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Archaeologist Rose Ferraby continues her reflections on the very human need to craft objects from the materials available to us. In this second essay of EarthWorks Series Three, she tells the story of the extraordinary discovery of a wooden funerary monument on the beach at Holme-next-the-Sea in North Norfolk. Dubbed ‘Seahenge’ by the local press when it was found in 1998, the monument was formed by a huge upturned stump of oak surrounded by an egg-shaped façade of 55 split oak timbers. Originally constructed on the edge of a saltmarsh in the early summer of 2049BC, the remarkable preservation of the wood in the peat allowed archaeologists to analyse it in detail. They could see individual toolmarks made by different bronze axes and the honeysuckle rope used to drag it to the site. The monument shows how trees were wrapped up in the cultural imaginings of Bronze Age society, something we find echoes of today in the cultural value we give to particular trees.

Rose Ferraby is an artist, archeologist and writer whose EarthWorks essays explore traces of human history around the British Isles. In the first series, Rose considered broad aspects of landscape - Wold, Fen, Mountain, Island and Moor, places in which archaeology can reveal change and human adaptations through time; and in the second series, she zoomed in closer to examine different cultural spaces preserved in the archaeological record - Town, Grave, Quarry, Field and Monument, all of which serve enduring purposes to this day. This new series focuses in fine-grained detail on the materials that have shaped human cultures and societies. Looking in turn at stone, wood, pottery, leather and metal, and the ways in which they’re crafted and understood, she reflects on how these materials can connect us to landscape, community and place.

Written and presented by Rose Ferraby
Produced by Mark Smalley
A Reduced Listening production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3
Series Image: ‘Dark Peak’ by Rose Ferraby