Principal : Christine Shaw
Just before his death, Peter Reynolds was engaged in writing a new book to cover his life history working on Experimental Archaeology, from his early days of interest in the topic and, later, after his engagement to set up the first embodiment of the Ancient Farm. That book remains unfinished and until such time as a way to complete it can be realised, the paper below survives as his most recent testimony to part of that work and his contribution to Experimental Archaeology.
This paper was submitted to the World Archaeological Congress 1994, held in India, and subsequently published in an edited form in "The Constructed Past", ed. Peter G. Stone & Phillippe G. Planel, Routledge 1999.
Abstract
This paper describes the history and development of Butser Ancient Farm, a research programme devoted to empirical research in archaeology. The philosophy and methodology of the research and its employment in education is discussed as well as its relationship to the general public.
Development History
Butser Ancient Farm was set up in 1972 specifically as a programme for research and education.
Its remit to study the agricultural and domestic economy of the period c.400BC to 400AD. has remained largely unaltered. The period embraces the late Iron Age and early Roman period. The overall objective was and is to create practical working research programmes based directly upon the archaeological evidence as interpreted from excavations.
During the last twenty years the Ancient Farm has occupied three locations. The first site of Little Butser, from which the farm draws its name, was a northerly spur of Butser Hill in Hampshire. The base geology of the site was middle chalk overlaid with a shallow friable rendzina soil just 100 mm deep. Given its geology and aspect, it offered a worst option scenario for the proposed research programme but, in its defence, it once supported a Bronze Age/Iron Age farmstead, the occupants of which cultivated the valley to the north and east. The primary advantage of a worst option lies in the immediate acceptability of the data. This site was in continuous operation from 1972-1989.
In 1976 a second site was developed in the valley bottom of Hillhampton Down, on the southern slopes of Butser Hill. This shared the same geology but with a deeper (300 mm) soil cover of friable rendzina, clay with flints and chalk granules. It was operated as a research site in conjunction with Little Butser but its primary purpose was as an open air museum open to the public and available as an educational resource for schoolchildren. Given the independence of the Ancient Farm from any statutory funding, either national or local, it was necessary to develop a sustaining source of income.
On both these sites the infrastructure comprised research fields and stock areas, animal paddocks, and an enclosure within which were built constructs based upon specific archaeological data. The livestock maintained at the farm comprises five breeds of sheep (Moufflon, Soay, Manx Loughton, Hebridean and Shetland), Old English Goats, Dexter Cattle and Old English Game Fowl. Occasionally, Tamworth/European Wild Boar cross pigs were also kept. The differing natures of both sites allowed direct comparisons to be drawn between the different bioclimatic zones. The major advantage of this second development was a redefinition of the binary purpose of the Ancient Farm, as being both a research and an educational establishment.
At the beginning of 1991 both these sites were vacated and a new site developed at Bascomb Copse near Chalton. The underlying geology is upper chalk with a loamy soil averaging 350 mm deep. This new location offers the typical option of the chalk downlands of Southern Britain, as exploited in all periods of the past. This site has the same resources but with the added bonus of potential development. It also combines the twin focus of research and education in one location. As with the previous sites the objective is to carry out 1:1 scale empirical trials to elucidate the archaeological data.
Methodology
From the inception of the Ancient Farm in 1972 it was realized that for this approach, full-scale empiricism, a basic methodology was critical. Without a strict system which applied to all aspects of the work, the results would be incompatible and not allow any form of ultimate integration. It had been envisaged even in the early seventies that given a large enough data base, rigorously acquired over a long enough period, computer simulation could he employed to extend the data to embrace far greater regions than those to which the research was manifestly restricted and to respond to questions not originally formed at the beginning of the programme.
The resultant methodology is essentially cyclical in form. The archaeological data, the evidence recovered by excavation along with whatever documentary sources are available and reliably form the base or prime data upon which the archaeologist/ prehistorian mounts an hypotheses. The testing is in the form of a physical experiment which by definition requires replication. The conduct of the experiment must be consistent from start to finish. An experiment which is changed or modified during its course immediately invalidates the original question and the experiment itself. Given adequate replication, usually a minimum of five replicates, the data from the experiment can be compared to the original data upon which the hypothesis was raised. If there is agreement between the sets of data the hypothesis can be tentatively accepted as valid but with the caveat that several different hypotheses raised on the same date can also be validated, a condition referred to as the 'multiplicity of hypothesis validation'. If there is no agreement the hypothesis is not merely invalidated but actually proved to be wrong. The value of this methodology lies especially in the seemingly worst case situation. By building an experiment, the prime data is subjected to extremely close scrutiny in order to execute the experiment, a process which emphasises aspects previously unconsidered or even unrecognised. Even after the committal of an experiment it can he readily seen that there are fundamental errors which are further focussed upon during the course of the experiment. The resultant negative correlation allows greater insight into the original data and the ability to construct a second or even a third experiment leading to a validated but different hypothesis.
Nature of Experiment
Necessarily experiments vary in nature in direct response to the type of hypothesis. Broadly, experiments/hypotheses fall into five categories. The first and perhaps most obvious category is that of structure, the creation of constructs based upon patterns of post-holes and stakeholes. The word reconstruction is to be eschewed since it is totally inaccurate. The vast majority of buildings evidenced from pre-history and proto-history survive only in the form of negative evidence, the position where posts and stakes once stood. Reconstruction is properly applied to the putting together and restoration of buildings of which adequate remains survive. The second category of experiment involves process and function where trials are mounted to examine the effects of usage of archaeological features like pits, objects like ploughs or alternatively the effect upon tools in the execution of their hypothesized purpose. Within this category, one must place technological resources like pottery kilns and furnaces, in the sense that experiment can determine the limits of their performance, as well as their efficiency. The third category of experiment is devoted to simulation trials. In this kind of experiment one seeks to discover how an archaeological feature reached its ultimate state as recovered by excavation. Perhaps the best example is the experimental earthwork or ditch and bank. Excavation discovers buried ditches which reveal deposition layers within them brought about by natural erosion processes. The layers are normally irregular and asymmetrically deposited. In order to gain an understanding of both the observed irregularity and asymmetry, the only course of action likely to yield a valuable result is to construct a 'new' version which can be studied against climate and time. The Ancient Farm is currently conducting a major research programme of simulation trials involving octagonal earthworks on different rock and soil types.
The fourth category of trial, described as probability trials, is in a real sense the logical extension of the first three categories. In such a trial one seeks to establish within closely defined parameters probable outcomes or results. Inevitably such results have to be viewed as probability statements very much defined by the constants built into the experimental procedure. The best example of a probability trial is the growing of prehistoric type cereals in order to establish the potential yield factors of these cereals, within the probable technology available within a specific time period. Within such trials the variables of weather and soil type can be regarded as semi-constants provided they are recorded in detail. More significant in terms of probability are the presumed constants of treatments, sowing rates and management. Also within this category of experiment fall deductive hypotheses and their testing. The use of this type of trial relies upon data-supported, validated hypotheses, which could not be unless a prior unsubstantiated process or activity had taken place. For example in Britain there is no evidence of threshing or threshing locations, yet cereals had to be threshed before they could be processed into food or prepared for storage. In effect, it is a function which had to have taken place, for without it there would be nothing - sine qua nihil.
The fifth and final category of experiment is best described as technological innovation. Within this category, fall the initial application of machines or trials which seek to improve or enhance archaeological practice. Particularly is this the case with prospecting machines like fluxgate gradiometers and soil magnetic susceptibility meters, ground radar and even X-rays borrowed from other disciplines. The examination and testing of these devices to assess their potential value are, in fact, experiments. Similarly, monitored field trials can be used to facilitate the understanding of recovered archaeological data. For example, a long series of trials have been conducted by the writer to determine artefact movement within the modern and the prehistoric plough zone in order to assess the value of the soil as an archaeological layer, deserving the same detailed analysis as those layers arguably undisturbed by subsequent activity.
All these categories of experiment have been pioneered and extensively practised at the Ancient Farm. The one important factor which has been deliberately excluded from the nature of experiment is the human. As far as possible, the experiments are scientific trials with variables being measured against constants, with emphasis being placed on replication and predictability of subsequent trials. Data whenever possible is expressed numerically. No importance has been attached to 'time taken to achieve' since the variables of human motivation and skill are impossible to evaluate or calculate. Similarly, 'living in the past' forms no part of the scientific work of the Ancient Farm. Such activities are signally instructive to the participants and may or not be character forming. There is undoubted value and profit to gain from some forms of re-enactment in the field of education and interpretation but there is little of scientific worth likely to extend our knowledge. In a very real way, the mental impedimenta which unavoidably burdens modern man precludes any real understanding of his historic counterparts, let alone his prehistoric ancestors.
The objective from the beginning of the Ancient Farm has been to work within the constraints of the above methodology, concentrating upon the problematic archaeological or prime data. Each of the three sites have been managed in such a way as to seek to integrate all the different experiments, so that not only can the individual experiments be studies per se but also foreseen relationships between the experiments can be evaluated and unforeseen relationships might be identified.
Core research programmes
Cereals
The primary focus of the research has been upon the agricultural economy of the later Iron Age. From 1972 growing trials have been carried out with the typical cereals of the period, Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) and Spelt (Triticum spelta), on a range of soil types in different bioclimatic zones. Other cereals have been incorporated into the trials, including Club Wheat (Tr. aestis-compactum), Old Bread Wheat (Tr. aestivum), Einkorn (Tr. monococcum), and Barley (Hordeum vulgare). For treatment variabilities, the legumes Celtic bean ( Vicia faba minor), Peas (Pisum sativum), and Vetch (Vicia sativa) have also been cultivated. Field aspect, soil type, manuring and non-manuring, crop rotation and fallow rotation are all incorporated as variable treatments. An important element of these cropping trials has been the study of arable weeds, in terms of their presence and absence and their value as irritants or benefits.
Cultivation experiments utilizing different types of cattle drawn ard have been conducted, examining both the efficiency of the ard as a tool on the one hand and, on the other, the effects of its use on the ard itself. Associated observations within the cultivation programme include the monitoring of lynchet formation on field boundaries and dishing within field areas. Trials with the magnetic susceptibility meter across manured and non-manured zones within field areas, along with lipid analysis of treated soils, suggest a positive method of determining manuring activity. The cropping trials have also afforded opportunities to carry out pollen rain catchment along with the development of a new pollen rain trap.
Grain Storage
The second aspect to the cropping programme has been an intensive programme of grain storage in underground silos. A large range of variables have been examined over a period of twenty years yielding significant results. Grain can be stored very successfully in simple pits in chalk, limestone and sand rocks, both short and long term. After short term storage of about six months, the grain has a germinability in excess of 90%. Germinability, though not necessarily edibility, deteriorates the longer the storage period. Critically, a pit has an indeterminate life span. No sign of souring was observed during 15 years of trials. The implications of these storage experiments demand a re-evaluation of their currently accepted economy and use.
Constructs
A parallel research focus has been upon the houses and structures of the late Iron Age. A large number of different round-houses have been built on each of the three sites, each house being a specific construct based upon the best available excavated data. It has always been a particular aim to project and test a structure within the constraints of the archaeological evidence. A generalised or composite structure has never been built at the Ancient Farm. Two significant constructs have yielded the greatest reward to date. The Pimperne house construction allowed a real distinction to be drawn between constructional and structural evidence and, on its dismantlement in 1990, it was found that a building of 13m (42ft)diameter could adequately exist beyond the life of its structural post-holes, implying that dating evidence found within the post pipe did not necessarily indicate a time after its destruction. An even larger, construct based upon an excavation at Longbridge Deverel, Cowdown, Wiltshire, 15.4m (50 ft) in diameter, built in 1992-93, has demonstrated that a free span of some 13m is relatively simple to achieve.
Earthworks
Since the early 1980s a major research programme into experimental earthworks has been carried out involving the construction of simple V-section ditches, 20m long, 1.50m deep and 1.50m across with dump banks with built-in variables of berms and no berms, turf retaining walls and turf cores based on an octagonal plan. The plan is dictated by different weather patterns experienced from the major points of the compass. The research design entails the study of erosion and re-vegetation, through time, against recorded climate. The programme at present has four major earthworks on upper, middle and lower chalk and aeolian drift. The proto-experimental earthwork built at the Hillhampton Down site in 1976 and excavation in 1981 showed startling rapidity of colonisation by vegetation and stabilisation, as well as a totally unexpected skew of the deposition layers.
In addition to these core research programmes, subsidiary programmes have researched into metallurgy and kiln technology. Further programmes are run in conjunction with other institutions both here and abroad. Several of these have involved the testing of prospecting devices and their research applications with special reference to magnetic susceptibility.
Education
Given the nature of the Ancient Farm as an open air laboratory, with the core research programme providing physical results in the form of domestic buildings and working structures, earthworks and fences creating enclosures and track ways, plant stock and livestock contributing vitality and seasonal change and demanding functional and processual attention, the end product presents not only an integrated research milieu but also a unique teaching tool. This result, continually in a state of change through deterioration and renewal, was foreseen at the inception of the programme, as a critically important aspect. Because experimentation uses as its primary data the archaeological evidence and thereafter is completely constrained by the individual sciences required by each experiment, the range of disciplines involved is extremely wide. For example, a building construct involves architectural and engineering skills, while, in contrast, the storage of foodstuffs involves a working knowledge of mycology. This wide spectrum of sciences simply represents the underlying working of any social organisation through time, whether implicit or explicit. Naturally, to this scientific basis can be added the arts of communication through word and image. Thus the integrated research programmes, which are the Ancient Farm, encompass all the aspects (literacy, numeracy and communication) of any and all educational curricula. Dependent upon the method of presentation, all age levels from primary pupil to post graduate researcher are readily accommodated.
Schools
In recent time education has become more regularised, with the introduction of national curricula which prescribe knowledge and skill attainment targets by age stages. Commonly, such targets cannot be achieved solely within the classroom and educational philosophy requires more integration with the world beyond the confines of school buildings, not only to elucidate the raw subject material by real application but also to enhance the understanding of society and social organisation present and past, as it affects the individual. The Ancient Farm has striven, and continues to strive, to respond to the changing demands of education. The obvious 'point and tell' experience supported by questionnaire, the crocodile of clip-boards, has to a large extent been rejected as an educational method. For example, given the resources of great and small prehistoric house constructs, the emphasis is placed upon experiential education. The essence of volume and space, materials and function allow not only the direct physical experience but also the dialectic method of sourcing human activity and material requirements to be explored . This is further enhanced by physical participation in process and function, the real 'hands-on' experience which leads to unstressed but indelible knowledge. In terms of the very young, it is the educational experience which opens the door for future exploitation. It is the sensory perception which creates the foundation of knowledge. That this knowledge is gained through personal involvement in group activity, garnished with the inevitable humour of such involvement, only serves to strengthen that knowledge.
For older children the implications of 'hands-on' experience leads to understanding of the integration of system, lines of supply and demand, sequences of work and ultimately human impact upon environment. It is, perhaps, the infinite cross-curricular nature of the Ancient Farm which initiates and substantiates an appreciation of the complexity the real world. It is possible to range from the simplest of activities, like spinning and weaving, to the complexities of the climatic impact on plant growth, from the base techniques of applying daub to a wickerwork wall, to the mathematical determination of the forces exerted by a cone upon a cylinder. This diversity of academic disciplines, accessible by choice, against complexity and ability, provides on the one hand a rich and flexible educational tool, on the other a continuously increasing data resource.
Universities
For students and postgraduates, therefore, since the Ancient Farm has been conducting long term research programmes since 1972, there is available a data base both capable of sustaining repeated examination and open to previously unasked questions, arising from modern excavation techniques. In addition it is available as an open air laboratory where new experiments both short and long term can be carried out in a scientifically protected environment. It has always been a fundamental philosophy that the research of the Ancient Farm should be open to inspection and prime data available for reworking. Especially is this the case with the advent of computer technology.
The Public
From the beginning there has been surprisingly little conflict between the constraints of scientific empirical research and the utilisation of that research as an educational resource. Nor has there been any major difficulty in allowing public access to the Ancient Farm. In essence, this has been a critical financial resource, along with the educational services offered, for the survival of the Ancient Farm. The initial proposition that the Ancient Farm is, in fact, an open air research laboratory has been strictly maintained from its inception to the present day. The visiting public witness research programmes in progress. The paradox of modern technology in the form of computers and scientific measuring instruments in association with ostensible prehistory serves only to enhance the laboratory aspect and underlines the fact that empirical research is an important method of finding out about the remote past and that the latest technology has a significant role to play in that research. It is a mark of respect for the public at large that the research element is stressed, the explanation that hypotheses are being explored to assess validity is not obfuscated by spurious re-enactment. The emotional journey into the past is an illusion, sustained by a suspension of judgement and alloyed by prejudice.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Ancient Farm is not at all influenced or driven by specific educational requirements. It has its own research agenda specifically designed to explore the primary archaeological data by direct empiricism. However, this agenda is infinitely exploitable as a teaching resource. Because it is actively involved in research programmes, which have a beginning, a middle and an end over whatever time period is required, it is always in a state of change. It is signally not a museum nor is it a school. Rather it is a resource where hypotheses can be explored and where a negative answer is viewed as just as valuable as a positive answer. It is itself, therefore, a place of learning and, by direct implication, a place of teaching. In this and every sense it is a unique enterprise.
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Created 20 January 2004 - Updated 29 January 2004