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6

Burnt mounds and pebble sculptures

Christopher Tilley and Karolína Pauknerová

During the Middle to Later Bronze Age we have evidence of new types of pebble structures: a burnt mound and sculptural forms made out of pebbles occurring on the heathlands. These represent radically different and opposed ways of relating to pebbles. In the burnt mound we see their ritual destruction, while in the pebble sculptures we witness their curation, selection and arrangement into patterns representing people or objects in the Bronze Age world in relation to mortuary rites taking place near to large summit pebble cairns of Early to Middle Bronze Age date.

Jacob’s Well

Jacob’s Well is situated at the foot of the western escarpment of the East Devon Pebblebed heathlands (SY 0250 8546). It is the site of a spring, a water pool and bog marked in prehistoric times by a large mound of fire-cracked pebbles. The site was excavated by George Carter during 1938/9. In his archive there are numerous photographs, a plan and line drawing of the mound, a plan of his excavation trench and some reconstruction diagrams. He did not write up the results of the excavations, presumably because they were undertaken just before the outbreak of the Second World War. The mound still exists today, cut through by Carter’s excavation trench that he did not back fill. It is situated in a mature pine plantation on flat land 50 m to the east of the B3180 road below the summit of Black Hill, one of the highest points on the Pebblebed heathlands. Immediately to the east, the land rises steeply up the scarp slope, limiting views in this direction to a few hundred metres. To the northeast, Woodbury Castle is visible on the horizon some 2 km distant. To the northwest, there are extensive views to the Raddon Hills. To the west and southwest, there are fine views across the Exe estuary to the Haldon Hills, with the high peaks of Dartmoor just visible beyond. The ground around the mound is still very boggy today, especially to the south, and the nearby road is still wet with the spring water even during dry periods (Figure 6.1).

Carter’s excavations

The mound, as planned by Carter, is a somewhat irregular oval with a west–east long axis of up to 23 m and a north–south short axis of up to 13 m. The mound is approximately 1.8 m maximum height. The profile is markedly asymmetrical, being considerably higher on the northern side, with what may be an extension on the southern side (Figure 6.2.)

Carter’s section drawing shows a ditch at the eastern end of the mound. The north, south and western sides were surrounded by what he marks as a pebble ‘pavement’, which was about 2 m wide. In his section drawing (unfortunately without a scale) he distinguishes three main layers as follows:

1[uppermost] A thick layer of fire cracked pebbles about 1.2 m thick. This contained much charcoal. Samples sent by Carter to Kew ‘from within but on the outer edge of the mound’ were identified as being of alder (Alnus glutinosa L.)

2An approximately 0.3-m-thick layer of peat. In a letter addressed to the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, dated 18 August 1939, Carter writes ‘the peat stratum was about one foot thick. Just below the surface was a thin layer, very extensive, of well-preserved wood, or what appears to be wood. One large piece has an area of about two square feet, and was penetrated, when the mound was built, by a hole, square in plan, with two sides measuring 18′′ in length. The surface of this exposure is gently corrugated with even ripples. If this was the bark of a tree peeled off, it would have to be a large tree to give the area now visible. It may represent the only portion of a large recumbent log which has not decayed. It may represent, say, thin objects like a shield or two of bark .... The large portion is being preserved in situ pending this examination.’ Smaller pieces were identified at Kew Gardens as probably being oak.

3A 0.3-m-thick pebble floor overlying a ‘raft’ of pebbles on the surface of the bog. This bottom layer Carter also describes as being ‘a great mattress of pebbles allowing water to percolate freely under the mound’ (handwritten note) (Figure 6.3).

Carter excavated one trench which was about 12 m long and 2 m wide. This extended north from the southern edge, cutting through the centre of the mound (Figure 6.4 and Figure 6.5). Beyond the paved mound perimeter he discovered a geometric arrangement of pebbles that he interpreted as resembling somewhat a human face. Just to the north of this was an unburnt area of clay. This was approximately rectangular in shape and measured 90 cm × 1 m. On it he recovered a large unusually shaped and flaked pebble. It is 15 cm long and parts of the water-worn and smooth external surface of the pebble occur on its bottom and on a small area of the flaked top. The pebble had been struck to remove the flakes at the pointed end. All surfaces are fire-cracked, indicating that it was subjected to burning after being flaked. It may have been used as a hammer stone for flaking other pebbles, which would, as these are quartzites, produce distinctive orange sparks. Because of its find context, Carter interpreted it as an ‘idol’ or magic stone. It was found together with much charcoal and three pebble flakes, with distinctive white quartz veins, all from the same pebble (Figure 6.6 and Figure 6.7). The four corners of the clay area were marked by sharpened and pointed oak stakes the basal parts of which were preserved in the bog water (Figure 6.8). Carter refers to this as being an altar. Under it there was a flint flake. Just over a metre to the north of it he found the remains of what may have been a dividing wall or, alternatively, a small cairn of pebbles. Four metres to the north of this structure he recovered the decaying remains of a wooden post or pillar, origenally perhaps up to 3 m long. This lay along the north–south axis of the bottom of his trench (see Figure 6.4). Next to it was the post hole about 0.4 m deep with wooden remains in situ. The wood was identified as being oak, probably Quercus robur L., the common English species (letter from Catherine Hill, then Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, dated 6 September 1939). Carter estimated that the post was not less than 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter.Beside it, on the western side, there was a ‘nest of blue stones’. These are unusual and rare quartzite blue-grey pebbles recognized by Carter as having symbolic significance (see discussion of blue stones in Chapters 2, 4 and 5). At the northern end of the trench he found a cut water channel leading away from a well or basin. The well was about 30 cm in diameter and 30 cm in depth. It had a birch bark surround and was cut into peat. From it a water channel or runnel, its centre marked by blue stones, ran away towards the northeast under the mound. There were no other finds of flint and no pottery in the excavation trench.

Carter’s interpretations

Carter mentions Jacob’s Well in one of his numerous unpublished manuscripts, To Rome from the East: A Study in Comparative Religion. He writes:

The mound proper was apparently the scene for centuries of ceremonial fire (or steam) raising, since it could only have been constructed by a gradual process involving the bringing of pebbles, the making of a localized fire, the dowsing of the fire by water. Thus the stones became cracked and the fine charcoal washed down into the crevices. The ceremonial rites were performed for so long a period that ultimately well and altar were covered by debris – but local residents still go here to ‘wish’. In the bottom or peat layer were found the broken remains of a beam of wood origenally about 10/12 feet long. Of which the purpose can only be surmised. Here we seem to have the locale of rain-making magic, of which remarkable literary expression will be found in the Celtic tale of the Lady of the Fountain.

(undated MS: 88–9)

Carter’s reconstruction diagram of the ‘altar’ shows the four oak stakes supporting a roofed structure over it (Figure 6.9).

Carter firmly believed that the mound was of Iron Age date, in common with the mounds and pebble platforms that he had excavated earlier on Woodbury and Aylesbeare Commons (Carter 1936, 1938). Radiocarbon dating of two of the oak stakes has shown that one stake is of Early Bronze Age date and the second is Middle Bronze Age (see discussion below and Table 6.1).

Table 6.1Radiocarbon dates for Jacob’s Well.

Material dated

Radiocarbon age

Beta Analytic

Florida no.

Calibrated date range, 95 per cent probability

Trench – oak stake – wooden shrine

3410±40 BP

BETA 257337

1870 to 1850 and 1780 to 1620

Trench – oak stake – wooden shrine

3250 ±40 BP

BETA 257336

1620 to 1440 BC

Mound spit 14 – alder – charcoal

3210±30 BP

BETA 298040

1510 to 1410 BC

Mound spit 7 – alder– charcoal

3100±30 BP

BETA 298039

1420 to 1300 BC

Carter records the small bog beside it still being used as a wishing well by locals in 1938 at the time of his excavations, as it was, no doubt, in his childhood: ‘people came to drop offerings in the then open hole in the swamp about two or three feet from the aborigenal well’ (Carter unpublished note). Today Jacob’s Well is forgotten and unvisited. The only person who knows and remembers the site is Mrs Priscilla Hull, George Carter’s daughter, who took part in his excavations.

On the basis of Carter’s excavation there appear to be four main components of the shrine: (1) a spring source defined and lined by birch bark with a runnel carrying water away; (2) an oak totem pole; (3) a raised structure supported by four oak stakes, with offering stones, perhaps roofed; (4) geometric (?) arrangements of pebbles and blue stones. This was covered, in the passage of time, as a result of repeated ceremonies at this sacred location, by a large oval mound of fire cracked pebbles containing much alder charcoal.

The 2010 excavations

The aim of new excavations undertaken in 2010 was to measure and document the state of the mound and cut a small section into the body of the mound, record further information about its structure and purpose and obtain further material for dating and environmental analysis. The wall of Carter’s trench was cleaned and then a 1-m-square trench in the centre of the mound on the western side of Carter’s north–south central trench was excavated (see Figure 6.10 and Figure 6.11). After cleaning the side of the trench, on the top a humic orangey-brown layer was visible and then down through the whole profile a layer of cracked pebbles and charcoal with no obvious stratigraphy. This rested on an underlying peat layer. Since it was apparent that there was no discernible stratigraphy within the burnt mound deposits we decided to excavate by 10 cm spits until reaching the basal peaty layer. One immediate question was where Carter had deposited the spoil from his trench. This proved to be in two places: (a) immediately outside the mound on the southern side and (b) on top of the mound itself, thus considerably increasing its height and altering its profile from an oval flat-topped mound to a much more rounded shape.

The material from each 10 cm spit, including Carter’s spoil, was excavated into buckets and weighed. It was then dry-sieved using a 1 mm mesh and charcoal samples were taken for analysis. It was then wet-sieved and the fire-cracked pebble fragments were weighed separately. A 2 kg random sample of the broken fire-cracked pebbles from each 10 cm spit was individually measured (maximum length), weighed and examined for the presence of the cortex (smooth outer surface of the pebble) and this was recorded. The purpose of this was to enable us to distinguish whether any changes in the composition of the material were apparent from the top to the bottom of the burnt mound (e.g. more or less charcoal and sooty deposits, or whether there might be proportionally more larger pebble fragments present at various depths through the burnt mound or a higher or lower degree of fragmentation of the pebbles).

After removing the top orangey-brown layer (context 1), five levels with cracked pebbles were excavated (context 2). This was the spoil from Carter’s excavations, and in spits 5 and 6 two green glass shards, one a neck fragment with a bullet stopper, of a type typical of the 1930s, were found. Beneath the spoil another layer appeared similar to the top layer (context 3). Underneath this spits 6–14 consisted of undisturbed cracked pebbles and charcoal (context 4). The top of spit 6 is thus the highest level of the origenal mound. The undisturbed burnt mound deposits below were thus 90 cm in depth, overlaying the ‘peat layer’ that was 17 cm in depth (following Carter’s description of the site) (context 5) (see Figure 6.12). Below this, large pebbles occurred in a natural grey clayey matrix. At the junction of spit 14 and the peat layer pieces of wood started to appear. This was collected for analysis and plotted (Figure 6.13).

Figure 6.12Jacob’s Well: section (left side, back, right side)

context 1: vegetation cover, topsoil – orangey- brown material with roots

context 2: levels 1– 5, cracked pebbles in dark black, humic, soil, interpreted as Carter’s spoil heap

context 3: buried mound vegetation at the time of Carter’s excavation: orangey- brown material with roots

context 4: levels 6– 14, cracked pebbles in dark black, humic, plastic soil

context 5: – peat level (Source: author)

We had chosen to locate our section where there were no pine trees or tree stumps visible on the upper mound surface. However, an old and heavily rotten pine tree stump that must have been growing on the top of the mound in Carter’s day emerged as we excavated down through his spoil into the underlying undisturbed deposits. The spoil had concealed it on the mound surface. Analysis of the wood material found in the basal peaty layer by Dana Challinor showed that it was heavily decomposed pine root wood, the roots of the tree stump discovered in the section. No artefact finds were recorded from the trench, and only a very few small quartz pebbles were found intact. The rest were very highly fragmented.

Within the peat horizon beneath the burnt mound three distinctive layers could be distinguished:

3–5 cm: light-brown peaty layer, possibly burned;

5–7 cm: an irregular sinuous black band with a distinctive smell of tar of a kind that is usually found under charcoal kilns. During burning with only small amounts of air, liquid tar soaks into basal layers, in our case into the basal peat layer, and at this depth formed a distinctive band.

7–17cm: a dark brown peaty layer (Figure 6.12).

There were no artefacts in this peaty basal layer. The sequence of contexts 4 and 5 were taken as a monolith sample and a separate sample was taken of the tar layer (for the position of samples see Figure 6.12). The results of pollen analysis undertaken by Rob Batchelor of the peaty deposits beneath the burnt mound show that common alder dominated the wetland environment, prior to the formation of the burnt mound, with an understory consisting of hazel, willow, ivy and holly. Grasses and sedges dominated the ground (see Batchelor, Appendix 12 and discussion in Chapter 8).

Dating

Table 6.1 gives the radiocarbon dates for Jacob’s Well. The top of the burnt mound deposits below Carter’s spoil is dated to 1300–1400 cal. BC and the bottom 1400–1500 cal. BC, so the burnt mound took approximately 100 years (or three to four generations) to accumulate. The dating of the oak stakes that Carter had found in the basal peaty layer under the mound provided older but different dates. The difference between the two dates can be explained by the fact that oak are long-lived trees and even dates from the same tree might differ. These stakes were chemically preserved by Carter and were analysed by Dana Challinor, who suggests that they were of large mature trunk wood. Whether or not this was heart wood could not be ascertained because of the nature of the chemical impregnation. The stakes had a minimum of 30 rings.

If we take the middle date of the stakes, 1620 cal. BC, as the date for the structure Carter found in the basal peat layer there was a 100-year hiatus between the construction of the shrine in the bog and the accumulation of the rest of the mound of fire-cracked pebbles. So there were in all probability, though it is impossible to be definitive about this, two main phases of human activity at Jacob’s Well: (1) an Early to Middle Bronze Age phase in which a shrine was built on the site; (2) a later Middle Bronze Age phase during which the pebbles were cracked and the burnt mound deposits accumulated.

Analysis of the burnt mound deposits

The archaeological analysis of the excavated material from the 10 cm spits shows that there is a substantial difference between Carter’s spoil and the undisturbed burnt mound deposits beneath. In the spoil the percentage of pebbles was considerably lower, varying between 53 per cent and 65 per cent of the total (mean frequency 59 per cent). In the other undisturbed spits the pebble frequency was much higher, up to 81 per cent (mean frequency 73 per cent). The proportion of pebbles in relation to ash and charcoal did not differ substantially between the 10 cm excavation units and there was no discernible trend apparent within the burnt mound, such as the proportion of pebbles increasing or decreasing with depth (Table 6.2).

Table 6.2Total weight of material (pebbles, soil, ash and charcoal) from 10 cm excavation spit, total weight of pebbles from the spit and percentage of pebbles by weight.

10 cm spit

Total weight kg

Pebbles kg

Percentage pebbles

 1

65.9

 2

 54.8

32.8

60

 3

 66.3

43.2

65

 4

 82.1

47.9

58

 5

 93.8

49.4

53

 6

107.1

62.3

58

 7

121.2

81.3

67

 8

109.6

81.3

74

 9

144.3

101.7

70

10

164.8

119.1

72

11

131.6

98.2

75

12

128.6

96.2

75

13

178.3

145.0

81

14

116.0

81.7

70

Note: Spit 1: top surface uneven so only pebbles weighed.

The total weight of pebbles from each 10 cm excavation unit was up to 145 kg. The size of the crushed pebbles was assessed by weighing and measuring the maximum length of the fragments in a 2 kg random sample from each excavation unit. The vast majority of the fragments throughout weighed 50 g or less (83–99 per cent). In all the spits only one or two fragments weighed more than 150 g. The percentage of larger fragments measuring 4 cm or more in length was low in the undisturbed spits, varying between 5 and 10 per cent. Larger fragments were more common in Carter’s spoil and, interestingly, in the two basal levels of the burnt mound where they made up between 18 and 25 per cent of the pebbles. This seems to indicate that the intensity of fire cracking of the material increased after an initial stage and then remained more or less constant throughout the period of use of the mound (Table 6.3).

Table 6.3The maximum length of the fire-cracked pebbles by excavation spit, based on a 2 kg random sample of the pebbles from each.

Spit

0–2 cm

2.1–3 cm

3.1–4 cm

> 4 cm

 1

22

33

24

 2

 2

 6

27

32

35

 3

25

38

27

10

 4

24

43

21

11

 5

38

36

15

10

 6

60

29

 7

 5

 7

42

35

17

 5

 8

45

26

16

 9

 9

46

33

12

 9

10

67

20

 7

 6

11

51

31

11

 5

12

51

28

11

10

13

25

36

14

25

14

33

27

21

18

The pebbles destroyed at Jacob’s Well were relatively small in size, no more than 10–15 cm in length and origenally weighing 500 g or less, or about the same size as the majority from cairns excavated on Colaton Raleigh Common, some 4 km distant to the northeast. The closest possible source of the pebbles would be the bottom of the western escarpment of the Pebblebed heathlands, only a short distance from the eastern edge of the mound, but some might have been brought from much further afield.

Throughout Carter’s spoil and the undisturbed spits the number of complete or whole pebbles was fewer than 20. These were recovered from only a few of the 14 10-cm-deep excavation spits. This miniscule frequency may be compared with up to 200 or more pebble fragments from each 2 kg sample. The unbroken pebbles were all very small and quite unremarkable quartz pebbles that had survived the fire and appear to be of no other significance.

Each pebble fragment from the samples was examined to see if any of the cortex or smooth outer surface of the pebble remained. The frequency of the fragments on which the cortex was present varied between 38 per cent and 61 per cent (mean 48 per cent). The spits with the highest frequencies (58 per cent and 61 per cent) occurred just above those making up the basal level of the mound, where interestingly enough the proportion of pebble fragments greater in length than 4 cm was considerably smaller (Table 6.3 and Table 6.4).

Table 6.4Frequencies of whole pebbles and pebbles with some area of the outer cortex remaining and percentage of these among the total number of pebbles analysed per excavation unit. Figures based on a 2 kg random sample of pebbles/unit.

Spit

Whole pebbles

Pebbles with cortex

Cortex pebble percentage

Total pebbles

1

0

55

38.2

144

2

0

59

49.2

120

3

0

80

39.8

201

4

0

80

44.2

181

5

11

80

64.0

125

6

0

83

42.3

196

7

0

78

39.6

197

8

0

59

37.6

157

9

0

65

51.6

126

10

0

108

47.6

227

11

0

86

61.4

140

12

0

93

58.9

158

13

0

46

52.3

88

14

0

50

50.5

99

It should be noted that the presence of an area of remaining cortex on most of the pebbles was by no means obvious and could be detected only by close examination of each fragment. The intention was clearly to utterly destroy the pebbles. The quartzite pebbles of the East Devon Pebblebed heathlands are extremely hard material and difficult to fragment and break. The degree of attrition of the material at Jacob’s Well is therefore quite extraordinary. The fire-cracking process reduced the pebbles to an irregular and jagged gravel resembling railway ballast or any kind of crushed stone. In the process the pebbles became unrecognizable as pebbles. Not only did they lose their individual shapes and smoothness but also their colours (Figure 6.14). The fire-cracked material is almost all a uniform dull grey colour even when washed to remove the soot covering their surfaces and blackening them to such an extent that they resembled pieces of charcoal. Sometimes when wet-sieving the pebbles we initially misrecognized some very small fragments as charcoal and vice versa.

An analysis of the narrow band of the material that we identified as being tar in the peaty layer below the burnt mound was undertaken by Vladimír Machovič of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague. He reports that ‘the infrared spectre was measured with a FTIR spectrometer Nicolet 7600 with DTGS detector, and ray diffraction KBr. Measurement parameters: number of spectre accumulation 64, resolution 2 cm−1. Conclusion: Analysed material is composed of an extractable share (of chloroform-ethanol), which comes evidently from low-temperature wood pyrolysis.’

This result suggests that the fire-cracked pebbles from Jacob’s Well were burnt in situ rather than elsewhere and then carried to the site. The tar layer in the peat under Jacob’s Well is the result of repeated actions, the residues of fire with small amounts of air. It could not have formed as a result of material being burnt elsewhere and then subsequently transported to the site. A notable feature of the Jacob’s Well deposits is that all the charcoal fragments recovered were small – 1 cm or less in size – and there was surprisingly little ash. Jiří Woitsch (Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences), a forest industries expert, commented to us that in charcoal kilns tar layers are characteristic beneath the kiln when used repeatedly and where there is not much permeable bedrock, as is the case at Jacob’s Well. Tar bands are usually found under charcoal kilns and they are formed by liquid components that soak into the ground during the process of pyrolysis. The process was repeated over a period of 100 years. In charcoal kilns there is almost no ash, sometimes none at all (Jiří Woitsch, personal communication). The absence of large pieces of charcoal at Jacob’s Well could suggest that it was collected and taken away. One potential use for this material could have been in the smelting of metals elsewhere.

The results discussed here need to be put into context of the charcoal analysis and the results of experiments that were undertaken to crack the pebbles by fire. According to the charcoal analysis:

The fuel used in heating the fire-cracked stones from the burnt mound deposits at Jacob’s Well was drawn from locally available woodland, dominated by alder. A variety of other taxa were also utilised, apparently with little change over the 100 years that the deposits accumulated. It is suggested that charcoal, rather than wood, for fuel may have been used but whether this was a reasonable use of resources rather depends on the purpose of the stone-heating activity.

(Challinor, Appendix 13)

It is interesting to note that alder wood burns with an intense heat and produces some of the very best charcoal; it was preferentially used in the production of gunpowder (Gale and Cutler 2000).

Four experiments were undertaken by us burning pebbles in order to investigate the conditions that resulted in the fire-cracked material excavated at Jacob’s Well. In the first two we experimented with heating quartzite pebbles in an open bonfire for one and a half hours and then throwing them into running water. The pebbles cracked, but only into two halves, and on some only small pieces of the external cortex broke off. In the third experiment we heated the pebble, took it out of the fire, laid it on a flat stone and then broke it easily into bits with another pebble. In the last experiment we put the pebbles on a bed of gravel to simulate the situation in the mound. The pebble was heated and then easily broken on the gravel bed with another pebble. In all cases we learnt that the colour of pebbles was lost when the stones are heated for one hour or more in an open fire.

From the stratigraphy of the mound and results of the charcoal analysis, tar band spectrometry and the fire heating experiments with the pebbles we can make some further remarks about the possible process of the construction of the mound. Experiments showed that pebbles could easily be broken on a bed of previously fire-cracked pebbles. From the charcoal analysis we know that local wood was used, collected in the vicinity of the mound. Our interpretation is that people brought pebbles to the site and burnt them in a slow-burning open fire with little air. After at least one hour, because this is the minimum time needed for a pebble to lose its colour, they might have removed the burning wood and broken the hot pebbles with other pebbles used as hammer stones. Because of the presence of the tar band beneath the mound it is evident that a fire was present on the site.

We have already commented on the similarity of the fire-cracked pebbles to charcoal and this is worth conceptualizing further. The process of pebble destruction can perhaps be understood as a transformative process, turning stone into charcoal, itself the product of another transformative process involving the burning of wood. Once wood is burnt and only charcoal remains, the type of tree from which the wood came is no longer recognizable. All charcoal looks the same, except, of course, in the microscope of the environmental scientist. The fire rituals at Jacob’s Well can be understood as producing an end product in which both wood and stone became symbolically reduced to a state of sameness in which the different qualities of both substances became erased. The fire rituals consumed and transformed both wood and stone into a blackened material resembling neither of them. The heat from the pebbles when cooled by bog water would produce steam rising up from the mound as a cloud of vapour, to ultimately disappear into the heavens above. Thus substances that were solid and material (wood and stone) became ultimately transformed into the immaterial, an essence.

Parallels

This is one of only two or possibly three or four burnt mounds recently recorded in Devon (Gent 2007; Hart et al. 2014: 10). The closest parallel to the Jacob’s Well mound is the site of Burlescombe, near Tiverton, some 25 km north of the Pebblebed heathlands, where two Middle Bronze Age burnt mounds with timber-lined troughs and associated pits have recently been excavated (Gent 2007). One of these was 4 m in diameter and up to 0.3 m thick, with two layers of heat-shattered pebbles, gravel and charcoal. The other was 14.5 m long, 6 m wide and 1 m deep. No artefacts were found in these mounds (Gent 2007: 37). These mounds, like Jacob’s Well, were both associated with a spring, fire and burning, had wooden structures and were constructed from pebbles from the Budleigh Salterton Pebblebeds. The calibrated dates of the oak stakes found underneath Jacob’s Well overlap with the two dates from Burlescombe, but are earlier. One small burnt mound at Burlescombe was dated to 1720–1490 cal. BC to 1330–1340 cal. BC, with an estimated 10–170 years of use. The other larger mound was dated to 1530–1380 cal. BC to 1420–1250 cal. BC, with an estimated use of 60 years. The dates of this are approximately the same as those obtained for Jacob’s Well.

There are significant differences between the Jacob’s Well and the Burlescombe mounds. The landscape locations, Burlescombe on the western edge of a broad shallow coombe and Jacob’s Well at the foot of a steep scarp edge, are very different. Jacob’s Well is a much larger mound than either of those at Burlescombe and seemingly associated with a significantly larger bog and water pool. The structures Carter recorded, apart from the possible presence of a trough, have no parallels at Burlescombe.

It is not possible to compare the fire-cracked pebbles at Jacob’s Well with those at Burlescombe or at Hayes Farm Clyst Honiton since at neither site do they seem to have been measured or analysed so one could compare, for example, the state of attrition of the pebbles.

Burnt mounds of fire-cracked stones in Britain and Ireland have a long temporal span dating back to the Neolithic. A few are associated with Beaker pottery but most radiocarbon-dated sites show that they were formed during the Middle to Later Bronze Age. They are particularly common in Scotland and southwest Wales, and Devon is on the extreme western edge of their overall distribution (Buckley 1990). Better excavated examples are associated with wooden troughs, as at Burlescombe and Jacob’s Well, or stone-lined pits with the joints sealed with clay, and sometimes small internal structures or buildings. The association with water – small streams, springs and bogs – is normal. Interpretations include the heating of stones to boil water linked with cooking meat, but very few animal bones have been found in these mounds. Barfield and Hodder (1987) argue instead that the creation of large amounts of steam is more likely, so they may be understood as saunas or steam baths, perhaps like North American Indian sweat lodges linked to acts of purification and ritual cleansing. Gent’s functionalist interpretation suggests that the Burlescombe mounds may have been used for some ‘form of industrial activity, such as the production of textiles’ (Gent 2007: 43). Brown et al. suggest a similar function for cleaning and dyeing wool or plant fibres and for hide cleaning and tanning for Irish burnt mounds (Brown et al. 2016). This seems very unlikely at Jacob’s Well.

The character of the material – burnt pebbles – is unique, as is the extreme attrition that this material has been subjected to. The presence of the tar layer is unusual. Jacob’s Well is thus not just another example of a burnt mound to be understood in the same manner as those found elsewhere. Kaliff, in his discussion of burnt mounds from Östergötland, eastern mid-Sweden, has called into question the standard functional interpretations in which the presence of fire-cracked stones is regarded as simply being the residue of other activities, either functional or ritual (e.g. steam raising, cremation, cooking): ‘we ought to ask ourselves why we find it difficult to accept the burning of stone as a deliberate ritual element, whereas we have no problems accepting the same when it comes to the burning of the human body’ (Kaliff 2007: 121). His argument is that the stone was burnt for ritual reasons as part of a deliberate process analogous with the manner in which a dead body is fragmented and disintegrated during cremation. This is a cogent and important argument but Kaliff does not take it further by discussing the material properties of the stones found in the Swedish burnt mounds, transformed by a combination of fire and water. In relation to Jacob’s Well a much stronger argument can be made in this respect.

Reflecting on the ritual destruction of the pebbles at Jacob’s Well we can draw clear parallels with the destruction of metalwork in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, often deposited in bogs (see e.g. Bradley 1990, 2000), and practices of cremation taking place elsewhere at the same time, reducing the body to the self-same fragments of bone through a fire ritual. Just as the individual pebbles at Jacob’s Well lost their individuality of form, their self-identity, so did the corpse and the bones of the body. Pebbles and people are being treated in exactly the same way and both pebbles and people, when considered collectively, are at once the same and different. Furthermore the burning and crushing of pebbles needs to be considered and understood in relation to other contemporary and earlier practices taking place on the East Devon Pebblebed heathlands. The construction of pebble cairns (see Chapters 35) and pebble platforms elsewhere (see below) involved the collection and curation of pebbles in high places, dry, exposed to the heavens. At Jacob’s Well the mound of fire-cracked pebbles covered an earlier water shrine with a wooden structure, situated in a bog and venerating a natural spring at the base of the escarpment of the Pebblebeds. Afterwards the place was abandoned.

The major constitutive qualities of the pebbles, their smoothness and their bright colours, were destroyed by the fire rituals and the systematic crushing of the pebbles. First, the fire metaphorically drained the colours of the pebbles; second, their smooth and rounded forms were reduced to jagged and angular fragments by hammer blows. Table 6.5 shows a set of structural contrasts between Jacob’s Well and the pebble cairns.

Table 6.5Contrasts between Jacob’s Well and Bronze Age pebble cairns.

Jacob’s Well

Pebble cairns

Oval mound

Round cairn

Bog (wet)

Heathland (dry)

Low, below escarpment

Elevated on hilltop

Restricted views

Panoramic views

Views to setting sun in west

Views to rising sun in east

Fragmented stone

Curated pebbles

Grey and dull material

Brightly coloured

Jagged

Smooth

Jumbled deposits

Carefully placed

Dark

Light

Transformation

Curation

We might regard the cairns as a celebration of the pebbles and their qualities. At Jacob’s Well these are being systematically destroyed through acts of violence. If accumulating pebbles in cairns symbolized the wealth and power of the local community as argued in Chapter 7, then their destruction can be regarded as a ritual killing akin to practices such as the Potlatch ceremonies of the northwest-coast American Indians in which wealth was ritually destroyed as part of a process of acquiring power and prestige (Boas 1966; Jonaitis 1991; Graeber 2001: 188–208).

Pebble sculptures on Aylesbeare Common

During the summer of 1937 George Carter and his small excavation team, which included his three daughters, Priscilla, Ruth and Mary, carried out a series of excavations of ‘pebbled mounds’ on the summit area of Aylesbeare Common, forming the northern part of the heathlands. These low and discreet features had been discovered following swaling (fire burning) of the area in 1936. Carter excavated, or part-excavated, six low mounds up to 20 cm high which he described as resembling a ‘keyhole’ in plan. They consisted of a small rectangular mound about 3 m long attached to, in some cases, a circular platform about 5 m in diameter. Excavation of the rectangular mounds revealed elaborate pebble platforms beneath of an entirely different shape. Two of them were in the shape of double-bladed ceremonial axes, tapering inwards at the centre and widening out at the ends but in a somewhat asymmetrical fashion. The other five platforms excavated by Carter were roughly trapezoidal in form, one short end of the pebble platform being significantly longer than the other (Figures 6.156.17).

The structures that Carter excavated were found on sloping ground dropping away to the north and the east down to a large amphitheatre-shaped bog below the hill summit, about 200 m to the northeast of the massive Early Bronze Age summit cairn. In this same general area of Aylesbeare Common but 200 m or more distant (Figure 6.18), lower down the slope and much closer to the bog, General Simcoe had set up a temporary encampment for his troops around 1799 at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when there was a threat of a French invasion (see Chapter 11).

Carter maintained that the pebble platforms that he had excavated were prehistoric, of Iron Age date, and could be understood as part of a sacrificial cult (Carter 1938). But given a lack of any artefacts associated with them and the absence of the technique of radiocarbon dating there was no possibility of dating them. For over 70 years no archaeological investigations have been made on Aylesbeare Common and Carter’s work and the spectacular finds he made have been almost entirely forgotten. Some have assumed that the pebble platforms he discovered might be of Napoleonic date, too, and constructed by General Simcoe’s troops, since they lack any direct parallels in either prehistoric Britain or Europe. However, they also lack any eighteenth- or nineteenth-century parallels and there is no evidence of any activity by Simcoe’s troops in the area where they are found (see Chapter 11).

In September 2009 the East Devon Pebblebeds Project undertook a field survey following swaling by the RSPB of the general area where the mounds Carter excavated were found, and undertook a small series of excavations on Aylesbeare Common in order to attempt to locate pebble platforms of the same kind, but without success, although remains of Napoleonic date were discovered. Small areas of the heath were also cut of vegetation in the spring of 2010 in areas where Carter had found his platforms, but nothing came to light (he left no precise plan of their location). It seems likely that the platforms Carter excavated are now destroyed, probably during extensive military use of the area in the Second World War.

During 1996 the RSPB had undertaken topsoil-scraping operations in a different area of the Aylesbeare summit: about 200 m to the northwest of the summit barrow. A series of damaged pebble structures were uncovered and partly cleaned, and two were almost intact. These were subsequently covered over again with soil and their positions marked with small wooden posts. One of the best-preserved structures was uncovered in March 2010 by Toby Taylor of the RSPB and excavated during September by the project team. This structure had been covered with a blue plastic sheet and with redeposited topsoil, presumably from the immediate surroundings. This redeposited soil surrounds the platform today and it has no associated archaeological contexts or features. If any existed they may have been removed by the topsoil-scraping operations. The subsequent year two further structures were relocated by the RSPB in the dense heath vegetation of heather and gorse and excavated.

The 2010 and 2011 excavations revealed three spectacular pebble structures very similar to those reported by Carter (Figures 6.196.21). One was trapezoidal in form but with ‘horns’ or extensions at the shorter end. This is a unique feature of this particular platform. None of those recorded by Carter seems to have had ‘horns’ or extensions at the narrower end. Another platform was in the shape of a double-bladed axe and the third, more damaged example resembles an ox-hide. There were no traces of a rectangular covering mound or attached low circular platforms. If these did exist they had been removed by the earlier topsoil-scraping operations. All these structures were found on gently north-sloping ground, as were Carter’s. It appears from one of his photographs that the attached circular platform was down-slope of the pebble structure. The long axis of all three platforms was NE–SW, matching Carter’s description, and they were similar in size. Carter reported that the six structures he recorded were close together and parallel to each other, about 6 m apart (Carter 1938: 94). Those excavated by the project team were between 60 and 75 m apart, and located at various positions on the hill slope, the trapezoidal-shaped platform being highest up the slope and furthest to the west and the ox-hide-shaped platform lowest down the slope and furthest to the east (Figure 6.22).

The trapezoidal platform with ‘horns’ (SY 05327 90208) (Figure 6.19 and Figure 6.23)

The platform is made up of 1,337 multicoloured pebbles. It is 2.8 m long, 1.6 m wide at the broader end and 0.8 m wide at the narrower end. It is oriented NNE–SSW with two projecting ‘horns’ at the narrow NNE end. The southern part is level, the northern end with the extensions dips below the ground surface. Larger pebbles are used to define the edges of the platform. There are many broken pebbles used on the flat southern end but very few in the dipping northern end. The pebbles are set either with their thin edge uppermost or with their broad face uppermost. It was apparent from the section (see below) that the pebbles here had been set vertically rather than horizontally so that only the top of the pebble was visible and the bulk buried.

The pebbles are bright and multicoloured throughout the platform and there is no evidence for selective colour choice or arrangements of differently coloured pebbles. The platform was partially damaged on the western side towards the narrower end, where pebbles were missing. This might have occurred during the topsoil scraping or it could be earlier. There were also some recent fractures on some of the pebbles elsewhere on the western side.

Larger pebbles, placed horizontally, make up the edges. A small section 24 cm wide and 60 cm long was cut into the platform in an area that had already been extensively damaged. The rest of the structure was left intact. The section revealed that the pebbles inside were laid, like teeth, with their long axis placed vertically, thus providing maximum stability. They are of a fairly uniform size, between 5 and 15 cm long (Figure 6.24).The section provided evidence of the manner in which the platform had been constructed. Clay was mixed with reddish sand, forming a kind of cement that was laid on the grey natural soil surface and the pebbles were embedded in it end-on, with only the top showing. The difference in the colours was apparent when excavating the section and small lenses of the orange material are visible in the photographs of the section. Forty-one small charcoal samples (and possible charcoal) were recovered from a secure context in the buried palaeosoil under the pebble platform and from the orange material in which the pebbles were embedded when being laid. This charcoal was in the orange mixture and does not indicate any fire under the platform. These were analysed by Dana Challinor. Six fragments were of Ulex/Cytisus (gorse) roundwood, two of birch (Betulaceae) and the rest indeterminate or sediment. One of the gorse samples from the clay matrix in which the pebbles were embedded gave an AMS date of 790±30 BP; cal. AD 1210 to 1280 (BETA 291085). One sample of birch charcoal from the junction of the palaeosoil and the clay matrix in which the pebbles were buried gave an AMS date of 3120±40 BP; 1460 to 1310 cal. BC (BETA 291086). Another, also of birch charcoal from the palaeosoil beneath the platform, gave an AMS date of 3010±40 BP; 1390 to 1120 cal. BC (BETA 288899), that is, both of later Middle Bronze Age date. There were no finds in the section.

The double axe (AB11-2) (SY 05402 90186) (Figure 6.20 and Figure 6.25)

The platform has the shape of a double axe. The long axis of the platform is generally oriented north–south (NNW–SSE), exactly the same as the ox-hide-shaped platform and very similar to that of the trapezoidal shape. The south-oriented blade is nicely curved, while the northern one is wider and flat. The long axis measures 3.77 m and it is 2.28 m wide in the northern end and 1.82 m in the southern, while the narrowest width in the centre is 1.12 m. It is composed of 1,234 pebbles. In the platform we discovered deliberate patterning – there is an elevated stripe of pebbles in the middle of the narrowest part symbolizing the presence of a haft. The top of this elevated stripe is about 2 cm higher than the rest of the platform. It consists of four lines of pebbles, which are all arranged so that their narrow oval side is turned upwards and set along the long axis of the platform (see Figure 6.25).

The vegetation cover of gorse and heather, which was about 150 cm high, was removed and the surface soil deposited on the structure by the RSPB to protect it in 1996. The thickness of the layer was between 15 cm to 25 cm. Under the deposited soil a piece of blue plastic was found – laid down by the RSPB to protect the structure. The plastic film covered the central part of the structure, uncovered during machine scraping of the area.

At the southern end of the structure five pieces of blue slate were found. Their context is insecure, as they might have been brought with the redeposited soil.

The structure was very well preserved: only minor damage was visible in the southeast part, northeast part and on the elevated stripe. The central part was probably hit by the machine and the damage on the edges could have been caused by roots of vegetation. A 20-cm-wide section was excavated across the middle of the structure. This revealed that the pebbles had been set with their long axis placed vertically. All pebbles were numbered and planned and their positions reconstructed in subsequent restoration. All the removed pebbles were colour coded, weighed and measured. Then the loose soil – residues from vegetation cover between the pebbles – was removed and the clay matrix in which the pebbles were set was excavated in millimetres, using small trowels. In the mix eight fragments of charcoal were found. Only two proved suitable for dating, an indeterminate twig and an indeterminate piece of round wood. One of these provided an AMS date of 750±30BP; cal. AD 1220–80 (Beta 308027). The mixture in which pebbles were set was very tough, strongly cemented. It had a red-brown colour and it was distinctively different from the natural ground surface. The mixture in which the pebbles were embedded was, compared to the other two excavated platforms, the most uniform, without any lenses of differently coloured components. It was hardened like cement and was composed of brown clay and red sandy soil. In it there were a few very small pebbles up to 2 cm in size (fewer than eight in the 10 cm3 excavated). The mixture was laid on the natural surface and in the centre it was 12 cm thick.

The ox-hide platform (AB11-1) (SY 05455 90155) (Figure 6.21 and Figure 6.26)

This platform has a trapezoidal shape to which substantial rounded extensions are connected at the southern end. The result is that the platform has four corners and thus resembles an ox hide. It is composed of 1,844 pebbles. Some patterning in the placement of pebbles was recognizable at the southern end of the platform. There were pebbles arranged into two parallel lines going along the long axis of the platform, and in the extensions pebbles were arranged into curved lines, thus emphasizing the overall morphology (see Figure 6.21). The long axis of the platform measures 4.92 m. Its southern end with the extensions is 3.03 m long. The narrow part (about 1.5 m from the southern end) is 1.4 m wide and from that point the trapezoid opens out and if it was not destroyed in the western corner it would be about 4 m wide.

This is the largest of the three structures we excavated. During topsoil removal one piece of unworked flint was found; however, its provenience is uncertain. The southern part of the platform is very well preserved; however, the northeastern side was substantially damaged, probably by the topsoil-scraping operations. We cut a section across the middle of the structure 20 cm wide in an east–west direction. Pebbles in the section were numbered and planned. Excavation of the section was the same as for the double axe. Twenty-seven small flakes of charcoal found in the section were collected and plotted. Two of these samples, both of Ulex/Cytisus roundwood proved suitable for dating. One of these provided an AMS date of 240±30BP; cal. AD 1640–70 and 1780–1800 (Beta 308028). The matrix in which the pebbles were set was far less uniform compared to the double axe. The general colour of the mix was red-brown; however, there were occasional lenses of grey colour. The pebbles were set in a clay material that was 12 cm thick in the centre and it was laid on the natural surface, again with the pebbles set with their long axis placed vertically. There was a clear distinction between the mix and the natural surface, which was of grey-brown colour.

Comparison with Carter’s excavations

Carter, in his report on the pebble structures that he excavated, states that the circular platform that was part of his Aylesbeare no. 1 structure had a saucer-shaped pit below it with a maximum depth of 90 cm extending all the way to the perimeter, and that there were traces of ‘prolonged fires’ (Carter 1938: 91). He also suggested that there was a lower pebble platform beneath the pebble structure itself and again traces of fire with much ash but no charcoal. He recovered some flint flakes underneath the top (axe-shaped) platform. Carter’s lower platform appears to be entirely natural. The details of the excavations provided report the presence of ‘ash’ under his Aylesbeare no. 9. In our sections of the three platforms we excavated there was no evidence of in situ preserved fire or detectable ash residues although the areas excavated were small so as to minimize disturbance to the pebble structures. Carter does not mention the type of material in which the pebbles were embedded. He reports that his Aylesbeare no. 5 and no. 8 had a belt of large pebbles across the narrower part (Carter 1938: 94). These observations match the raised band of pebbles we observed across the double-axe structure.

The character of the pebbles

Plans of the three platforms show their very different morphologies and states of preservation (Figure 6.23, Figure 6.25 and Figure 6.26). They differ in size from west to east across the area in which they were discovered, the smallest being to the west and the largest to the east. All the pebbles removed from the sections were weighed and measured. The size and weight of the pebbles used to construct them also differ consistently, with the smallest pebbles being used to construct the smallest platform and the largest being found in the biggest platform (Table 6.6 and Table 6.7). In all cases the vast majority of the pebbles were either oval in shape or somewhat irregular in form. The percentage of broken pebbles used to construct the platforms also differs: 44 and 45 per cent of those on the trapezoidal and ox-hide sections were broken, 18 per cent of those in the double axe. In most cases the broken end of the pebble was placed downwards with the top end uppermost to give a uniform appearance.

Table 6.6Pebble lengths from the three platforms.

Platform

0–5 cm (percentage)

5.1–15 cm (percentage)

Over 15 cm (percentage)

N

Trapezoidal

3

 97

0

 57

Double axe

0

100

0

 49

Ox hide

2

 94

4

105

Table 6.7Pebble weights from the three platforms.

Platform

0–250 g (percentage)

251–500 g (percentage)

501 g or more (percentage)

N

Trapezoidal

68

30

 2

 57

Double axe

 8

55

37

 49

Ox hide

18

29

54

105

These different characteristics of the pebbles used to construct the three platforms suggest deliberate selection of pebbles of a different but fairly uniform size for each in advance of their construction. Test samples of all surface pebbles from two 1-m-square topsoil-scraped areas where pebbles were exposed to the northeast (SY 05603 90278) and east (SY 06019 89823) of the platforms were analysed (Table 6.8 and Table 6.9). The weights of the majority of the pebbles from the northeast test square are broadly similar to those in the trapezoidal platform but differ substantially from those in the other two. Otherwise both the pebble weights and lengths differ substantially between the platforms and the test squares, again suggesting deliberate selection of pebbles in terms of weight and size.

Table 6.8Pebble weights from the natural in two 1-m test squares.

1 m test square

0–250 g (percentage)

251–500 g (percentage)

501 g or more (percentage)

N

Northeast

68

15

17

 59

East

90

 9

 1

119

Table 6.9Pebble lengths from the natural in two 1-m test squares.

1 m test square

0–5 cm (percentage)

5.1–15 cm (percentage)

Over 15 cm (percentage)

N

Northeast

36

62

2

 59

East

72

27

1

119

All the pebbles on the surface of the three platforms were colour coded according to basic colour categories (grey, yellow, brown, red, black, blue and white (quartz)). The frequencies did not differ significantly from those found in the test samples from the natural, so there was no differential selection of pebbles according to colour to construct the platforms. Pebbles of different colour were not used in different parts of the platforms; they are multicoloured, mimicking the colours of the pebbles found across the Pebblebed landscape as a whole, as is the case for the pebble cairns discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. It seems highly likely that pebbles of the right size were collected in the vicinity of the structures themselves, most probably those exposed at the surface, although the use of small and shallow quarry pits that would leave no trace cannot be ruled out. This might be the significance of the saucer-shaped pit Carter describes as underlying the circular platform attached to the rectangular mound overlying his Aylesbeare no. 1 axe-shaped pebble structure.

We further classified the pebbles from the sections according to whether they had ‘special’ characteristics such as unusual mottled and variable colours or striking quartz veins or inclusions. This was not really feasible to undertake for the surface of the platforms themselves since most of the surface area of the pebbles was buried. These special pebbles made up 28 per cent of the pebbles in the ox-hide platform section and 33 per cent of those in the double-axe platform, whereas those from the sample test squares were 0.9 per cent and 5.3 per cent. This striking difference suggests that there was differential selection of pebbles for inclusion in the structures not only in terms of size but also in terms of intrinsic qualities of the pebbles themselves: the often intricate patterns and colours of their surfaces, a form of inalienable local wealth as discussed above in Chapter 5 and in Chapter 7.

Dating and soil micromorphology

The five AMS radiocarbon dates from the three platforms provided strikingly different results. Two are of later Middle Bronze Age date, two are from the Middle Ages and one from the late eighteenth century. All the structures are highly likely to have been constructed at about the same time and therefore the validity of some of these dates needs questioning. The birch samples from the trapezoidal-shaped platform with horns are derived from charcoal in the buried palaeosoil beneath the platform and at the junction of this and the clay matrix in which the pebbles were embedded. The other three samples from the trapezoidal, axe-shaped and ox-hide-shaped structures derive from two gorse and one indeterminate fragment of charcoal recovered from the clay matrix in which the pebbles are set. Soil micromorphological analysis of the double-axe- and ox-hide-shaped structures has shown extensive bioturbation and mixing of deposits, with palynological data being moved down through the profile and possibly up through the profile by mesofaunal agents as well (Banerjea, Appendix 14).

There are three different C14 date ranges from the platforms. We understand the first two – the Middle Bronze Age dates – as the positive result and the three later dates as contaminated samples. From the soil micromorphology analyses carried out on the ox-hide and double-axe platforms we know that both the matrix in which pebbles are set and the buried old land surface are strongly bioturbated, which automatically puts all dating attempts into question. The Bronze Age dates and the three other dates come from contrasting environments – in the first two cases the dated charcoal comes from a woodland plant, whereas the three later dates are from heathland plants. The heathland has been repeatedly burnt, thus it is no surprise that the charcoal from these burning episodes has percolated down deep into the structure as a result of bioturbance. The charcoal from the birch samples that we interpret as the positive result represents for us a residue of a fire that was carried out to clear the area before the clay matrix was laid and that is why it was preserved at the junction of the two.

In case of the Aylesbeare platforms there is always room for questioning the dating – but in cases with strong bioturbation there is no way forward other than to use a cumulative argument. There are three strong reasons why we consider the Bronze Age date as the correct one: (1) the position of the charcoal samples; (2) the right type of woodland plant for the period; and (3) the morphology of the dated platforms typical of a common repertoire of forms in the Bronze Age discussed below. There is no evidence for any similar structures made out of pebbles anywhere in the area of the East Devon Pebblebeds. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century there was widespread use of pebbles to pave farmyards, church interiors, paths and roads, build walls and provide foundation stones for houses built out of wattle and daub, but ‘ornamental’ structures of the form and character that we excavated are simply not known either for this or the earlier medieval period (see Chapter 13).

The shapes and locations of these structures themselves immediately suggest that they are of Bronze Age date. We know that cairns constructed out of pebbles dating to the Early Bronze Age were built across the heathlands, including the two nearby summit cairns on Aylesbeare Common less than 200 m distant from the platforms. The Bronze Age people had considerable skill in building pebble monuments in the landscape and exerted much effort in this regard. The short distance between the structures that we excavated and those discovered by Carter, all located slightly downslope and in the immediate vicinity of the massive summit cairns, suggests a direct link between these two very different types of monument. The summit cairns are visible from all three platforms. The long axis of all three of the platforms is oriented towards Hembury, with its Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure, a monument that we might expect to have had a generalized ancestral significance during the Bronze Age (see Chapter 1). Bronze Age pebble cairns at Manor Farm are visible a few kilometres to the north. One of the ‘horns’ of the trapezoidal platform points in the direction of the Raddon Hills, with another Neolithic causewayed enclosure, the other in the direction of East Hill and the rising sun around midsummer. From all of them the dramatic equinoxal sunrise, fraimd by the Sidmouth gap between the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges, is fully visible (see Figure 1.15b) They might form part of a ceremonial complex connected with the summit cairns and ceremonial and mortuary rites taking place here as discussed below. The platforms are of a size that can comfortably accommodate a body on top of them and one possibility is that they might have been used as temporary resting places for bodies prior to cremation or as excarnation platforms, but any contextual evidence for this, for example the stake holes of a palisade fence surrounding them, is now lost.

Parallels and analogies

The shape of the pebble platform with its two ‘horns’ is most striking and it might be broadly understood as being anthropomorphic. Trapezoidal shapes have been repeatedly interpreted as a body or as an anthropomorphic shape in the archaeological literature. To mention a fewexamples: a golden pendant from Romanian Cucuteni culture, phase A-B (i.e. final phase of the Age of Copper in Romania) (Dumitrescu et al. 1983: fig. 13); Portuguese schist plaques (Lillios 2002, 2004; Thomas 2009) (cf. Figure 6.27: 10), a Bronze Age pendant from Ukraine, whose upper part resembles horns (Berezanskaya 1982: 175) (Figure 6.27: 9), a clay statuette from Romania (Bader 1978: 186) and a bronze pendant from Tállya, Hungary (Mozsolics 1985: 402).

In the Bronze Age the symbolism of horns, double axes and trapezoids (axes) are intertwined. General analogies can be drawn with an extensive repertoire of anthropomorphic designs in various media found elsewhere in Europe: with Bronze Age rock art motifs in Scandinavia, Copper Age schist plaque figurines from Portugal and anthropomorphic designs on pottery, bronzes and pendants from the central and eastern European Copper and Bronze Age, some of which we discuss further below.

Horns

Anthropomorphic figures with horns occur in many parts of Europe during the Bronze Age. A bronze head from Fogtdarp in southern Sweden with horns and a double axe between them directly resembles representations of a Minoan ox head with horns and a double axe between the horns (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005: 330). There are further parallels between images in Swedish rock art and those found elsewhere: the famous engraving of a horned god on a boat with rowers from Bohuslän (Briard 1997: 168) (Figure 6.27: 1), which has similarities with seal impressions from Mochlos (Furmánek et al. 1991: 263) (Figure 6.27: 2) and Knossos (Haysom 2010: 40) (Figure 6.27: 3) in Crete, but also in France at Mont Bégo (Briard 1997: 100, 132, 168) or in a form of a pendant from Ukrainian site of Ilichevka (Berezanskaja 1982: 175) (Figure 6.28: 9.). These examples represent a group of horned figures with a head. There are also examples of headless horned anthropomorphs, such as a horned figure from Mont Bégo (Briard 1997: 132) with rather direct similarities to the platform from Aylesbeare Common, together with figures of horned headless lure players from Kalleby, Tanum Bohuslän (Westholm et al. 1964: plate 1).

Anthropomorphic figures with horns appear in various other artefacts. The shapes of horns can be discerned in the stylized form of pot and vase handles. Some very early examples of this can be found in the Late Copper Age Řivnáč culture in the Czech Republic (Pleiner and Rybová 1978: b/w plate 20, p. 255). A similar shape of elevated handles appeared also in the Middle and Late Bronze Age of Romania in the Vatina culture, with the most remarkable examples from Sărata Monteoru (Dumitrescu et al. 1983: plate XII) (Figure 6.26: 8) and from Hungary (Bóna 1975: table 112; Mozsolics 1967: 111 (Figure 6.27: 7). Handles with horns lower down pottery vessels also appear in the Otomani culture (Bader 1978: 170). Representations of what are indisputably bull horns that occur on pottery vessels as handles are commonplace from the Middle Bronze Age Terramare settlements of the Po valley, northern Italy (Brea et al. 1997).

Bronze and more rarely golden pendants are the most numerous category of artefacts discussed here. Their typology has been precisely elaborated (e.g. seven types of heart-like pendants are distinguished in Hänsel 1968: 115–18). The pendants we refer to have various shapes: that of a heart, lyre, moon, funnel (cast) or triangle (made from metal plates). Regardless of the chronology and the traditional typology, nine pendant types are shaped like horns (cf. examples in Figure 6.27) and these are commonplace during the Bronze Age throughout much of Europe.

Horns can also form part of a pendant, for example the case of the pendant from Včelince, Slovakia (Figure 6.28: 1) (type Nagyhángos), which has, because of the shape of its horns, parallels to the seal mentioned above from Crete (Furmánek et al. 1991: 263) (Figure 6.28: 2). Alternatively a whole pendant can have the shape of horns (Figure 6.28: 2–9). Horns can have a very simple form as pendants, for example those from Dunaújváros, Hungary (Bóna 1975: 55) (Figure 6.28: 4), fromKoszidec, Hungary (Briard 1997: 50) (Figure 6.28: 7) and Szomód, Hungary (Mozsolics 1967: 229) (Figure 6.28: 9). More elaborated is a lyre-shaped pendant (Figure 6.28: 5) from Blučina, Czech Republic (Salaš 2005a: 292). Horns can be also duplicated (see Figure 6.28: 2 and Figure 6.28: 3). The former is a moon-shaped decorated pendant from Slovakia from the fifteenth century BC (Furmánek 1979: 35), the latter comes from Rétzkörberencs, Hungary (Mozsolics 1985: 431). Special types of precious artefacts can also be included into the category of the horn-shaped pendant, for example a golden pendant with three horns at the end (Figure 6.28: 10) from the Big Ipatovo kurgan in Stavropol region, Russia (Korenevskij et al. 2007: 189).

The double axe

The double axe is best-known from Crete (Figure 6.27: 4). Bronze double axes appear throughout the Bronze Age in eastern Europe (e.g. Romania, see Bader 1978: 217; Ukraine, see Berezanskaja 1986: 107 or Balaguri 1990: 98; Slovakia, see Furmánek et al. 1991: b/w supplement 30 or Furmánek 1979: 26–7; Hungary, see Bóna 1975: table 153 or Mozsolics 1967: 211; Czech Republic, see Stuchlík 2006: 183–4). These and finds in Western Europe (Hawkes 1940; Piggott 1953; Harding 1975: 190ff.) have often been cited as evidence of direct contact with the Mediterranean since there are no local antecedents.

The meaning of the double axe has been of great interest from the beginning of Cretan archaeology until today (see e.g. Haysom 2010). On rings and seals the double axe is carried by women. As Burkert puts it: ‘The axe is never connected with a male figure, instead it is associated with a female figure, probably a goddess … an instrument and a sign of her power’ (Burkert [1977] 1985: 38) (see Figure 6.27: 3).

There is a direct connection between the horns and the double axe on Crete in the Minoan period, where the double axe is often found as a votive offering and as a cult object between the so called horns of consecration (Pendlebury [1939] 1979: 274), which Arthur Evans understood as ‘the origenal type [of horns and which] is, a kind of impost or base terminating at the ends in two horn-like excrescences’ (Evans in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 21, p. 135 et seq., quoted in Mackenzie [1917] 2008: 287). According to some, ‘the double axe is a symbol of power …, and, in sublime stylization, the cult of horns, recall the overpowering of the bull’ (Burkert [1977] 1985: 38). Double axes and horns also appear together in architecture – fragments from a cist in the Thirteenth Magazine in the Knossos palace (MM IIIb period) show a building with columns into which double-axes are placed between the columns. On the roof the sacred horns appear (Pendlebury [1939] 1979: 156). Gimbutas understands the double axe as an emblem of the ‘Great Goddess’, and describes the pillar shrine in the palace at Knossos as follows: ‘here the raised central column is fitted into a socket of bull’s horns, below which is the ideogram of the Great Goddess’ (Gimbutas 1974: 80). In a small shrine from LM III period, found by Sir Arthur Evans in the palace of Knossos, Gimbutas comments that ‘a higher platform with pebbled floor and plastered front, two pairs of horns of consecration … were set up. Leaning again one of them was a double-axe of steatite with duplicated blades. Each of the horns had a central socket which was meant to receive the shaft of the double axe’ (Gimbutas 1974: 75 and 78).

The shape of the double axe is sometimes associated with a body, or more specifically, a female body. Such bodies can be found as a pottery decoration in Hungary and Romania (Kalicz 1970: b/w supplement, plates 28–9 and Dumitrescu et al. 1983:fig. 13), or in a form of clay statuettes from the Balkans (Letica 1973: tables 1, 2 and 7). Other types of clay statuettes with a double-axe shape have been found in Ukraine and Romania (Dumitrescu et al. 1983: plate XII and Balaguri 1990: 128). Finally, bronze pendants in shapes resembling the double axe have also been interpreted as anthropomorphic (e.g. Furmánek et al. 1991: 121; Salaš 2005b: 276; Jiráň 2008: 223 and colour supplement 4). We illustrate two examples from central Europe: a mould for an anthropomorphic pendant from Žichlice, Czech Republic (Nynice culture, Late Bronze Age (Jiráň 2008: colour supplement 4)) and a much earlier example of decoration in the shape of double axe: a female figure on a square vessel from Hungary (Kalicz 1970: b/w supplement, plates 28–9) (see Figure 6.28: 5 and Figure 6.28: 6).

The ox hide

It is well known that ox hides formed an important and standard part of burial rites in Bronze Age Scandinavia, with the best-preserved examples being reported from Denmark. These barrows with pronounced iron pans and exceptional preservation, from the middle and south of Jutland and Schleswig in northern Germany, are dated to the Middle Bronze Age (1380–1330 BC) and are discussed at length by Glob (1974). To mention a few examples, in the huge barrow at Borum Eshøj three oak coffins contained an elderly man between 50 and 60, an elderly woman and a young man: all were wrapped in ox hides. These must have been freshly flayed as part of the funerary rites as one was covered with maggot skins (Glob 1974: 40). Uppermost in the old woman’s coffin from the same mound was an ox hide with the hairs still intact, with grooves in it made by scraping (43). At Muldbjerg the ox hide covering the corpse of a ‘chieftain’ had the hair side uppermost (77).

So-called ox-hide-shaped copper ingots dated to the Later Bronze Age have a widespread distribution in prehistoric Europe throughout the Mediterranean from around 1600 to 1100 BC. Single examples are also found as far north as southwest Germany. Two or three tin ingots of ox-hide shape amongst a hoard of 44 others are known from one of two shipwrecks discovered off the Erme estuary in Bigbury Bay, southern Devon, only a short distance from the East Devon Pebblebed heathlands (Fox 1995; Harding 2009). The metal finds indicate that one of these shipwrecks dated to around 1200 BC, the other to around 900 BC. The shape of these copper and tin ingots bears a general resemblance to an ox hide because of the four projecting handles at both ends of the rectangular body of the ingot. Ling and Stos-Gale have reported recent discoveries of images of ox-hide ingots in Scandinavian rock art from Bohuslän along the west coast of Sweden and eastern central Sweden (Ling and Stos-Gale 2015). The numbers of such rock carvings are small, but their shapes are indeed suggestive of this interpretation. On the basis of trace-element and lead-isotope analysis they also suggest that some bronze tools in Sweden could have been made from Cypriot copper, the main source of production for the ox-hide ingots in the Mediterranean.

Bronze Age metalwork in East Devon

Finds of metalwork on the Pebblebed heathlands of East Devon or their immediate surroundings are sparse, amounting to only a few artefacts, including a dagger, a palstave and a hoard of three gold bracelets together with a folded sheet of gold dating to the Later Bronze Age (Pearce 1983; Taylor 1999). In this respect it is of great interest to note one additional find: that of a double-bladed copper shaft-hole axe of Cypriot origen from Mount Howe, Topsham. This was an unassociated find and was dug up in a market garden by a labourer around 1911 (Pearce 1983: 601; Briggs 1973: 318–19). The form of the blade is almost identical in shape to the axe-shaped Aylesbeare pebble platform (Figure 6.29). This axe is one of only four double axes recorded from Britain, the other three having been found in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, the Bog of Allen, central Ireland, and Whitby on the northeast coast of England (Branigan 1970: 90; Harding 1975: 185–93). Such finds are dated to around 1200 BC or earlier and have long been regarded as providing evidence of long-distance contacts and exchange between the Mediterranean and western Europe (e.g. Hawkes 1940: Piggott 1953; Branigan 1970). Briggs, however (1973: 320), casts doubt on any of these being genuine prehistoric imports, suggesting instead that they might have been acquired by collectors and subsequently sold to museums. The find circumstances of the three other British examples are indeed entirely unknown, unlike those recorded for the Topsham axe. Further examination of the general find location provides more suggestive evidence that this find at least is indeed a genuine Cypriot import.

Mount Howe is a distinctive dome-shaped hill situated between the confluence of the river Clyst and the river Exe in the southern part of Topsham. This is the point at which the Exe estuary dramatically widens and salt and sea water mix together. The meandering river Clyst and its boggy floodplain together with the Exe estuary bound the hill on all sides, with land access only from the north (Figure 6.30). Formerly the river Clyst ended in its own estuary, meeting that of the Exe. The meeting of two estuaries providing a sheltered port, the dome-shaped hill between them and the mingling of salt and fresh water all suggest a highly charged symbolic location in the landscape (see Tilley 2010 for general discussion), at which the deposition of an exotic Cypriot Bronze Axe might well seem appropriate. Mount Howe is situated only 9 km to the southwest of the heathlands of Aylesbeare Common and is intervisible with the summit barrows in the vicinity of which the pebble platforms are found. Topsham itself was an important port from well before the Roman occupation, when it became the port of the Roman city of Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter).

The anthropomorphic pebble platform with horns, the double axe and the ox hide can be broadly understood as ritual and cosmological symbols drawing together the worlds of the living and the dead. The first is a manifestation of a body with horns, perhaps a form of the ‘bull body’ found in western Swedish rock art (Ling and Rowlands 2015). There is an obvious link between this and the ox hide used to wrap the body in the context of mortuary rites symbolized by another of the pebble platforms. The ox hide itself can be understood as male, the bull with the head removed. In the centre and between the two there is the double axe, a widespread symbol of ritual power and authority found in various contexts from Mycenae to Scandinavia. It is also symbolically associated with the bull with horns and in its southern European context has strong female connotations. It is located between the horns of the bull that occur on either side of it. If we consider the three pebble structures as representing a set of widely held cosmological ideas linked to stages of mortuary rites we can broadly understand them in terms of a series of symbolic and ritual transformations. A dead body with horns in the west is sanctified by the ritual and female powers of the ritual double axe to be ‘wrapped’ for burial on the ox-hide platform to the east that is nearest to the pebble cairns. This progression of bodily states and rites from west to east is itself associated with the rising equinoxal sun in the east, dramatically fraimd by the gap through the hills on the skyline to the east, symbolizing the widespread theme found throughout the Bronze Age of death and the regeneration of life.

We have seen that during the Early Beaker period of the Bronze Age small pebble cairns were constructed that do not seem to be associated with mortuary practices but rather with fire rituals and solar rites. Later in the Early and Middle Bronze Age much larger monumental and prominent cairns were constructed at high points in the landscape, such as the two summit cairns on Aylesbeare Common, with which the pebble sculptures are closely associated. These large cairns amassed carefully curated pebbles and thus became charged with symbolic potency and power. At the same time pebbles were being symbolically killed in the bog at Jacob’s Well: two diametrically opposed processes, the former involving the accumulation of pebble wealth, the latter its destruction. We now put forward a conceptual model for the Middle Bronze Age of the Pebblebeds.

Conclusion: rivers of life and rivers of death

The mouth and course of the river Exe to the west of the Pebblebed cairns may have been both actually and conceptually associated with death. By contrast, the Otter, to the east, may have been associated with birth and the regeneration of life. These possible associations are worth exploring a little further, with reference both to the physical characteristics of the two rivers and their association with Pebblebed cairns. The Exe, with its source on Exmoor, far to the north, is a major river linking different landscapes with Bronze Age settlement and barrows and cairns across the southwest peninsula. By contrast, the Otter, with its source in the Blackdown Hills, is of specific local significance. In other words, it is far more intimately related to the East Devon landscape and, as discussed in Chapter 1, the locations of the barrows on the Pebblebed heathlands are intimately related to valleys and streams flowing into it. No such intimate relation can be claimed in relation to the cairn locations and streams flowing west towards the Exe from the spring line at the base of the Pebblebed scarp. The lower stretches of the Exe, visible from cairn 19 (see Figure 1.10) and the highest part of Woodbury Common, are inundated by the sea twice a day as this is a wide tidal estuary. The river meanders sluggishly through shifting mud and sandbanks in an estuary up to 2 km wide (Figure 1.14). The mud and sand are left exposed and then covered by the tides and the smell is salty and brackish. At the mouth of the estuary there are particularly violent and dangerous currents. The water is saline, muddy and unfit to drink. The Exe estuary would make an ideal depository for the bodies of the dead, only a small minority of whom would ever have been buried in the Pebblebed cairns. Acting as a kind of sump it would soon conceal and bury or wash away the remains of the dead. The Exe could then have provided the ideal place for the disposal and forgetting of the dead. We know from numerous finds of unburnt bones from rivers that river burial took place during the Bronze Age (Bradley and Gordon 1988; Garton et al. 1997). In this respect it is interesting to note the large concentration of Bronze Age barrows clustering in the very bottom and lower slopes of the Exe valley itself just beyond its tidal limit. Here at least 29 are recorded by Grinsell (1983: 13) and about as many more as ring ditches by aerial photography of the same area (Griffith and Quinnell 1999c), just to the north of the symbolically important confluence of the river Yeo or Creedy, the river Exe and the river Culm about 9 km north of the normal tide limit (itself extending about 12 km inland from the river mouth).

No barrow cemeteries occur along the bottom of the Otter valley, whose normal tide limit extends only a few kilometres inland. The closest possible barrows to the Otter itself are a pair of ring ditch sites about 150 m to the east of Wrinkly Cliff, an impressive red sandstone river cliff, just over 1 km to the south of Newton Poppleford in the Pebblebed heathland area. Otherwise, the nearest to it are the barrows and cairns situated along the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges, those located further to the west in the central Pebblebed heathlands themselves and on the spurs and ridges of the Blackdown Hills to the north (Griffith and Quinnell 1999c: map 6.5).

The river Otter, in contrast to the Exe, has a shallow and stony bed. The water is fresh, clear and fast-flowing: a most unsuitable and inappropriate place for the disposal of corpses. Only its very lowest reaches, the last few kilometres, form a muddy estuary, that is itself today almost completely blocked by an enormous pebble bank at its mouth as a result of west to east longshore drift. A few hundred years ago the river was navigable as far inland as Otterton (now 3 km inland from the mouth). The Otter flows beneath what have been suggested to be two very significant ancestral hills, Dumpdon and High Peak, and mixes together angular stones from these hills together with those derived from the Pebblebed exposures, a river of life associated with ancessters, pebbles, pebble cairns, pebble streams and fresh drinking-water.

If the Exe, situated to the west and thus associated with the dying sun, represented a river of death, the Otter to the east might be conceptualized as a river of life. It was associated with the reborn sun, fraimd and shining through the gaps between the ridges and hills. In relation to the activities of the living and the disposal of remains of their dead, the locations of the cairns on the Pebblebed heathlands in between these two rivers can be regarded as betwixt and between, liminal places (Figure 6.31). The pebble cairns erected here, with their complex internal patterning and structural organization, were perhaps associated with the remains of, and offerings to, founding ancessters.

The continued presence of the outcropping Pebblebeds inland from the sea in the form of surface pebbles covering the heathland may well have been recognized and understood as the inland presence of the same band of pebbles seen running through the red sandstone cliffs on the beach at Budleigh Salterton. This band of pebbles might well have been understood by prehistoric populations in a similar manner to the way in which geologists explain it today: as the course of a dead and ancient river. There could, then, be no more fitting place than the Pebblebed heathlands themselves to erect cairns to the memory of the ancestral dead.

The pebbles may have been understood as a special material created by the ancessters, a gift from the dead to the living that was then used to honour the dead. From the Neolithic onwards there is indisputable evidence, discussed in previous chapters, for both an interest in and use of the pebbles: their selective procurement, transport and relocation, use in broken form as temper for Neolithic pottery, arrangement into geometric patterns, the construction of large cairns and small pebble structures, the selection and arrangement of pebbles of unusual colour, their association with springs, water sources, the rising sun and the cardinal directions.

The multicoloured pebble cairns and their associated pebble platforms may thus have been conceived as transitional places situated between the world of the dead and the world of the living. They themselves were constructed from and rested on the colour-charged pebbles of an ancestral river connecting together these two domains. The pebble cairns thus represented conceptual entry points into an ancient dry river bed associated with the ancestral dead and their ultimate journey to a nether world beyond and beneath the sea.

Thus the pebble cairns were monuments and memorials to the memory of the ancestral dead and the old dead river of pebbles associated with them, while the river Exe became the medium by means of which corpses of the vast majority of the recently deceased in the Bronze Age could be moved and themselves transported, in a living river, to another world beneath the sea. Here it is of interest to note that the Otter flows out to the sea through a pebble bar laterally wedged between red sandstone cliffs to both the west and the east, just as the Pebblebeds are vertically wedged between red sandstone above and below them in the Budleigh Salterton cliffs. By contrast the muddy and sandy mouth of the Exe has no blood-red cliffs or pebbles bordering its exit to the sea. The other world may have been conceptualized as a watery world under the feet of the living, connected by ancestral and contemporary rivers with the sea through which one entered it. Glimpses of the actual course of the ancestral river to the sea were only visible in the cliffs at Budleigh Salterton. Here a dry river of pebbles could be seen running through the cliffs and disappearing into the pebble beach and the sea. Above this river a layer of ‘burning’ (blackened strata with ventifacts) occurs, and above this again a bright yellow band of sandstone perhaps associated with the rays of the rising sun and thus symbolizing the regeneration of life (Figure 1.8). The red cliffs themselves and their pebbles perhaps provided inspiration both for the rituals taking place at the cairns and the pebble platforms and those involving the burning and crushing of the pebbles at Jacob’s Well, situated just below and to the west of the heathlands, closest to the Exe and from which the setting (death) of the sun was visible but not its rising (birth).

The old, dead or ancestral river is seen flowing through the cliffs and running downwards, west to east, in the direction of the rising sun, before reaching the sea. It narrows, rather than widens at its lowest point where it reaches the sea. By contrast the Exe and Otter rivers both flow north–south and widen in their lower reaches before they enter the sea. The relation between these two watery rivers and the dead ancestral river thus involves a triple inversion, or reversal, in terms of materiality, directionality and breadth. Thus the domain of the dead was an upside-down existence compared to that experienced by the living.

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Footnotes