Singing up the Country

The Songlines of Avebury and Beyond
Bob Trubshaw

“...... [Australian Aborigines] only believe the country exists when they could both see it and sing it by chanting the relevant ‘Dreaming track’ or so-called ‘song line’.

“There must be a mental concept – the words of the song – before the landscape can be said to exist. James Cowan reports being driven along ‘Dreaming tracks’ accompanied by local guides, who only recognise where they are if they can ‘sing up the country’.” [1]

Six years since his last book, Sacred Places: Prehistory and Popular Imagination (HOAP, 2005), Bob Trubshaw is back in print with a new book with an overall aim to inspire us to widen the way we think about the past, particularly the Neolithic monuments of the Avebury landscape.

During that time Trubshaw has relocated into Avebury, moving into a house actually built in to the henge bank of the monument. If living there with the freedom to walk the Avebury landscape at all hours far from the madding crowd does not inspire I don't know what would.

Trubshaw will need no introduction to Earth Mysteries aficionados; in 1989 he was instrumental in forming the Mercian Mysteries Group arranging regular field trips and a quarterly A5 magazine called 'Mercian Mysteries' under the editorship of Paul Nix. At the sixth issue Trubshaw took over as editor and by Issue 13 the magazine had expanded in to a substantial 40+ page A4 format. After 25 issues the contents had changed steadily and became less Midlands biased. At the same time,  the multidisciplinary approach of 'earth mysteries' was evolving, covering aspects of archaeology, folklore and mythology. Consequently Mercian Mysteries had outgrown its humble beginnings and Trubshaw produced a new magazine named “At The Edge” in 1996. At the Edge was a short-lived periodical, and after ten issues merged with “3rd Stone” magazine in 1998 under the editorship of Neil Mortimer. Trubshaw now had time to concentrate on writing and his publishing company Heart Of Albion Press.

The evocative title of this new book is inspired by Bruce Chatwin's book “The Songlines” following two trips into the Australian outback in the 1980's. In the preface Trubshaw quotes from Chatwin's book:

“'Sometimes', said Arkady, 'I'll be driving my “old men” through the desert, and we'll come to a ridge of sandhillls, and suddenly they'll all start singing.' “What are you mob singing?” I'll ask, and they'll say, “Singing up the country, boss. Makes the country come up quicker.”

Trubshaw suggests it is doubtful that the Aboriginal elders actually used the term “songlines” as in Chatwin's fictional account, they would more likely have used terms such as “Dreaming Tracks”, or “Footprints of the Ancestors”; ethnologists have adopted the term “song-routes”.

Trubshaw says he uses the term “songlines” in the subtitle because this has popularised awareness of such mythopoetic relationships with the landscape, but, he adds, this gives the assumption that only traditional cultures (such as the Aborigines) possess such myths which have long since been lost to Western civilisation. In this book he sets out to demonstrate that such myths of place have been lost more because too few people recognised what there was, rather than because they were never recorded. However, he argues we have always had a dreamtime in every traditional tale that commences “Once upon a time....”

This book continues ideas set out in his previous work, Sacred Places: Prehistory and Popular Imagination. Later in the book he introduces the concept of the past not simply as something to be studied or known but as something that we have a 'conversation' with, which strongly colours not just what we talk about but the way in which we discuss it too. Thus, creating distinct and different chapters, each aiming to offer an introduction to a particular topic, that perhaps the reader should consider as a conversation with several experts in a specific field.

In the Preface, he invites us to skip chapters, or read them out of sequence, and to even read the final chapter first “to see where it's all going”, stressing that if we read from start to finish in the normal order, we may well wonder at times where the book is leading.

Subsequently, in the final chapter, Trubshaw endeavours to weave all these ideas together into a 'Dreamtime' narrative, or 'songline', to explore a journey that is both in the physical landscape and in the 'mindscape'; whether this follows the 'footprints of the ancestors' or simply creates a new set of tracks the author is happy to leave unresolved.

Sunrise at south entrance to Avebury henge.
Cover photograph by Bob Trubshaw.

From the back cover: “Singing Up the Country reveals that Bob Trubshaw has been researching a surprising variety of different topics since his last book six years ago. From Anglo-Saxon place-names to early Greek philosophy – and much in between – he creates an interwoven approach to the prehistoric landscape, creating a 'mindscape' that someone in Neolithic Britain might just recognise. This is a mindscape where sound, swans and rivers help us to understand the megalithic monuments.

Continuing from where scholarship usually stops and using instead the approaches of storytelling, the final chapter weaves this wide variety of ideas together as a 'songline' for the Avebury landscape. This re-mythologising of the land follows two 'dreamtime' ancestors along the Kennet valley to the precursors of Avebury henge and Silbury Hill.”

Parts of Singing Up the Country draw heavily on the research of Andrew Collins (The Cygnus Mystery), Michael Dames (The Silbury Treasure, The Avebury Cycle) Alan Garner (By Sevenfirs and Goldenstone) and the late Margaret Gelling (Placenames in the Landscape) and will be an inspiration to all those interested in prehistory, mythology or the Neolithic monuments of the World Heritage Site at Avebury.

Contents:
Prologue
Preface
1. Prehistoric wayfaring
2. Journeys with significance
3. Myths of place
4. The king alone stood on the mound
5. Do you ken the queen of the Kennet of her kith and kin?
6. By green hill to the broad ford
7. Anglo-Saxon sacred places
8. The hills are alive...
9. Swans and their celestial songs
10. The rivers of life and the cauldrons of creation
11. Towards a Kennet dreaming.
12. A Kennet dreaming
References
Index

ISBN 978-1-905646-21-0 September 2011
203 pages, 64 b&w photos, 29 line drawings, paperback.
Heart of Albion Press  


Notes:
1. Bob Trubshaw, Thinking about Places, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 35–50.

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Tomb of Stonehenge Architect found in Preseli

Archaeologists believe they may have uncovered a key figure involved in construction of the ancient monument on Salisbury Plain buried at Preseli mountains site.

Archaeologists Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright are researching the grave of an important figure they believe that may have played a crucial role in the construction of Stonehenge.

The burial chamber is sited above a ceremonial stone circle in the Preseli hills in west Wales, where it is believed bluestone was quarried before being taken to Stonehenge. However, further research is required to establish if the person buried there played a role in the moving of the Preseli bluestones the 190 miles from west Wales to Salisbury Plain.

Preseli

Wainwright said: "We went back to the Preselis and started doing excavations up there. The first site we explored was a big burial cairn in the shadow of Carn Menyn, where the Stonehenge bluestones come from."

At Preseli they found a circle underneath the cairn built of bluestone, the same material as the small stones at Stonehenge, with work now being carried out to ascertain a date. Wainwright added that he would not be surprised if the circle had been created at about the same time that the bluestones were taken to Stonehenge, strengthening the link between west Wales and Stonehenge in the theory.

Wainwright continued, "Then this stone circle was covered with the huge burial cairn with a chamber in the middle. The space turned from a public ceremonial space defined by the stone circle into the burial spot of a very important person."

The remains of a ceremonial monument were found with a bank that appears to have a pair of standing stones embedded in it. The tomb, which is a passage cairn, typical of a Neolithic burial monument, was placed over this henge. Archaeologists have argued that he bluestones at the earliest phase of Stonehenge were also set in pairs giving a direct architectural link from the monument on Salisbury Plain to this newly discovered henge-like monument in Preseli, south Wales.

Healing Centre
Darvill and Wainwright have spent the last 10 years trying to establish how and why the bluestones, mostly of spotted dolerite, were transported from Preseli to Stonehenge. In 2008 they carried out the first excavation at Stonehenge in more than 40 years, the last was directed by Richard Atkinson in 1964. Following the 2008 excavation Darvill and Wainwright claimed they had established that the bluestones first arrived at Stonehenge about 4,500 years ago.

Professor Wainwright holds a piece of bluestone

Their hypothesis is that the Stonehenge bluestones, spotted dolorite when newly quarried is dark blue speckled with brilliant white stars of quartz,  were the real draw to Neolithic pilgrims because they were believed to possess healing powers, claiming that Stonehenge was the 'Lourdes of prehistoric Europe' which may have drawn people from across the continent during the Mesolithic Age, a dating based on the find of a handful of scraps of charred wood and a little pile of stone chips.

The charcoal fragments added new evidence to the Stonehenge story. Darvill and Wainwright revealed that the earliest dates from 7,000 BC, suggesting the site was already important 4,000 years before the oldest stone circle, and may have continued to draw visitors for centuries.

Darvill and Wainwright are convinced the stone chips are evidence of belief in the healing power of  the magical bluestone that made famous as a healing centre across prehistoric Europe, evidenced by the grave of the Amesbury Archer, one of the richest finds in decades found three miles from the monument.

The Amesbury Archer,  also known as the King of Stonehenge, died around 2,300 BC when he was between 35-45, yet isotope fingerprinting of his teeth has shown that he was born probably in the Alpine area of central Europe. Near to the Archer was the grave of a younger man who was a relative, who had been brought up not far from Stonehenge, but he is thought to have travelled to central Europe as a child.

Years before the Archer died he had suffered a traumatic injury in which he lost his left knee leading to a severe infection that penetrated his very bones. He must have lived in constant pain from this wound, and would have walked by putting his weight on his good leg which consequently grew stronger and the damaged leg slowly withered. However, it is thought that the infection from a tooth abscess which ruptured his jaw, may have actually led to his death. Other remains found in the vicinity of Stonehenge bear the marks of illness or injury, supporting Darvill and Wainwright's theory that they came to Stonehenge in search of a cure.

Organic remains found during their 2008 excavation, including a few specks of grain and seed, have allowed a secure dating for the first time of the bluestone circle, given as between 2,400-2,200 BC, overlapping the date range of the burial of the Amesbury Archer, 2470-2280 BC

This provides a date for the bluestone circle some three centuries later than previously thought. The stones were repeatedly moved and rearranged with the enormous inner horseshoe of sarsen trilithons added before the final outer circle of sarsen uprights and lintels was added around 1,900 BC, creating the final world famous profile of the monument.

Another grave was discovered nearby at Boscombe Down containing the remains of at least 7 people dubbed the “Boscombe Bowmen” as, like the grave of the Archer, their grave also contained stone arrowheads. This simple grave cut into the chalk was found only 1km away from the graves of the Amesbury Archer and his young companion, and has yielded yet another good match with the date range of 2,400-2,200 BC given by Darvill and Wainwright for the arrival of the first bluestones at Stonehenge. The style of the burial of Boscombe Bowmen is unusual for the date with only parts of their skeletons being found in the mass grave, suggesting that the missing bones may have been buried elsewhere. Parallels for this style of burial in Britain or elsewhere in Europe have not been found.

The isotope fingerprinting of the teeth of three of the Boscombe Bowmen indicate that, like the Amesbury Archer, they were not local. However, one of the few places in Britain that matches the strontium and oxygen isotope fingerprints of the Bowmen is south Wales. Significantly, their isotopes show that they had migrated when they were children providing evidence for migration in prehistoric Europe.  The results do not reveal for certain where the Boscombe Bowmen originated from, yet Wales does seem their most likely homeland, and taken in the context of Darvill and Wainwright's dating of the bluestones arrival at Stonehenge, the presence of the Bowmen has been interpreted as part of a migration to Salisbury Plain when they were children, making a journey with the adults who brought the bluestones from Preseli to Stonehenge.

The Architect of Stonehenge?
Talking of this latest discovery in Preseli, Wainwright said: "The important thing is that we have a ceremonial monument here that is earlier than the passage grave. We have obviously got a very important person who may have been responsible for the impetus for these stones to be transported."

"It can be compared directly with the first Stonehenge, so for the first time we have a direct link between Carn Menyn - where the bluestones came from - and Stonehenge, in the form of this ceremonial monument."

However, he admitted it was a "jump" to claim the person buried there was an architect of Stonehenge. "It's a hypothesis but it could well be true. There is certainly something very significant about the grave."

A “jump” is rather an understatement to say the least Geoff. Seems more like a leap of faith over the cliff of credibility. We cannot assume a burial found in Preseli has anything to do Stonehenge just because it has bluestones set in a pair. Further, a ditch and bank arrangement around a burial chamber does not necessarily signify a henge monument.

During 2003 to 2009, the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) carried out excavations in the Stonehenge landscape, culminating in the discovery of “Bluestonehenge”. Following, the SRP proposed a provisional revised Stonehenge sequence with the first stage of construction at the site dated from 3000–2935 BC with the cutting of the circular ditch and bank, enclosing 56 pits of the Aubrey Holes, holding singleton bluestones. During this time a second stone circle, Bluestonehenge, was built beside the river Avon, consisting of around 25-26 bluestones, giving the figure of around 82 bluestones, the total usually agreed as being used in the final construction of Stonehenge.
SRP suggest the second stage dated to 2640–2480 BC with the erection of the lintelled sarsen circle and the massive inner sarsen trilithon horseshoe, erected along with an arc of bluestones standing in the Q and R holes, possibly dismantled from the Aubrey Holes and Bluestonehenge,  The third stage from 2470–2280 BC saw the construction of the 1.75 mile long earthwork known as the Avenue travelling to the river Avon. A Fourth stage, 2280–2030 BC, saw the bluestones, having been removed from the Q and R holes, rearranged to form a circle between the sarsen trilithons and the outer sarsen ring, and an oval bluestone setting within the sarsen trilithon horseshoe.

What are we to make of all this? A date range for the first bluestones at the Stonehenge site from  2,400-2,200 BC to  3000–2935 BC; a variance of 800 years! And now the claimed discovery of  a tomb that could be the architect of Stonehenge?

Your guess is as good as mine. It would be much clearer if these clever people could all agree on the interpretation of the evidence. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that the bluestones came from south Wales.



Sources:
Tomb found at Stonehenge quarry site – BBC News
Stonehenge mystery offered clue by Welsh burial chamber - – The Guardian
Archaeologists claim Stonehenge was 'Lourdes of prehistoric Europe'  – The Guardian 
The Amesbury Archer -  Wessex Archaeology
The Amesbury Archer: pilgrim or magician? - Wessex Archaeology 
A really new stage in Stonehenge history? - Mike Pitts, Digging Deeper.

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