As diggers began to strip the daisies and buttercups and carve down through the parched clay of a field near Woodbridge in Suffolk that sloped down to a riverbank, with archaeologists watching over the pretty but apparently featureless site, something extraordinary began to emerge. Clear spring water came bubbling from the ground, and with it came massive timbers preserved so perfectly that tool marks were still visible and stake posts were sharply pointed.
The archaeologists first thought the timbers must be medieval or even Victorian, and were puzzled to find them so deeply buried. But as 30 metres of timber track were exposed, alongside other unexpected objects too, such as the massive horns and skull of an aurochs, an extinct breed of giant cattle, they realised they were dealing with something far more ancient. The timbers were 4,300 years old, according to the first carbon-14 tests, and underlying ones may be much older.
The Neolithic trackway, which had evidence of being repeatedly restored and renewed over decades and probably generations, seems to have led up to a level timber platform, with spring water deliberately channelled to surround it. From the platform, objects were dropped into the running water, including metal, pottery and the horned aurochs skull. The skull had been carefully shaped either to fix to a pole or use as part of a headdress – and as the archaeologists who had to lift and carry it down the hill could testify, lugging it to the site would have taken considerable effort.
The skull was already ancient when it went into the water – tests dated it to about 2,000 years older than the track. Masses of white pebbles that would have been brought specially to the site were also found.On a recent scorching day, the trackway level of the site was still sodden. “You can’t stop the water,” archaeologist Vinny Monahan said. “We came upon evidence of various attempts to drain the field, but it bubbles up wherever you dig.”Prehistorians and ancient timber experts visited the site, and their opinion and the dating evidence bears out the realisation that the archaeologists had stumbled upon a major site of which not a trace remained in the historical record, despite evidence of Roman, Saxon and medieval occupation of the site. They now realise they did not pay enough attention when they were told that the traditional name of the field was Seven Springs.
Archaeologists are nervous of using the word “ritual”, but in this case, Monahan said, it is unavoidable: the people who used the site “weren’t living here – they made this place deliberately and they were coming here because it was important to them.”
Bolding mine. A skull that’s 6,500 years old, gone into the waters? That’s some Deep Time.
I mentioned some time ago that water is a portal, and has been recognized as such for thousands of years.
This sort of practice…placing sacrifices into water…is a recognition of that fact. A huge number of artifacts in Stone, Bronze and Iron Age Europe have been recovered from water or bogs, and they were placed there because it was known that water was important, and that springs and ponds and rivers were a sort of access point between worlds.
Think of bog bodies. Of things like this. Of swords, bent into circles and thrown into water. Of gold and jewelry, given to the water and found by archaeologists thousands of years later. Pottery. Food.
All given to the other worlds, by being sunk into bodies of water.
On the Yucatan the Maya used cenotes for the same purposes.
Yep.
Archaeologists stumble on Neolithic ritual site in Suffolk
Published
The Chaos Bitches 