The Materiality of Magic

An artifactual investigation into ritual practices and popular beliefs

Ceri Houlbrook, Natalie Armitage, Natalie Armitage

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781785700118
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Archeologia

The subject of 'magic' has long been considered peripheral and sensationalist, the word itself having become something of an academic taboo. However, beliefs in magic and the rituals that surround them are extensive – as are their material manifestations – and to avoid them is to ignore a prevalent aspect of cultures worldwide, from prehistory to the present day. The Materiality of Magic addresses the value of the material record as a resource in investigations into magic, ritual practices, and popular beliefs. The chronological and geographic focuses of the papers presented here vary from prehistory to the present-day, including numinous interpretations of fossils and ritual deposits in Bronze Age Europe; apotropaic devices in Roman and Medieval Britain; the evolution of superstitions and ritual customs – from the 'voodoo doll' of Europe and Africa to a Scottish 'wishing-tree'; and an exploration of spatiality in West African healing practices.
The objectives of this collection of nine papers are twofold. First, to provide a platform from which to showcase innovative research and theoretical approaches in a subject which has largely been neglected within archaeology and related disciplines, and, secondly, to redress this neglect. The papers were presented at the 2012 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference in Liverpool.

1

‘Also found … (not illustrated) …’: The curious case of the missing magical fossils

Peter Leeming

Introduction

Anatomically modern humans and other Hominids have utilised fossils, or fossiliferous stones, since at least the Middle Palaeolithic for a variety of reasons. These include decoration as well as functional utility. What is more difficult to decipher is the symbolic usage of such items. Kenneth Oakley, of the British Museum (Natural History) held the opposite view. Through his studies of archaeological examples and folklore relating to fossils (Oakley 1965a; 1965b; 1971; 1973; 1975; 1977; 1978; 1981; 1985), he became convinced about their magical usage, initially through late 19th-century anthropological views about animism and fetishism and finally settling on the description of the fossils as charms. This paper will add some more evidence in the form of further archaeological sites with fossils where they have been noted in passing and usually not illustrated. Further study of these and Oakley’s examples may suggest that magical usage was one of the main criteria for selection of these objects.

Stating the problem

When archaeologists meet in relaxed or relaxing circumstances, like any profession, they share tales and anecdotes. One of the most common of these concerns questions asked by the general public, such as: ‘Have you found any gold?’ and any question about Romans (especially Roman Roads …) etc., usually reported with ever-greater vehemence in proportion to the perceived lack of understanding of what it is that archaeologists actually do. One example of this illustrates the subject of this paper: ‘Have you found any dinosaurs?’

This has been sufficiently irritating to some that there is now for sale in the USA a clothing range with the message ‘Archaeologists don’t dig Dinosaurs’ boldly emblazoned upon it (http://www.cafepress.com/shovelbums/2527142). But by extension – archaeologists do not dig fossils. This attitude has led to the phenomenon in archaeological interpretation of fossils found by Anatomically Modern Humans and their ancestors being ignored or passed over. This paper seeks to illustrate this by examining examples from the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Great Britain and Ireland.

Surprisingly, although this is a time period and geographical area that have been intensively studied, there are lacunae in the research. Ann Woodward, in discussing exotic substances found in barrows, notes that despite all of the attention focused on this type of monument, ‘… there are many other items within the grave groups that have never been studied in detail. These are the objects made from stone, bone and shell’ (Woodward 2000, 111, emphasis inserted). In her more detailed list of such objects she includes fossils.

To a certain extent this is paralleled by the neglect of magical objects, or those that are deemed to be magical. Leslie Grinsell, in an examination of evidence for witchcraft at prehistoric sites, cites the burial from Hvidegård, Denmark:

Finally, there remains the problem of trying to identify, from objects found accompanying primary and secondary burials in barrows and other burials of Neolithic and Bronze Age, witch-doctors of those periods. A Danish Bronze Age grave yielded the claw of a lynx, bones of a weasel, vertebrae of snakes, horses’ teeth, a rowan twig, charcoal of asken, and iron pyrites, all interpreted as relics connected with witchcraft. (1973, 78)

He concludes with an important point: ‘Clearly in such matters a good deal depends upon the interpretation which the director of excavations decides to place on his finds’ (Grinsell 1973, 78).

For Hvidegård and other Scandinavian examples, see Goldhahn (2012) where the finds and the bag they were discovered in are discussed. As an aside, it is interesting that the fossils from Aveline’s Hole, Somerset, which are mainly sections of ammonites, were thought by Donovan (1968) to have patterns of wear consistent with being carried in a pouch or bag. He also notes that associated with ammonites were the following: flint tools, part of a deer tibia, incisor tooth of horse, upper canine of pig and eighteen incisors of red deer. Donovan suggested magical usage as one of the possible interpretations of the fossils (1968, 240–241).

Such suggestions are usually heavily qualified. An unwillingness to speculate on purported meaning or significance has permeated modern excavation reports and syntheses. The key text, Merrifield’s pioneering study of archaeology and magic (1987), deals with the difficulties of identifying such magical objects, but does not discuss fossils in any depth. As fossils were, and in some quarters still are (e.g. China), held to be apotropaic (Kennedy 1976), they seem to be doubly damned and both factors may be at work in some of the examples which follow. This lack of research into magical items is beginning to be redressed, for example as seen in the titles (at least) of studies of Beakers and metalwork from the Bronze Age of north-east Scotland, Powerful Pots (Shepherd 1986) and Magic Metal (Cowie 1988), and by other studies including this volume. Reference to magical properties of other material, such as jet and amber, is also now being considered in studies of such material (Alison Sheridan, pers. comm.), where those materials have strange properties of lightness, electrostatic charge and in amber’s case, the quality of floating in certain circumstances. Ordinary fossils could resemble living organisms, but be heavy and made of stone or be of the wrong size, being too large or small, and others could resemble nothing living, all conditions which could be explained by concepts of magic.

One writer who did consider such issues was Kenneth Page Oakley, founder and head of the Sub-Department of Anthropology at the British Museum (Natural History). He is best known as one of the British scientists who exposed the Piltdown Man fraud (Oakley and Hoskins 1950). He researched fossils in folklore and further extended his studies to discussing their decorative and symbolic usage, as well as their practical use and re-use. In a series of papers beginning with ‘Folklore of Fossils’ in Antiquity (Oakley 1965a; 1965b), he proposed three categories of meaning for fossils found on archaeological sites: (a) objets trouvés being regarded as ‘lucky’; (b) containing magical power or an object of specific belief (Oakley used the now problematic categories of animism and fetish); and (c) those that had degenerated to once again be regarded as an object conferring good luck. Oakley suggested their potential for archaeologists, describing them as ‘a legacy of prehistoric theology’ (1965a, 10). Many of the fossils discovered on archaeological sites were still collected and used as charms and amulets during the 20th century and were discussed as such in folklore, leading Oakley to be more convinced that a similar phenomenon was at work in prehistoric times. The development of his thought is shown in later writings where the use of animism and fetish in his schema are replaced by talk of amulets and charms, magical items.

It is this latter category which movement beyond the impasse about unmodified objects may be achieved. Archaeologists have been reluctant to discuss fossils from sites because emphasis has been upon archaeology as the interpretation of actions of past people. This has been somewhat narrowly confined to objects which show human action, flint that has been knapped etc. The elephant in the room is probably the eolith, naturally formed stones which resembled tools and were the subject of much controversy in the 20th century. Fossils found on archaeological sites are often unmodified and therefore not deemed to be evidence of human activity unless (a) there are no such fossils discovered in the locality; (b) if the position within the site is highly suggestive of deliberate placement; or (c) a combination of both. Because of this, these items are often not included in the site report or are given a cursory mention. However, if these objects are interpreted as possibly deliberately deposited and as having magical significance for the depositors, a different picture begins to emerge. This is not to say that all of the fossils were deliberately placed, but it is becoming increasingly clear that many were. Some examples are:

Woodhenge, Wiltshire

This site had two discussions of its finds using a theoretical tool of structured deposition published in the same year. Fossils were noted by Julian Thomas as being discovered in the post-holes at Woodhenge in his general discussion (Thomas 1996, 150). But Pollard’s (1996) more detailed study of structured deposition at Woodhenge does not even mention the fossils. Bradley (2000), discussing Pollard’s study, again does not mention the fossils. According to the excavator, Maud Cunnington, the fossils were found in holes C5, C7 and E14 and all were echinoids – sea urchins (Cunnington 1929).

Wilsford Shaft, Wiltshire

Four fossil fragments of an echinoid were discovered at the bottom of this important site. They are not discussed or illustrated, but a perforated fossil fish vertebra, found with amber beads from the same level, near the very bottom of the 100 ft (30.48 m) deep shaft, is shown (Ashbee et al. 1989).

West Kennet Long Barrow, Wiltshire

Piggott’s excavations discovered the following material, none of which made it into the final publication: a fossiliferous oolitic stone slab, found in the rubble under a blocking stone at the entrance, two crinoids found in the dry walling on the north-west side of the south-east chamber and a fossil found amongst the paving stones in the north-west chamber (all information from Wiltshire Heritage on-line catalogue).

Amesbury Archer Bronze Age burial

This burial, one of the richest in terms of grave goods, omits detailed discussion of several items discovered with the burial:

One small fossil … was recovered from the fill during excavation, but as 15 small fossil sponges, a shark’s tooth, and four other fossils were recovered from the sieving of the grave fill, it is not considered likely that the fossil was deliberately placed in the grave. (Dagless et al. 2013, 71)

Ballycarty Chambered Tomb, Co. Kerry, Ireland

The detailed discussion of the discovery of fossils (which are illustrated) in the chamber of the passage tomb at Ballycarty, is relegated to almost the last appendix of the report (Wyse Jackson in Connolly 1999). Although the author notes that it ‘is not possible that these fossils could have been incorporated into the passage tomb… through natural erosion processes. Rather, they were collected purposely by the builders of the tomb and placed within it’ (1999, 90), they are mentioned very briefly in the main discussion. In a further publication (and a geological publication at that) they are described as palaeontological finds rather than archaeological artefacts (Wyse Jackson and Connolly 2002).

Dunstable Downs, Bedfordshire

The Dunstable Downs Bronze Age burial was published by a local antiquary Worthington George Smith. He reconstructed the burial from hundreds of fragments after it had been uncovered by a steam-plough. After collecting the material, which included 100–300 sea urchin fossils, from the damaged site, Smith imaginatively drew them as a surrounding border around the mother and child burials. Their exact positions in the burial are not known, neither is the exact number recovered (Dyer 1978). The burial was reconstructed and displayed for many years in the entrance hall of a local school, where the pupils seem to have added to the number of echinoids, making an exact number virtually impossible to discover (James Dyer, pers. comm.).

Kiltierney Deerpark, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland

At the excavation of a stone circle at Kiltierney Deerpark, an Early Bronze Age cemetery was discovered. One of the burials, no. 4, had three fragments of pottery and the following as grave goods: ‘Thirty Crinoid ossicles were present, varying in size from 6mm to 1.5mm. These could perhaps have served as beads, but occur as fossils in the local limestone’ (Daniels et al. 1977, 39). Beads made from crinoids are probably the most frequently discovered fossils in Bronze Age burials: several were discovered and some are illustrated in Colt Hoare’s mammoth work on south Wiltshire (Colt Hoare 1812).

This latter site illustrates the first part of the title of this paper perfectly. Taken as a whole, the fossils are the largest group of all of the finds discovered in the stone circle excavation, with all of the others numbering just over 20, including an intrusive medieval metal fragment. This fragment is illustrated, the fossils are not; yet the crinoids ossicles could be a necklace. If these ‘beads’ were unambiguous, such as if they were made of jet or amber, no doubt more would have been made of them, but the suspicion as to whether the crinoids were archaeological or not has led to their virtual exclusion from the published report. Thus consideration of their nature as unusual and possibly magical items has not entered the archaeological literature.

Conclusion

The ‘missing’ fossils in the interpretation of the above sites,...