A Ramble over Roughting Linn...

Roughting Linn is the largest inscribed rock in Northumberland, measuring 20x12 metres and standing around 3 metres taller than the surrounding terrain. It's clear that this natural sandstone rock outcrop would have been quite the landmark in the area even before ancient artists began to decorate it. Situated only metres away from the ramparts of an Iron Age fort and at most a mile from the Goatscrag Rock Shelter by Roughting Linn Farm, it's clear this area has been of some importance for thousands of years. Even today, in its current state (which we'll talk a bit more about later) there is a special atmosphere here. The site and farm take their name from a picturesque waterfall where the Broomridgedean Burn falls over a ledge into a pool surrounded by cliffs; Linn meaning 'pool', and Roughting meaning 'bellowing noise'.

Tucked away in a little wood near Ford, Northumbria, beside an unassuming single lane road, these petroglyphs are over 4000 years old, hailing from the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. The outcrop sports an array of cupmarks, ringmarks (some with well-defined grooves), linked grooves, radiating lines, inverted curves, maze-like carvings and keyhole-type motifs across its entire visible surface. It's possible in some areas to see that some markings have become partially covered by grass and moss. The western part of the outcrop has been lost to quarrying pre-1950, as has a section large section across the width of the site. Distribution-wise, the simpler motifs seem to be confined to the upper surface of the outcrop, while more prominent and complex designs are located on the steeper flanks. These seem to form a frieze around the edges of the rock, which would have resembled a cairn with a decorated kerb. Kerbs circling burial mounds are known at barrow sites all over Europe.

The defensive ramparts of an Iron Age promontory fort are clearly visible only metres west of the rock art panel. Several concentric deep ditches surround the site of the fort which is now intersected by the road running up to Roughting Linn Farm. On the other side of this enclosure,  access to Roughting Linn waterfall is down a rather steep escarpment, but well worth the climb.








Many attempts have been made to interpret meaning behind cup- and ringmarked stones such as those at Roughting Linn. Fertility, first fruits, disease curing, animism, weather control, associations to 'little people' (elves/fairies), ringing sounds and astronomy have all been forwarded as explanations are various sites across the UK, Europe, and indeed the entire planet.

In North Yorkshire a marked stone is named the 'Fertility Stone' but the origins of the name are long lost, while the 'Tree of Life' Stone in the same area has been the site of may Day services even in recent times. Indeed many sites, especially in more remote areas, seem to be important to folklore. Offerings of milk to 'the little folk' on the islands of western Scotland are not long passed, and women in Sweden, desperate to conceive have been known to leave gifts at cupmarked stones.At the now destroyed 'Witch's Stone' at Ratho, near Edinburgh, a set of cupmarks were hewn into a boulder whose sides were smoothed by people sliding down the surface (a practice known from other sites in the area). It is believed that this was part of a superstitious fertility ritual where women wishing to bear children slid down the rockface.

Through my study of the Native American storytelling tradition way back in my Am. Lit. days, I learned that oral tradition could conserve stories over centuries and even millennia. At Roughting Linn we see the use of this same area through several ages, from the Neolithic/Bronze Age carvings, the Iron Age fort, even to the farm today right by the Goatscrag overhang. It's easy to imagine the folklore of this site being passed down through generations of people who fluctuated in and out of the area. When trying to understand why the folklore of sites around the UK may not be as well-preserved, a tragic realisation is that the persecution of 'Wise women' as witches would have left the stories and legends either dead with their storytellers or locked away in the minds of women too terrified to admit their knowledge. So, perhaps we will never know the exact meaning of cup- and ringmarked sites, but by examining the remnants of local folklore and anthropological analogies from other sites around the world, we can still make an educated guess.

What is clear is that, even to this day and despite the lack of conclusive interpretations,sites such as Roughting Linn carry a significant meaning. The atmosphere of the site was that of a sacred place, given the placement in the landscape, the cryptic art and the sounds of the waterfall cascading into the pool below. Indeed, one visitor recorded on their website having arrived to 'find the site occupied by two delightful ladies of a most spiritual nature quietly enjoying this sense of place'.

As I mentioned earlier, the site's current state demands commentary. We only found it because we saw a rock outcrop through the trees just past the road leading to Roughting Linn Farm and stopped 'just in case'. The rotting, decrepit sign I've seen on older pictures was no longer standing. The path to the site is overgrown with rhododendrons-- In fact, the entire area is overgrown and the fences (also visible on old photos of the site) are now reduced to stubs, clearly having been sawed down. Moss, grass and lichen are reclaiming the outcrop itself, and the rock art is constantly exposed to hundreds of feet trampling over it every year.

 

The saddest thing about this state of disrepair, is that there were lots of people visiting while we were there. Two large family groups and a few couples all passed through the area at the same time as my parents and I. All of them were speculating on the nature of the site; How old it was; What the symbols meant; What the ditches were. Of course, I could have babbled to them for a good few minutes and told them what I know, but wouldn't it be much better if the site were given a long overdue overhaul?

The wealth of this site is surely worth an investment. It wouldn't take too much. Put up a signpost. Clear some trees. Remove some moss and lichen. Add a few info boards explaining the site to visitors. Put up a new fence so kids don't jump around on the petrogylphs, scuffing at the porous sandstone with their trainers (because that's what they do). Point out what those ditches nearby actually are. Set up a little 'walk' around the area and include the waterfall. Make it an attraction, both for the locals and visitors to the area. It'd work a treat. The interest is there already; now it's time someone put in the effort.

Living La Brea Loca - LA's Lost World.

When you mention LA, the first thing to come to mind is usually one of the following things; sun, beach, Hollywood, movie starts ,famous people, Griffith Park, Jared Leto... My mind, though guilty of one or two of the above, rushes elsewhere.

My mind conjures the sweetish, somewhat toxic stench of newly laid asphalt, orange roadwork cones (pylons) and sticky black ooze gathering in pools around my feet.
I'm not talking about roadworks. I'm talking about the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park by the Page Museum. My favourite place in the world.

Meeting new friends.

The Page Museum is not the type of place you expect to find in the middle of a metropolis like Los Angeles, but on this site 40 000 years ago (careful people, we're moving into my ultimate Age of Geek) things were quite different.

This pit was flooded and now exists as a bubbling pond!

Picture a mastodon drowning slowly in thick, acrid, goopy tar while it's babydaddy and offspring stand on the bank in grief. Having trouble?

Now picture a flurry of carnivores lurking in the background, waiting for the male and spawn to disperse so they can begin feasting on the trapped female. Direwolves (so not just a product of Westeros), Teratorns, Bears, Giant Jaguars and Sabertooths alike were attracted to the pits where easy pickings could be made of unlucky herbivores. Unfortunately, in their eagerness to feed, the carnivores also often found their own demise.

Carnivores account for almost 90% of the fossil mammals and birds of prey 70% of the fossil birds in the Page Museum collections. An ongoing excavation at Pit 91 aims to determine whether this great abundance is natural or the result of collecting bias on the part of earlier excavators who tended to only collect the most spectacular and largest specimens. This is an issue in older sites all around the world and an important study when it comes to the validity of statistics  and our image of life in past times.

Did you see how I mentioned a Giant Jaguar up there without spending a good few lines geeking out? Yeah, that's not happening anymore. Naegele's Giant Jaguar was a behemoth among cats. Closely related to the African Lion and extinct European cave lion, it was once found from south western Canada to Mexico. More than 80 individuals have so far presented in the La Brea sections, giving us a unique opportunity to examine this majestic feline. Compared to African Lions, Naegele's Giant Jaguar did not live in prides, but in pairs or a lone, given the male/female ratio in the pits. This could, of course, be the result of more lone males falling into the pits. In African lions, females hunt mostly in pride-size groups. When encountering a natural trap like a tar pit, once a female is lost, the rest of the pride would avoid that area, males though... not so smart.

Lets move on to another pretty kitty. A pretty kitty with a pretty name; Smilodon fatalis. Doesn't it sound sweet? Let it roll off your tongue. Can anyone guess what this name means? Smiling Cat of Fate? Not so much.. more like Smiling Murder Cat. Smilodon fatalis is one of two sabertoothed cats found in the La Brea deposits. The other, Homotherium serum, the Scimtar Cat, has smaller teeth. Smilodon could roar like a lion and retract his claws (no painful snuggles here!), an active predator with a hunting method more on the 'I'll Stalk You To a Violent End' side as murder goes. Those teeth are not just swag, either. It seems, though, that Smilodon was also rather lazy and that rather than exert the energy such brutal thug-life requires, he preferred to stroll the tar pits on Sunday afternoons, nibbling on what Nature's coldcuts had to offer. 166,000 Smilodon bones have been recovered so far from the deposits. All the brawn... not so much with the brains.

 Not a cat person? Ever seen a Direwolf? Ghost, Nymeria, Lady, Grey Wind, Shaggy dog and Summer of Game of Thrones fame are not Direwolves as you should know them. Out of the five members of the Canis family that present at La Brea, the DireWolf is the big Daddy. Direwolves, with a collection of over 200,000 specimens are the most abundant species in the RLB biota. Given the high numbers of both Smilidon and Direwolf remains presenting in the tar pits, it's safe to conclude that they occupied different niches in the ecosystem. Where Smilidon was the lonesome thug, out to flex his muscles, Direwolves displayed a mob mentality, much like present day hyenas. Direwolves were social animals and ran in packs, like grey wolves today. Fossil evidence even shows that several specimens had healed pre-mortem injuries, the result of social healing where other pack members tended to the injured individual and nursed him or her back to health.

 And what could possibly be dying in the tar pits to tempt such carnivores as we've just run through? I don't know about you, but our forefathers did a lot worse than risk their life in a pool of tar to get hold of a mammoth steak. Mammoths and mastodons are both  present in the La Brea biota, but I have a thing for mammoths, so we're going to talk about them. More specifcally, we'll talk about Zed. I guarantee anyone who's ever seen Pulp Fiction is muttering 'Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.' under their breath right about now. Zed is the most complete Columbian Mammoth to be recovered from La Brea. His remains can be seen in several places around the museum, most notably his skull and left tusk were clearly visible in the open lab (FANTASTIC open lab) and his spine is displayed in it's own case. It's quite possible you might have mistaken Zed's spine for a crocodile. I know that's the first thing I thought when I looked at it. You see, in addition to being the most complete specimen of his kind, Zed was also unique in that he suffered from a form of chronic arthritis called ankylosing spondylosis.

Other herbivores to lose their lives and consequently lure carnivores to their own sticky ends worth mentioning are Harlan's Giant Sloth, the American Buffalo, and the Western Horse.

The treasures of La Brea encompass far more than the megafaunal remains poking up through the sticky soil. Insects -large like dragon flies, and tiny beetles painstakingly sorted in the open lab- and pollen extracted from the deposits help form a detailed reconstruction of the biotope that was Hancock Park (and indeed downtown Los Angeles as a whole!) in the Ice Age.

All of this so far has been about the indoor exhibits. Outside in Hancock Park is, if possible, even more fun.
Not just because there are hummingbirds buzzing around the flora surrounding the waterlogged tar pits, nor the very snuggly statue of a Giant Sloth I spent a few moments petting.

Spread across the park, you find orange cones, each marking tar leaking up to the surface. Some larger pits are fenced in, others have already been completely excavated. Everywhere there are tarred sticks, evidence that mammalian curiosity hasn't exactly waned in the past 40 000 years. Interesting, yes; but that's not it either.

The outdoor area around the Page Museum is fun/awesome/amazing because you can stand and stare at the lucky excavators as they slowly-but-surely extract material from the ground. In fact, it looks like so much fun that a bone-loving, highly enthused Ice Age lover like myself had to have a serious talk with herself while observing Pit 91.. A little less willpower and I'd have been right in there with my trowel. There's also the opportunity to peer through the fencing and follow progress on the Project 23 - the excavation of 23 large deposits found in 2006 during the construction of an underground parking garage for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art next door.

I could go on forever about La Brea. Really I could. There's so much more there than a simple blog post could ever explain, no matter how hard I tried. You really jsut have to go there. See the tar, smell the tar, poke the tar with a stick.. Gaze in awe at the strange prehistoric animals that once wandered along Santa Monica Boulevard. You won't regret it.

Take the pictures at the entrance. Just do it.

Did this tickle your fancy? Read more about La Brea and their current excavations here!

Urban Archaeology - Bergen's Katarinahospital.

Today, after leaving my dentist's office, I decided to wander around the immediate area. It's quite the place to be for a geeky archaeologist like myself. You see, my dentist's office is right by the German Wharf (Bryggen) in Bergen, Norway, and right across the street from St Mary's church. What caught my eye today, though, were not the floor to ceiling windows at Bryggen Museum where any- and everyone can feast their eyes on original excavation sections from the massive research initiative after the Bryggen fire disaster of 1955, nor the exquisite beauty radiating from the newly renovated church as she's slowly unwrapped after years of delicate conservation and repairs. What caught my eye were the ruins of St Catherine's Hospital, nestled carefully behind a glass shelter that protrudes from the side of a building, giving passersby and savants alike a window into the past. 

St. Catherine's Hospital, Bergen, Norway.

St. Catherine's Hospital (Katarinahospitalet) was built by Håkon Håkonsen (King Håkon Håkonsen, to be exact...) in 1248 AD and was Norway's first hospital for women. Though the hospital itself was relocated after only a short time, the building was in use until 1527 when a devastating fire left it in ruins. Work to record and conserve the ruin was completed in 2003, resulting in an open excavation nestled below a modern building and protected from the elements by a transparent shelter. Visitors can also follow an elevated walkway behind the paneling for a closer look at well-preserved stone walls and lovely flagstone floors. One of the recovered rooms even sports a beautiful well! 

 

Well, well, well...

Basking in September sun.

Unfortunately not much else is known about this specific locality situated between the world famous UNESCO site of Bryggen and the historically impressive buildings clustered around Bergenhus Fort, but it's well worth a bogle (look, for those of you unfamiliar with Scottish slang).

Definitely geeked up my day!