wight and Hampshire and drained by N-S trending rivers that run through the
western Solent basin and across the west of Wight on the line of the Lymington River and
Western Yar. This leaves the Solent as a quiet, low energy environment at the time of
Mesolithic occupation (c 6000 BC). Rising sea level leads to silting up and slow
accumulation of sediment in the basin. This low energy environment is key to the nature of
the preservation. These depositional landscapes vary in age according to the location of the
site, and the interplay of regional sea level and local processes. Mesolithic landscapes are not
the only ones preserved, although they have been the focus of the archaeological
investigations. It is argued that the basin was breached from the east at c 5000 BC and then,
more recently, from the west. This leads to a change from a depositional environment burying
the archaeological materials, to an erosive one that is revealing and exposing them.
A general model of geomorphological sequence is presented (p118): dryland, river bars or
interfluves; increased wetness leading to peat formation; rapid sea level change leading to
freshwater fen; finally full salt-marsh/mud-flats. The site specific sequences capture aspects
of this broader model. BC-II, for example, is argued to have been a sand bar within a river
system, its surface possibly stabilised by vegetation, in a pine woodland with oak and hazel.
There is little evidence of erosion before peat formation where the surface is argued to be
‘pristine’ (p.37). It is proposed that the site is located right at the water’s edge, in a carr
environment. The palaeoenvironmental work, supported by a robust radiocarbon framework,
provides a strong model for landscape change over time in the region, and its development
with future research will be very interesting. The book’s principal aim to present the
geomorphological processes active in the area is therefore generally successful.
But, what of the archaeology? Yes, the sites are remarkable for their location and some of the
materials are impressive, but truth be told, the sites (as opposed to their materials and
location) are not stunning in terms of what has been found so far. The archaeological
materials appear in a number of different forms. Lithics were found in primary and secondary
contexts. This includes concentrations of burnt small pebble flint, seemingly parts of pits, and
presumably playing some role in a pyro-technology of some kind. Wood was recovered from
BC-II and BC-V, and includes some dramatic artefacts: a tangentially split plank is
considered to be ‘too massive for domestic application’ (p89) and is postulated to have been
part of a boat. This plank is argued to push back the application of tangential splitting 2000
years from the Neolithic. A range of other wood working debris is present as well as evidence
for coppicing using chopping and tearing techniques. The variety of wood present at BC-V,
including both round wood and planks, leads to the suggestion that a 'substantial Mesolithic
structure may have once stood in this location' (p. 81) although further work is required to
detail this. One timber recovered from BC-V included an embedded burnt flint flake.
Remarkably, some ‘prepared fibres’ were recovered from BC-V. Even more remarkably,
apart from two photographs no further mention is made of this material – which is, to my
knowledge, the first prepared fibre from the Mesolithic of Britain. Given that string
manufacture was most likely a basic and enormously time consuming task for Mesolithic
populations, it is a shame that so little is made of this find: what materials were used? What
techniques?
Some of the materials discovered, are therefore interesting, but the very small areas
excavated, mean that the sites are hard to interpret. The report discusses the ways in these site
locations highlight again the possibility that the Mesolithic of this area is "near-coast, nearcreek, rivermouth", but the discussion doesn't go very far. Tomalin’s call to integrate French
typologies and industries to understanding this material 'sous Manche' (p. 159-160), is well
made, but his attempt to place the site in context has a slightly scattergun approach to the
recent literature. The attempts to discuss sedentism and the place of these sites in the wider
archaeological landscape are simply too thin; at present we don’t have the data to understand
how these sites fit. That isn’t the fault of the work at Bouldnor, it is simply the state of
knowledge of these sites at present. Much more problematic is their argument that the plank
working, and a single high quality tranchet axe indicate a level of craft skill not known in the
Mesolithic of Britain, but not seen again until the Neolithic. These people with these
technologies are therefore argued to have migrated out of Britain in the context of rising sea
levels or simply to have lost or forgotten the skills (p. 174). We do not need to invoke a
Mesolithic brain drain to explain this data. There is simply not sufficient data on Mesolithic
and Neolithic woodworking to sustain this argument.
The submerged landscapes of the Solent are therefore demonstrably very important. They
provide high quality data on sea level change over time, not just in the Mesolithic, and
contain potentially very valuable archaeological materials. Momber and colleagues argue that
there is an urgent need to protect this nationally, and possibly internationally, important
landscape (p 167). The threats are substantial: a major shift from depositional to erosive
conditions, some threat from lobster fishing and the impacts of the burrowing and boring
activities of lobsters, piddocks and gribbles (168ff). Little is known about the impact of these
species on archaeological remains, although the incursion of 'more damaging gribble species'
(p 170) into UK waters is noted as a concern. Assessment of risk, and development of
management strategies is a key challenge for the future.
The remarkable work presented in this volume, conducted over so many years, raises many
possibilities and is highly commendable. However, the final report does suffer from some
comparatively minor problems which could have been resolved by a firmer editorial hand and
would have improved the final product significantly. There is repetition between sections
throughout, and in places, details of context numbers are hard to follow (and numbers are not
always presented on drawings). It is sometimes hard to work out exactly where things are:
BC-V ‘Trench 2’ is shown on Fig 4.31, but the precise location of this in comparison to
previous excavations (Fig 4.27) is not shown. The monoliths sampled from BC-II are
presented in Figure 3.18 and following, but some samples are given mOD, others mm, others
cm, and it is not easy to correlate all data. The discussion of the lithics is very confusing in its
totals (especially of ‘tools’) and the illustrations miss key technical details (e.g. direction of
percussion). Some pictures throughout the report are rather pixellated (and these problems
were not caused by poor underwater conditions). These are minor problems, but do detract
from the report as a whole and make it harder to interrogate the data that has been so
painstakingly generated.
The conclusion of the report highlights that “(t)he project has now reached a stage where
investigators know what they are looking for and the potential of what they may find on the
sea bed” (p.172). This report clearly highlights aspects of this potential, and the challenges
the project team will face in furthering our knowledge of these important landscapes. With
appropriate support, the submerged landscapes of the Solent have much to reveal about past
human lives. At present, however, the archaeological discussions of the submerged
landscapes are weaker than the palaeoecological ones, and the models of human occupation
not as well developed as the geomorphological models. In terms of the archaeology, small
pieces of data are being placed within more-or-less familiar interpretative frameworks. This
is not the fault of the project – the considerable methodological challenges and the small
areas excavated, means that little can be said about forms of past occupation at present. But
the potential is clearly there for high quality data that can be wholly transformative. This is
the real potential of wetland and underwater sites, to show us a new kind of archaeology of
periods that seem familiar.
References
Andersen, S. H. 2009. Ronæs Skov: Marinarkæologiske undersøgelser af en kystboplads fra
Eterbølletid. Moesgård: Moesgård Museum/Nationalmuseet
Benjamin, J. 2010. Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes and Underwater Site Discovery: Reevaluating the 'Danish Model' for International Practice. The Journal of Island and
Coastal Archaeology 5, 253-270
Van de Noort, R., and A. O'Sullivan. 2006. Rethinking Wetland Archaeology. London:
Duckworth
Dr Graeme Warren
UCD School of Archaeology
Dublin
April 2012
The views expressed in this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor