Project Consultant : Christine Shaw
This page is intended to provide a background to the Butser Earthworks Studies 5 years after Reynolds' death. It also shows what may be seen at the Farm today, as a legacy of that work.
The observations of the first eight years behaviour of one of the several earthworks under study has been reported as No4 in the Butser Monograph Series "The Butser Ancient Farm Earthworks Project : A first analysis of the data and a description and review of the methodology" (Publications)
It is anticipated that students will purchase this publication to assist the on-going research activities .... but see the CD offer at the end of this paper. In the spirit of these pages, however, a detailed outline of what this Monograph offers is given, along with an insight into the latest results of a programme, where the earthworks still exist after more than 20 years. However, it is anticipated tht the earthworks at Fishbourne will be lost during 2008, because the site is required for other uses.
The Monograph details the background thinking to the design and construction of experimental earthworks and gives exacting descriptions of all the recording methodologies employed. The established background to such methods is presented, reviewed and critiqued against relevant references. Aspects of particle mechanics are presented to interpret the observed effects and the known behaviour of earlier experimental earthworks. The overall conclusions are given in the Summary appended to the Publication details (link above).
Some aspects of the work are of equal interest to environmental and botanical studies. The recording system was designed to embrace this possibility from the outset.
Reynolds original ideas on earthworks design were evolved following his involvement with the work on the first British Earthworks, at Overton Down, Wiltshire UK. Reynolds also visited Lejre, in Denmark, one of the earliest Iron Age study sites in Europe, where he became familiar with some concepts of construction and behaviour of buildings and earthworks. It has been learnt this year, 2008, from a "find" in his papers that he looked at a 1946 publication by the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, to review methodology used then. In 2006, Professor Martin Bell of Reading University has given some illustrations of Lejre as it was in 2004. He has also given an update on his work at Overton [an earlier report of his is contrasted with Butser results in Monograph No4.] and has put the prospects for using the Butser Earthworks for studies that complement that work.
For those not familiar with the appearance of the "standard design" of ditch and bank enclosure used by Butser Ancient Farm, the following "visual" of the Wroughton Earthworks, almost immediately after construction, is presented.
The Wroughton Experimental Earthwork photographed from the north-west quadrant in 1986
The Monograph describes, in the terminology of experimental results, how this appearance has changed with time. It also goes on to discuss how additional factors have been brought into the project, in the last few years, at the site of the earlier Fishbourne Earthworks and at the final Earthworks, at the "home site" of Bascomb Down, as shown below.
The work analysed in the Monograph relates entirely to a system where every effort was made to exclude external human or animal intereference, the so-called "undisturbed" system. Recently, attention has been turned to assessing the effects of deliberately allowing old sheep breeds, such as Soay, to graze selected arms of the Bascomb Earthworks for a few brief periods each Spring/Summer. Since the next full analysis of the results for later years work on the Earthworks is unlikely to be carried out in the next year or two, it has been decided to expose the effect of such grazing. When the quantitative data has been analysed for this effect and the planned sectioning of the older earthworks has been completed, then it is anticipated that there will be an experimentally established basis for helping to decide when and whether any given excavated profile has been subjected to animal interference.
Bascomb Down: Arm C: The effect of 7 years "undisturbed" weathering.
Bascomb Down: Arm G: The effect of animal intrusion on the erosion of a corresponding arm.
Now that the original earthworks study team has been dispersed, the only studies that continue cover a "watching brief". A new semi-quantitative system of recording has been adopted, that may be carried out in a fraction of the time taken for the standard procedures reported in Monograph 4.
All the original botanical survey data has been digitised and put onto CD. This CD contains a copy of the Monograph No4, along with some background explanatory notes and limited Protofit data covering some ditch profiles. The only sections taken by Peter Reynolds at Wroughton are also included. The full protofit data for all sites is available in raw data form [hard copy only]. Free copies of the CD may be obtained by contacting the Chairman of the Friends.
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Created 01 August 2001 - Updated 24 February 2008