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Volume 16 Issue No: 6 December 2017

Merry Christmas

and Happy New Year!

NEWSLETTER

Archaeology in Marlowwww.archaeologyinmarlow.org.uk

AiM’s Forthcoming Events

Dear AIM members and friendsJoin us for our Christmas Quiz!

8pm on Thursday 14th December in the Garden Room Liston Hall, Marlow,SL7 1DD

Come along an enjoy a fun-filled evening with new and old friends. This is ageneral knowledge quiz for teams of four. It is not necessary to come as a teamas teams can be made up on the night. Teams will compete to win a small prize!

As usual, Mulled wine and Fruit juices will be provided on the night, but wewould ask quizzers to bring along a snack, or dish, if possible (Crisps, or Sau-

sage Rolls, Mince Pies, Quiche, Nuts, etc.), so we have a good selection ofsnacks to go with the drinks. This has worked well in previous years.

We will also be holding our famous Raffle, which should again have prizesworth in excess of £100! Should you wish to donate a raffle prize, please bringit along on the night. We are indebted to our sponsors and AIM members who

donate raffle prizes.

Entrance fee for AIM and Visitors £1There is Free Parking in the adjacent car park after 7pm

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AiM’s Events at a Glance

Thursday 15th February 2018 8pm"Risborough – Origins of Our Settlement."

This is a departure from our normal format, asit is a film, presented by Paul Green of the Ris-borough Countryside Alliance about excava-tions and findings in an area only 12 milesaway.

This is a brand new historic film for Risboroughand the surrounding countryside of the Saun-derton Gap to Bradenham. Illustrating the ar-chaeological discoveries, including exciting re-cent sites, such as the first century Romano -British Bloomery at Bradenham, that reveal thestory of 4000 years of occupation from theNeolithic, until the end of the Roman period.With enlightening contributions from BrettThorn from Buckinghamshire County Museum,and Chris Ellis from Cotswold Archaeology, thefilm explores the rich local heritage and en-ables a fresh understanding of our past that,

until now, has not been easily seen.

Garden Room, Liston Hall, Chapel Street, Mar-low SL7 1DD

AIM and MAS members £3, Visitors £4.50.

*Liston Hall’s full address is:Chapel Street, Marlow, SL7 1DD.

Free parking is available in the adjacentcar park after 7 pm.

Hunt’s of Marlow

For First ClassDIY, Hardware andGarden Supplies

35 Station Road, MarlowTel 01628 488228

Please note:- from the 1st of January 2018,both AIM and MAS members will generally be

charged £3 for entry into talks arrangedby either organisation

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Thursday 22nd March 2018 8pm"Adventures in Experimental Archaeology"A talk by Dr Jennifer Foster, Honorary ResearchFellow, University of Reading

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Where did the Vikings come from? Did theywear helmets with horns? Were they raiders ortraders? Was Ethelred unready? Barbara Askewanswered these questions and covered a widerange of aspects of the Viking world in her talkon 23rd November.

The Viking period roughly covers the period800-1050AD, starting with the famous attack onLindisfarne, that was noted throughout Europe.The origin of the word ‘Viking’ is obscure butVIK may relate to a word for a bay or coastalinlet or come from the Latin word VICUS mean-ing a trading centre. The VIK element remainstoday in place names such as Lerwick and Reyk-javik.

Barbara took us through the many sources ofinformation available on the Vikings. Literarysources include runic inscriptions (mainly onstone), sagas, poetry and other documents writ-ten in Old Norse. Many archaeological sites areknown, including the famous ship burials. Andin Britain, many place names show Viking influ-ence, such as those including elements such as‘beck’ and ‘dale’.

Barbara showed some maps that illustrated the

vast area that felt the influence of the Vikings.As well as western Europe, their presence wasfelt in Greenland, North Africa, Russia andBaghdad, and they even got as far as New-foundland.

The Vikings developed several long distancetrade routes in their search for wealth, and theyused rivers as well as the sea to reach their des-tinations. They mainly used silver for trading,but preferred ‘hack silver’ (broken pieces)rather than coins, and measured the weight ofthe silver in ounces.

The large number of foreign objects found inScandinavia demonstrates the extent of thistrade. The imported goods had an effect on lo-cal design, as items such as brooches have beenfound showing a mix of Scandinavian and Celticdesign. They often modified foreign items byadding wording stating ownership. They wouldalso use items in different ways as they liked toturn coins into pendants. A darker side to Vikingtrade was the trade in slaves which was proba-bly the most lucrative trade of all.

Ships were possibly the most outstandingachievement of the Vikings. They were fast andlarge enough to carry over 100 men which iswhy they were so effective. They used theclinker style of construction using overlappingtimbers. The first ships were powered by oar,but the Vikings improved their design by addingsails of wool. As the ships were very shallowthey were able to beach on the coast and pene-trate far inland on rivers – they reached Parisand Nottingham.

Ships were sometimes used for elaborate buri-als such as at Oseburg in Norway. This burialcontained 15 horses and several other animalswithin the ship. However, Barbara told us that

The Vikings

Barbara Askew

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The Vikings (cont)

they rarely set fire to a ship at sea at a funeral.

Despite their reputation, not all Vikings werewarriors. However those that were liked to ap-pear distinctive by filing grooves in their frontteeth to perhaps appear more fearsome. Onlyone helmet has been found - but withouthorns.

The Vikings were pagans and believed in a num-ber of gods and spirits that resided in Asgardand eight other ‘worlds’. Thor was the favouritegod of the warriors and the Valkyries were fe-male spirits associated with battle. The Vikingsdidn’t worship their gods but did carry out vari-ous rituals, often including sacrifice of animalsand sometimes even humans.

By the 11th century Christianity was beingadopted. But the Vikings didn’t immediatelyabandon their old gods and objects have beenfound that show Christian symbols alongsidetraditional pagan images such as Thor’s ham-mer.

The impact of the Vikings in England started inthe 9th century when they established fortifiedcamps so that they could stay over the winter.Gradually they increased the length of theirstays until they became a permanent presence.King Alfred of Wessex won a famous victory

against the Vikings in Berkshire, and for a timethe country was divided into two parts - Wes-sex and the Danelaw (the Viking part).

In the late 10th century, coastal attacks re-newed and King Ethelred unsuccessfully tried topay the Vikings off, paying ‘Danegeld’ to theDanish king. The large amounts he paid are evi-dent in the 70,000 Ethelred coins found in Scan-dinavia. Ethelred has been misnamed‘Unready’, due to poor translation from an OldEnglish word meaning ‘ill-advised’.

As well as place-names, England has many ar-chaeological sites and finds from the Viking pe-riod. The Coppergate site in York producedmany finds and locally there is a spear fromMarlow and an axe from Maidenhead. There isprobably a fort known as a ‘burgh’ from Alfred’stime, at Sashes Island in Cookham. We can alsothank the Vikings for words such as egg and sis-ter.

DNA analysis has shown that many English peo-ple contain Danish Viking DNA, but NorwegianViking DNA is mostly only found in Glasgow andthe Shetland Islands. So, many of us may haveViking ancestry. And were they raiders or trad-ers? I think the evidence shows they were both.

Martin Fowkes

Marlow Market & Tony’s Grill Bar

Dean Street Car Park, Marlow

A small friendly market offering large quantities of English and Foreign fruits andvegetables, along with fresh eggs, with discounts for bulk orders. Every Wednesday,8.00am - 3.00pm

Fresh fish from Grimsby. Every Wednesday, 8.00am - 12.00 noon The best kebabs, burgers and chicken in the UK. Every evening, 5pm - 12 midnight

(2 am Fridays and Saturdays)

All enquiries - Peter Smith 07789-713099

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AiM Gets An Upgrade

We have recently bought a new laptop from Computer Cavern. The previous one was 11 yearsold and running an old version of Windows. Although it was still working it was starting to exhibitsome quirky behaviour and we felt it was becoming increasingly unreliable.

We often use the laptop for our speakers’ presentations and we did not want to run the risk of anIT failure during one of our talks. The new laptop has been successfully tested with the Liston Hallprojector so is now ready for use.

We have also purchased a new external hard drive to use for backing up all our data. The previ-ous one was full and we keep creating more content, and it is important to maintain backups ofour files. As an example of how much data we create, the current Warren Wood project hasadded over 1Gb, which is mainly due to photos.

Martin Fowkes

FREE KODAK CAROUSEL!

AIM's Kodak Carousel is now surplus torequirements. If anyone would like totake ownership of this piece of equip-ment (free of charge) please arrangecollection from John Laker (his detailsare on the back page).

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Chilterns Hillforts Project

Readers may have seen the recent news thatthe Chiltern Conservation Board (CCB) has beenallocated funding of almost £700,000 for theirhillforts project - The Beacons of the Past – Hill-forts in the Chilterns Landscape.

This is of interest to AIM as we have two hill-forts nearby at Danesfield and Medmenham.Between 2005 and 2008, AIM carried out re-search and survey work on both these sites aspart of the ROMADAM project. We have al-ready been in touch with CCB regarding thesesites and John Laker took Cathie Hasler of CCBon a guided tour of them earlier this year.

Part of the project involves carrying out a sur-vey of the whole of the Chilterns Area of Out-standing Natural Beauty (AONB) using LIDARand traditional ground-based techniques. Thismay reveal hitherto unknown sites and add tothe knowledge of existing sites. LIDAR usespulses of laser light fired from aircraft and theresulting images can reveal features covered byvegetation and not easily visible on the ground.

AIM has previously studied publicly availableLIDAR images that cover part of our local area,but up to now we do not have full coverage

(see graphic showing inner and outer earth-works at Warren Wood, below).

We are hoping that this survey will allow us toincrease our knowledge of the area aroundMarlow, including our Warren Wood site.

The CCB project runs for four years from 2018and we will keep in touch with the project withthe aim of getting involved where appropriate.

Martin Fowkes and John Laker

Saddle SafariCYCLE SALES & SERVICE

9 Dean Street, Marlow,Bucks, SL7 3AA.Tel. 01628 477020

www.saddlesafari.co.uk

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October’s Newsletter Quiz Question was:Why were 'Progress' and 'Always' important before WW1 to the public who lived in and

around Marlow?

There were no winners this time, but the Answer is:They were the names of the first two petrol brewery lorries, taking over from slower

horses and traction engines, delivering to the tied public houses owned byWethereds.'Progress' was a chain driven Hallford. 'Always' came from Aveling and Porter.

'Progress' was commandeered by the War Department on the 16th August 1914 andreplaced with another lorry from Aveling and Porter a little later.

October’s Quiz Question & Answer

A two part quiz question:

1 What was the name of the post-war company who moved to Marlow in 1953and using their expertise in designing, building and operating plastics mouldingmachines successfully launched a range of innovative “costume” jewellery ashort while after?

2 What organic raw material was used to create pearlised products?

Prize for the AIM member with the first correct answers:Two tickets to any AIM talk. Email or phone your answer to Ann Pitwell

(see back page for contact details).

December’s Quiz Question

Photo courtesy ofArthur Ingram

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Warren Wood Update

We have finished our Sunday excavations for the year and covered trench 13 to protect it overthe winter.

Our final visits of the year concentrated on the extensions to trench 13. We were hoping to findthat the potential flint walls within the main trench extended in the directions indicated by theiralignment. Although we have continued to find large flint pieces, they do not appear to be in situso we cannot determine the exact position of any walls.

In the last issue I reported that we had found some unusual tile which appeared glazed and werewarped and seemed to be badly fired. Wessex Archaeology have kindly looked at some examplesand have confirmed that they have been over-fired which gives them a glazed or vitrified appear-ance. It still begs the question as to why they are at Warren Wood as we are not aware of anynearby kiln. Did some medieval building supplier provide some poor quality tiles - and did theperson who ordered them get a refund? Wessex Archaeology have also looked at some examplesof the roof tile from trench 13. They tell us that these tiles are of a better quality than some fromthis period and would probably have been produced locally.

We have also recently found an iron object (see photo). This is unusual as we find very few metalobjects, apart from a few nails. It is not obvious what the item is, but some sort of strap fitting isone suggestion. We hope to send the object to Wessex Archaeology when the trench is finished,so that it can be x-rayed – although that still may not tell us what it is. Perhaps we will find moreof the object when we continue excavation next year.

We also hope to carry out some more field-walking within the surrounding woodland during thewinter, when the vegetation is much lower. The aim will be to complete the surveying we startedlast winter, when we found some interesting features that may be worth further investigation.We expect to start this activity in February next year and will let you know when we have datesconfirmed.

Martin Fowkes (Field Work Co-ordinator)

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Other Events of interestOther Organisations’Events and Resources

Marlow MuseumSundays 2pm – 4pmCurrent Exhibitions:“Marlow Then and Now” and “Marlow Remem-bers WW1”Mulled Wine & Mince Pies on 3rd, 10th and 17th

DecemberPeacock Room, Court Garden Leisure CentreHigginson Park, Pound Lane, Marlow SL7 2AEhttp://www.marlowmuseum.uk/

Buckinghamshire Archaeological SocietySaturday 13 January 2018 2.30pm“Thomas Williams, The Copper King”A talk by Julian HuntThe Learning Zone, Bucks County Museum,Church Street, Aylesbury, HP20 2QPhttp://www.bucksas.org.uk/lectures.html

Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society - ActiveArchaeology GroupTuesday 16 January 7.30pm 2018“How LIDAR surveying identifies our archae-ology” A talk by Andy McGrandleBucks County Museum,Church Street, Aylesbury, HP20 2QPFree, donations accepted towards refreshmentshttp://www.bucksas.org.uk/aag.html

Other Events of interestThis is the information available to us at the time of publication, but weadvise you to check as this may have changed since then.

Chess Valley Archaeological and Historical Society(CVAHS)Friday 19th January 8pm 2018A talk by Marion Wells CVAHS“The Griffin Warrior, Pylos, Greece”"One of the most spectacular archaeological dis-coveries in Greece in more than half a cen-tury" (Smithsonian.com)”Lowndes Room, Chesham Town Hall, CheshamVisitors £4 www.cvahs.org.uk

SOAG (South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group)Thursday Jan 25 2018 7.30 for 7.45 pmLecture by Adam McBride (Oxford University)“The Origins of Wessex: Long Wittenham and theContext of Power'Goring Heath Parish Hall, Whitchurch Hill, RG8 7NYFree, donations accepted events@soagarch.org.uk

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AiM Committee MeetingsFuture AiM Committee Meetings

7.30pm Tuesday the 16th of January 2018 at 88 Blind Lane, Bourne End, SL8 5LD7.30pm Wednesday the 28th of February 2018 at 3 Penington Rd, Beaconsfield

All members are welcome to attend all AiM meetings.

Please telephone a committee member in advance to confirm date and venue.

AiM Committee Members

Vice-Chairman Martin Fowkes88 Blind Lane, Bourne End, SL8 5LD01628 530832 - m88fowkes@gmail.com

Treasurer Ann Pitwell9 Spinfield Lane, Marlow, SL7 2JT01628 481792 - annpitwell@thamesinternet.com

Secretary John Laker9 Spinfield Lane, Marlow, SL7 2JT01628 481792 - johnlaker@thamesinternet.com

Membership Secretary Nicky Penderedc/o 9 Spinfield Lane, Marlow, SL7 2JT

Newsletter Compiler Jessica Smalljfs25@kent.ac.uk

Joint Field Work Co-ordinators01628 481141 - andyford.marlow@btinternet.com Andy Ford01628 530832 - m88fowkes@gmail.com Martin Fowkes

Committee Members01494 675195 - jabirkett@btinternet.com Tony Birkett01494 533669 - nicktillyer@yahoo.co.uk Beverley Howard

AiM

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£12.00 Household Membership (one adult and any children under 18 living at thesame address)

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Corporate Membership is available on application