Ghost of a flea

Excavations at Heathrow

Preparatory archaeological work toward a new terminal at Heathrow airport is turning up tens of thousands of objects including a unique three-thousand year old wooden bowl.

This report repeats an assertion often made by archaeologists which never fails to irritate me:

The excavation looked at a prehistoric four-kilometre pathway about 20m wide and flanked by ditches. It appeared to have had a religious significance since the first field boundaries ran around it and not across it, as an apparent mark of respect.

Yes, that or it was a road. People do not generally build their house or extend their farm into the local highway due to, you know, traffic. It is all too easy to imagine some future archaeologist digging up remains of Heathrow run-ways and ascribing "ritual," "ceremonial" or "religious" significance to what they find. So near yet so far. Just wait until their dig turns up Heathrow's duty free shopping concourse.

And then... Googling reveals a press release from Framework Archaeology, the people responsible for the work at Terminal 5. Note how the release has been rewritten in the above report to garble its meaning. This makes more sense:

The excavation looked at the Stanwell Cursus, a four-kilometre (2.5 mile) pathway about 20 metres wide and flanked by ditches, which was built as early as 3,800BC and cuts across the Terminal 5 site. The cursus was a pathway with religious significance which linked important sites.

The excavation revealed that when the first field boundaries were created in the Early Bronze Age (around 2,000BC - 1,500BC), they ran around the cursus and not across it, as a mark of respect for its religious significance. But during the Middle Bronze Age, from 1,500BC, field boundaries were created across the cursus itself, a sign that it was no longer venerated.

The archaeologists are asserting religious significance for two sites (not described) which are linked by the road they are excavating. Building around such a round might indeed signal respect comparable to that accorded to contemporary public spaces. I still think it is fun that a 4,000-year old road finds an echo in the runway to be built across it today.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 7, 2003 09:15 AM