Pablo’s Woodlife

The weather turned nasty on Bank Holiday Monday, making the woods a “no-go” on account of the very strong winds, so Mrs P and I decided to take a short trip to West Stow. This is a reconstructed Anglo Saxon village c450 with a small visitor centre.

Braving the elements, we walked around the visitor centre and we were pleased to see that reenactors had taken over the village for the weekend. We were able to take shelter in some of the buildings where a good fire was on the go (and some delicious smelling stew – unfortunately not available to the likes of us).

There were demonstrations of cooking, weaving and weaponry. I took particular interest in the Seaxes (the knives), axes and clothing.

Each person would have a two or three knives on their person. This made me feel better as I normally have the same. They carried a small utility knife called a hadseax (2 -4 inches), a couple of longer knives (also used for fighting) of between 6 and 14 inches. One of these were worn dangling horizontally on a belt in front of the person. The blade would have been uppermost presumably to save the edge.

A spear was used for hunting and was also the primary fighting weapon. In rare cases a long sword was also carried into battle. Bows were used for hunting but rarely used in battle. The “honour” of being face to face with the enemy made the bow virtually redundant apart from larger battles where it was used almost as a “sniper” weapon to pick off vulnerable enemy.

Each tool had a dual purpose, and the axe was no different. Each cutting tool was used for domestic purposes as well as for use for fighting (apart from the sword which was used only in battle by those who could afford one).

The reenactors showed some fighting techniques including the shield wall.

The battle masks were also interesting and copies of some of the helmets showed remarkable workmanship. Mrs Pablo insisted on trying one on in the visitor centre. “Very fetching, dear.”

Each person carried a large leather pouch and sometimes a couple of smaller pouches to carry personal effects and of course flint and steel in the traditional “C” shape for firelighting.

I came away with a small hand forged 2″ seax that I intend to sharpen up, modify slightly and use as a neck knife. The shape is interesting and is described as “broken back” and is based on one or two found on site in the burial areas. This showed how personal they considered the Seax to be. The shape is believed to be more effective for the fighting element as opposed to the utility purpose. Interestingly, Saxon may be derived from Seax making the Saxons “The Knife People”.

The visit has jolted me in to realising that I’m still using a lot of technical kit and clothing and perhaps I should to try out more natural materials (without going around and looking like an Anglo-Saxon reenactor that is). It has also inspired me to have a go at making some more stuff myself. I think I’ll give the mask as miss though!

“Darling, you can take that mask off now. Oh sorry, you have”.

Monday should see a write up of a weekend spent with “The Tribe” in East Sussex. Until then.

Pablo.

It is indeed a golden autumn. These ten days are enough to make the reputation of any climate. A tradition of these days might be handed down to posterity. They deserve a notice in history, in the history of Concord. All kinds of crudities have a chance to get ripe this year. Was there ever such an autumn? And yet there was never such a panic and hard times in the commercial world. The merchants and banks are suspending and failing all the country over, but not the sand-banks, solid and warm, and streaked with blackberry vines.

You may run upon them as much as you please,—even as the crickets do, and find their account in it. They are the stockholders in these banks, and I hear them creaking their content. You may see them on change any warmer hour. In these banks, too, and such as these, are my funds deposited, a fund of health and enjoyment. Their (the crickets) prosperity and happiness and, I trust, mine do not depend on whether the New York banks suspend or no.

We do not rely on such a slender security as the thin paper of the Suffolk Bank. To put your trust in such a bank is to be swallowed up and undergo suffocation. Invest, I say, in these country banks. Let your capital be simplicity and contentment. Withered goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis) is no failure, like a broken bank, and yet in its most golden season, nobody counterfeits it. Nature needs no counterfeit detector.

I have no compassion for, nor sympathy with, this miserable state of things. Banks built of granite, after some Grecian or Roman style, with their porticoes and their safes of iron, are not so permanent, and cannot give me so good security for capital invested in them, as the heads of weathered hardhack in the meadow. I do not suspect the solvency of these. I know who is their president and cashier.

Sadly, I can’t take credit for any of the above and it wasn’t even written today. It was written on this day in 1857 by Henry David Thoreau.

Life goes on and very little changes; except the changes of the seasons.

Thanks to owners of The Blog of Henry David Thoreau.

Pablo.

P.S. The new DDhammock and Tarp video review will be up on Thursday – I promise!

Who are we, or more pertinently, who do we think we are? The major invasions of Britain came from the Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons and Normans, so you can really take your pick from that little lot. But who were the original Britons and more to the point, were they Britons at all?

It has been suggested there was no such thing until the 17th century, when James I of England and VI of Scotland sought to establish a pan-British monarchy. Until then Britain was just a geographical entity and the people of Britain were just a constantly shifting base of multi-cultural groups that had migrated to the Isles over a period of several thousand years with little single identity.

There is evidence of migration into Britain as long as 700,000 years ago although it’s thought that the changing climate of retreating and advancing ice and intermittent  land access from the continent assisted in the many failed colonisation attempts. The last attempts 12,000 years ago were more successful.

Around 6000 BCE the British Isles was finally and permanently separated from the continent. Until about 4000 BCE it was covered by woodland and the inhabitants were hunter gatherers who lived in small family groups. At around this time the hunter-gatherers started to clear the woodland which was helped by a huge outbreak of Dutch elm disease and methods of using fire to hunt. It was thought that communities had to emerge and enlarge to assist in the vast undertaking of creating clearings. Agricultural practices had started, which originated from what we now know as the middle-eastern countries. It took thousands of years to reach Britain and thousands more to become fully established.

Although these early people left no account of themselves, it is suggested that they were mainly caucasoid as were the tribal groups of Europe. Perhaps regional environments or tasks changed their features over generations, and it is certainly true that there was much regional diversity in terms of appearance, biology and customs by the time the Roman first invaded as reported by the Romans themselves.

Between 3000 BCE and 1500 BCE the communities continued to swell and monuments, burial sites and pottery were developed at least leaving a visible legacy. Farming and domestication of animals were the main source of food and it’s suspected that many settlements or tribes immerged, merged, split or simply phased out. Conflicts and contact was made with more distant groups.

By 700 BCE it was suspected that there were a number of large tribal areas made up of increasingly bigger settlements. The land had been divided up with banks, and track ways were used to move animals. The first eye-witness accounts of these tribes came from Julius Caesar himself who invaded in 54 BCE. Although he may have lumped many of them together for convenience, there is no doubt that there were identifiable tribal communities because of similarities in customs, traits, language and appearance. It is the Latin names given to these tribes that are familiar today: for example Trinovantes, Iceni, Silures, Cornovii, Selgovae. It appears (surprisingly) that the one thing they were not… is Celtic.

“…[Celts] was an invention of the 18th century; the name was not used earlier. The idea came from the discovery around 1700 that the non-English island tongues relate to that of the ancient continental Gauls, who really were called Celts. This ancient continental ethnic label was applied to the wider family of languages. But ‘Celtic’ was soon extended to describe insular monuments, art, culture and peoples, ancient and modern: island ‘Celtic’ identity was born, like Britishness, in the 18th century.”

So says Dr Simon James in Peoples of Britian. He goes on to say that the preceding bronze age did not arise out of waves of continental ‘Celtic’ invasions however there would be similarities in respect of culture, language  (called Brythonic language – the nearest is apparently like today’s Cornish) and connections; but to call the culture ‘Celtic’ as a whole is (and has been) misleading.

So, we leave ourselves at 43 CE just before the second (main) Roman invasion, which would immerse our tribal culture  into a Greco-Roman one but still without significantly changing the face of the population. This huge culture change would eventually swamp whatever culture the inhabitants of the Isles would have had. So I am suggesting we return to the pre-Roman “tribes” to look for our true ancestral “island” identity.

So, what tribe were you? Have a look here to find out.

The excellent drawings are sourced from:

http://www.framearch.co.uk/t5/

Last weekend was spent in Mark’s wood learning how to knap flint. There’s only one person who can teach this and that is the eminent and legendary flint knapper, John Lord (or perhaps his son, Will).

We were all spell-bound as he tucked a huge rock under his arm, balanced it on his thigh and proceeded to break off chunks of flint. None of it was random. Every strike with the hard hammer (stone) or soft hammer(antler) was deliberate and followed the natural contours of the flint.

Very little material was wasted as sharp flakes became cutting tools and arrow heads and larger pieces were formed into hand axes.  John knew which way the flint would break before he hit it and knew exactly for what purpose it would be used for. The flint did exactly as it was bade.

After watching John demonstrate the craft, we were gently and kindly guided and encouraged into either creating large pieces for hand axes or spear heads or for the more opportunistic (and less confident) like me, we grubbed around the floor for suitable pieces to finish into small hand tools or arrow heads using the rather more delicate pressure flaking technique.

Whatever the style, for two days, all you could hear reverberating throughout the wood was the eery chipping of stone-on-stone and antler-on-stone as ancient tools and artifacts began to take shape under modern hands probably more used to using computers. Dog walkers craned their necks until comically, they looked like giraffes trying to see what was going on. No-one came over.

The picture above is a flint core that the knapper would take with him in a pouch to quickly knap more razor sharp flakes.

Although I probably didn’t take to this as readily as leather-working I certainly appreciated what I was doing and appreciated the beauty of the material. I even managed to make a couple of bits. This was a knife I made. The glue is pine resin and the binding is flax made into cordage. It’s sharp enough to cut leather.

On the second day, I was even remembering some of the complicated theory of percussion cones, facets, platform preparation and percussion techniques and I started to look a little more deeply into what the “flint was telling me”.  The picture above is my leaf-shaped arrow head made out of a lovely brown flint that will be made into a necklace.

On more than one occasion I had the strangest of feelings (quite emotive even) that what I was doing was indeed one of the most primitive of skills. I connected this with tracking and from then on in my mind the two were firmly cemented together as the earliest trade and earliest science. Together they addressed man’s earliest requirement; the need to hunt.

Perhaps I was consciously connecting with my primitive side, although it’s got to be said that in the prehistoric tool making factory I was probably the one who was given the task of sticking on the “Made in UK” label!

It was a great few days in the woods helped along by good weather and great company as usual. A personal thanks to John Lord and his wife Val (who taught us a splendid way to make cordage) and everyone else who came, especially Mark who organised the event.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

Poor Park and Park Wood are the names of the two local woods I frequent. No-one seem to know why the former is called “poor” park, although it might well have derived from someone’s name. Although the local village is more than likely named by the Vikings, the French may have given names to many other local features.

Like it or not, there are many French connections in the countryside and most stem from the Norman invasion. Locally we have a nearby Norman castle owned by Aubrey de Vere who was one of William the Conqueror’s most favoured knights. Therefore we would expect to have a substantial amount of land connected with it to be linked with the Normans. Local rumour has it that a later Normnan landowner was so short of money that he was called Simon ‘the Poor’ but I’m not too sure of that one.

The word ‘park’ also has connections with the Normans, for it was they who set up deer parks for local hunting purposes.  Thus you should expect any woods with the name ‘park’ in it to have some ancient connection with deer. There were 36 deer parks named in the Domesday book and these escalated to hundreds and hundreds in England before the English civil war decimated them.

Apparently it is still possible to recognise a medieval deer park even today by the egg-shape of the land and the earthworks used as the park boundaries.

Not only were parks developed by the Normans but so were forests. These were lands legally set aside for the hunting nobility. Forest Law inflicted severe punishments for anyone found interfering with the deer in the Forest. If you were caught ‘red-handed’ i.e. blood on your hands, you could expect only one form of punishment.

The oldest map of the two woods I can get on-line (visit www.visionofbritain.org.uk) is from 1856. I was hoping that it would show the two woods joined as one as they are not too far apart, but it doesn’t quite do that. Instead there’s another wood to the south east of Park Wood called  Hook Wood. No trace of Hook Wood exists now. Poor Park are the woods to the south. There is no mention of the name Poor Park on this map.

The next map is from 1925 and reveals that Hook Wood has disappeared. It does show the medieval Hawke’s Hall which has also now disappeared. I live just to the north of the now named Poor Park at Scot’s End, although there is now no such place as Scot’s End.

Park Wood has been significantly reduced in size and it is rarely named on maps. Interestingly, Poor Park (see the Sat Map at the top of the page) has not even changed its shape for over 150 years and is now one of the bigger woods in the area.

The council describes the woods as:

…[a] large ancient wood, originally comprising Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur), Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), Hazel (Corylus avellana) and Field Maple (Acer campestre), has now been widely replanted with Poplars (Populus sp.) and Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris). Despite storm damage and forestry activity, a typical woodland ground flora still survives.

I’m going to have to delve a little deeper and go back even further into the history of these woods.

Thanks for the visit.

Last Sunday, I took a break from the woods and went fossil hunting. The area I went to was Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, which is about an hour away from where I live.

I’ve never been fossil hunting, but a friend who I went with has been a couple of times, so told me what to look for and roughly where to look.

At the top of the Naze, I was taken aback by the erosion of the cliff tops. Apparently, this is happening at a rate of 2 meters per year.

The Hanoverian Tower – or Naze Tower, was built as a sea mark in 1720 and was the forerunner to the popular lighthouses of a later era. This tower will follow the world war two pill boxes and fall onto the beach in 50 years time if the area isn’t protected soon.

The cliffs are made up of a complex mixture of different geologies. If you want more info go here for a detailed explanation, but briefly there are three layers: The top layer is sand and gravel from the Pleistocene epoch, a Red Crag formation from the Pliocene and the bottom layer, which is a strange black sticky clay called London Clay from the Eocene period.

We were looking for bivalve valves and gastropods in the Red crag and anything from Shark’s teeth to wood fossils at the foot of the cliffs in amongst the London clay and on the partly shingle beach front.

It wasn’t that far removed from tracking as I ended up on the damp shingle, on my hands and knees searching for micro signs and getting “tracked out” as I searched for unseen clues.

And this was the haul:

Firstly, 4 Shark teeth identified by the highly knowledgeable Nazeman himself, Mike Todd, who runs a small store as part of an education project. These teeth are from Striatolamia macrota (7 gilled sand-shark) from the Eocene period – 53.7 million years old. I know this exact detail because these were found on Mike’s table at the top of the Naze! In other words, I got them from him because I failed to find any myself!!

Next up is some fossilised twig preserved as iron pyrite. I found this myself!

The piece de resistance for me was finding this piece of flint. I found it right up against foot of the cliff, in a puddle of water running off the London clay. Even though I didn’t get a chance to show it to Mike, I’m more than 90% sure that this has been knapped. I went on Mike’s website and confirmed that Neolithic knapped flint has been found in the area in the form of hand-axes and blades.

Another pointer is the brown/bronze colour of the flint. I’ve knapped this sort of flint before with the legendary John Lord. It almost certainly comes from Grimes Graves Neolithic flint mine in Thetford, Norfolk, which isn’t a million miles away from where I found this.

The final confirmation will be to send a picture to Mike and see what he makes of it.

I have little doubt that I am the first human to touch this tool since the last user either dropped and lost it it or otherwise discarded it possibly between 7,000 and 11,000 years ago. That fact makes this an incredibly special find for me, possibly more so than finding a much older shark’s tooth (if I had found one that is). It provides me with a strangely personal, physical link with the prehistoric past that i can’t explain. It’s no wonder people get heavily involved in fossil hunting.

The full haul is shown in this picture with a one pound coin (2cms –0.8in dia) for scale. On the left is (I think) Coprolite (fossilised scat) and the item with a hole may well be a part of a fossilised sea-sponge. The rest are fossilised twigs. I think the white shells are quite modern and should really be discarded.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day and I will most certainly be going back in the near future to have another fossil hunt.

Thanks for the visit.