Happisburgh, Deep History Coast: Footprints in the Mud

 

No, not the monolith of 2001 but nevertheless
equally as mysterious

This September the wife and I took our third break on the coast of the out-of-the-way Norfolk village of Happisburgh  As I noted in my post of Oct 2022 Happisburgh, in spite of it having that back-of-the-beyond, on-the-way-to-nowhere feel about it, nevertheless is a very notable location not least because of its paleontological significance. Seven standing wood monuments at the side of car park tell the story as it is currently understood. (See pictures above and below of two of them)

Happisburgh can lay claim to the earliest hominid footprints outside Africa. See the pictures above. See also below for pictures of the actual footprints before they were washed away by the restless sea.

At 850,000 years old these footprints are in the middle of the quaternary period; the age when Milankovitch cycles drove the complex beat of repeated glaciation. These footprints would have been made in mud during a warm interglacial interval. The mud is now soft rock, soft enough in fact for it to be possible to dig out small chunks with one's fingernail. Nevertheless, these hardened layers of mud are harder than the rock forming the cliffs which one can see in the background of the above picture. The cliffs overlie the interglacial strata but are being rapidly eroded leaving outliers of the relatively hard paleontological mud. The interpretation boards explained that these cliffs are largely the deposits of a later glaciation that bulldozed its way through the region 450,00 years ago. A section through the resultant glacial till can be seen in the photograph below of the cliffs. I'm no field geologist but this is my expectation of what the chaotic till left by glaciation would look like.....

In spite of the huge time scales that this landscape is evidence of, as we walked along the beach my overriding feeling was of the changing ephemerality of it all, especially of life.  The soft cliffs of Happisburgh are quickly eroding and each year a few more feet are lost. On the day of our walk the waves were wild with the restlessness that has carried on for eon's carving the coastline, churning the sand and depositing sediment along with fossils. At one point we came across a large bloated dead seal, perhaps ultimately to be buried by the waves and fossilized.

I took a picture of a cormorant perched on a break water. He was probably looking for fishing opportunities.....

The bird, of course, was completely unaware of the deep history drama still playing out around it; it has only been given to human beings to become conscious of that. In the background of my picture can be seen a huge container ship creeping along just over the horizon; a testament to human knowledge & technical prowess but nevertheless dwarfed by the scales of nature. The cormorant, whose mind was entirely focused on the fight for survival, wouldn't have a clue about the meaning of that ship or about the purpose of the orange cage on which he was perched, or about the bipedal ape who was contemplating him; not a clue about these things, any more than he had the slightest inkling about the deep history out of which his species had emerged. In a few more years his fight for survival would be over and he would be forgotten by the world. (Mat 10:29-31)

Later when returning to our caravan via the cliff path we saw another marvel of technology; a large potato harvester (See picture above, looking north): The driver was having his sandwich break in its comfortable air-conditioned cab. In the background are two line-of-sight microwave towers of the Bacton Gas Terminal. The technology in this picture is testament to the warmth and food delivered to modern homes on an industrial scale. Looking along the cliff top in the opposite southerly direction is another kind of communication tower, a monument to an entirely different kind of culture and this can be seen in the centre of this picture: 

This tower is none other than the tower of Happisburgh church. This website tells us that the church was completely rebuilt in the 14th century, the perpendicular period of church building. The late mediaeval culture of the day was emerging from earlier times when a feudal economic base meant that most utilities were generated locally rather than via a market supplied by industrialized production, By the late 14th century the black death had started to break this feudal system. However, pastural farming in Norfolk had brought a brisk trade in wool making the region wealthy enough to build such imposing churches. The market was starting to gain traction as a wealth creator. Since then, in just a few hundred years, human culture has changed beyond recognition as the market and a highly technological industry has generated wealth that the builders of Happisburgh church could not even imagine; the key to it was an agricultural revolution that had reached a pinnacle in our potato harvester where just one man could harvest a huge field in a day - or less.

Seven hundred years later that wealth has bought leisure, health and above all the knowledge and time to contemplate the mysteries of existence; but with it our culture has lost the assurance that those late medieval church builders had about the meaning of life; does our modern culture understand the meaning of the wider cosmic perspective about which we have learned so much? For some scholars the universe "just is" and believe that apart from meanings we create ourselves there is no other meaning to be discovered. So, is the man in the street who has been tutored by numerous academic authorities any better off about meanings than that cormorant? In the "light" of what some authorities will tell us the universe is all very random, empty, dark, cold and meaningless. So, it is no surprise that large swathes of our otherwise blessed & rich Western populations have given up seeking meaning altogether and are content to keep their heads above the economic waters as best they can. But really, although I've critiqued some of these authorities, I can't be too hard on them: The huge empty scales of the cosmic perspective are perplexing to say the least. In comparison those medieval church builders knew very little about this perspective; in their cosmology earth was so obviously the centre stage of a sacred drama that had run only for a few thousand years. In an attempt to cut the knot, the Christian Biblical literalists have returned to those cozier cosmogonies of past ages, reducing cosmic ages to less than 10,000 years and in some cases returning to a cosmogony that even our medieval forebears, who inherited Greek science, knew to be obviously wrong; namely, that the earthly drama takes place on a flat circular stage, not unlike the circular setting of Avebury. 

The universe is so organized that it allows us to describe it in terms of those elegant mathematical forms which our God given minds have distilled from the top of that organization. But that doesn't in anyway give the universe the necessity of aseity: Those mathematical forms are computational devices which only describe. As I've said so often, my view is that the universe is a work of art selected from the platonic world of possibility; laws or no laws it is not a necessity. There is good art and bad art but all is art and art is but reified possibility. Our deep history by God's grace is a reification from just one of the many possible stories in the platonic realm. Just as Tolkien selected one possible history to tell from all the possible stories that could be told, our cosmic history is as equally unique. That history, although perplexing to some, is nevertheless a miracle of creation and grace. With these thoughts in mind as I looked at a crystal-clear coastal night sky at 3am marveling at the visible milky way for the first time in years, it is a remarkable fact that at Happisburgh cosmic history becomes palpable. 

Of Stones, Stars, Circles, Status, Secrets, Sacredness, Mystique and Masons. Part I

Ancient Neolithic stones march off into the distance 

against the medieval backdrop of Avebury. 

The wife and I recently had a few days holiday in the City of Bath. On the way to Bath we decided to do a short sight seeing tour through Wiltshire. Among England's counties Wiltshire has an unrivaled mystique generated by its reputation for a fascinating mix of UFO sightings and corn circles. On top of this there are the numerous enigmatic ancient monuments, including legendary world heritage sites like Stonehenge and Avebury; in the minds of many these monuments are somehow bound up with those UFOs and corn circles. In previous years we have stopped at West Kennet long barrow, Avebury and even flown a kite with our off-spring on the summit of Silbury hill in the days when you could still climb it. But during those visits we never saw or felt anything of a strange nature,  unless it be the hippy who was soaking up the vibes as he sat in a rather modest looking  corn circle!

This time we decided to stop again at Avebury, a monument which is well worth several visits.  We arrived around 3 pm on a bright but overcast day, weather ideal for this kind of tourist stop.

Avebury: A chocolate box village scene vies with rough hewn stones for camera pixels

Avebury village goes back to medieval times but in comparison with the largely unknown culture which constructed the henge and stone circle during a period of some 500 years well over 4000 years ago, medieval Avebury feels very much like the familiar home culture one has been brought up with and thinks one understands. In any case the strange gnarled old stones of the circle look very anomalous set against the soft grass covered slopes and the chocolate box village. These stones look like alien monoliths dropped from the skies and don't blend in at all, anymore than, say, an electricity pylon or a wind turbine blends in with its idyllic backdrop.

In their day, however, the stones wouldn't have looked at all anomalous given the very different atmosphere and mood conveyed by the magnificent neolithic spectacle that was Avebury. Archaeology has revealed that the original earthworks would have provided a breath taking back drop of brilliant white chalk dazzling the eyes in the sun. Hints of this can be seen in the white tracks on the outer bank worn away by the feet of the many visitors who circumnavigate the site.  In their time the banks and the ditch would have been higher, deeper, steeper and all in gleaming white, bearing no comparison with the smooth green slopes of today.

It is well known that (by definition) henges have an inverted fortification structure. That is, the usual defensive bank and ditch, rather than pointing outwards, point inwards. This immediately suggests that the henge bank was a place of viewing for the rank and file who looked in on the activities inside the circle. In fact this video conjectures that Stanton Drew henge may have been a kind of theatre for blood sports. This is not a theory I have heard before but it is plausible and would explain the inward looking fortification effect; nothing could get out without a struggle; it would in effect be the ultimate ha-ha. However, it is difficult to imagine blood sports taking place in the smaller henge monuments, or at a very large henge enclosure like Avebury as much of the action would be too far away to see. But the general idea of a henge enclosing some kind of spectacle with an audience standing on the perimeter well separated from whatever went on within the circle could well have been the role of all henges.

The ritualistic and religious particulars of henges have, of course, been lost in the mists of time. (Unless some middle eastern traveller has left us a text somewhere). But there are some general conjectures about henges which seem at least plausible if not probable. These monuments must encapsulate the thinking and world view of the neolithic people who built them, a world view that today would probably strike us as otherworldly and supernatural. The environs of Avebury, with its avenues linking it to other monuments and the vicinity of West Kennet long barrow and Silbury hill, has prompted archaeologists to refer to the whole complex as a "Ritual landscape".  I imagine that the farming families on pilgrimage to this complex from their small thatched huts and farms would have been gob smacked by the huge artificial landscape, all garbed in brilliant white, that confronted them. Above all this landscape would have conferred a sense of power, status and mystique upon the aristocracy and/or priesthood which managed it. That power was real at least in the sense that they had enough control of the agrarian labour surplus in order to organise the building and maintenance of this ritual complex. Their power was also real in that their knowledge was genuine: It is clear from the connection that henges and stone circles have with their environment, especially the astronomical environment, that the builders did know something about how the world worked. Moreover, in an agrarian society where everyone's life was so obviously modulated by the beat of the seasons, seasons apparently driven by the configurations in the heavenly vault, this was significant knowledge. In as much as henges and their stones circles encapsulate information about the neolithic perspective on the world they not only look inwards but also outwards towards the cosmic context.

To the plebeians coming to this monument for the first time it must have seemed that its priesthood was surely in touch with the divine. The power of the site resided in the sense of spectacle, mystery and the sheer theatre of it all. A near equivalent in our own culture are the cathedrals of the middle ages which would have taken the breath away of the peasantry and be clear evidence of the aristocracy's and priest's right to rule. Also, I'm reminded of the Victorian Gothic revival and Pugin's attempt to revive the mystique of Catholic power through the sheer intimidating mystery of catholic rituals carried out in the context of lavishly reinterpreted pseudo Gothic churches.

But perhaps an even better modern analogy to the pilgrim's wonder at Avebury may be seen in the visitor to the huge circle of the Large Hadron Collider where we have engineering on an unprecedented scale. Like the circle at Avebury the LHC impresses by its sheer size lending gravitas and status to the techno-scientific elite who have built it, run it and understand it*. As with the neolithic circles the LHC looks both inward and outward by demonstrating that the builders certainly do know a lot about the workings of the cosmos at large. And like the fortified walls of Avebury the LHC has even had its rumour of being a container for potentially dangerous arcane power; there have been conjectures that it might have had the potential to generate a black hole or two, little gateways to unknown dimensions! All this only adds to the wow! effect and glory of its scientific priesthood as they wrestle with dark forces..... well, it would do if it were not for the fact that in these days of reactionary popularism and benighted fundamentalism the ivory tower establishment is less likely to get a blank cheque of kudos! They need to take note of this!

It might be old but engineering on a huge scale will always impress!

 For the priesthood of Avebury spectacle was the name of the game: The monumental level of construction, the dazzlingly white surfaces and the hint of them being responsible for the control of dangerous forces served to inflate the status of the priesthood in the minds of the plebeians. That priesthood need have done little but keep flashing their wares and imagination would have done the rest to keep up the mystique of power and fear of the unknown. Like a huge peacock's tail it doesn't necessarily have to serve any real purpose other than to say "We know this display impresses you!". In fact sometimes human beings can be caught in the act of outright deception in order to keep the mythology and mystique about themselves going. See for example the bazaar case of Bob Lazar where obfuscation, magic and mystery are an end in themselves.

***

In part II we go to the city of Bath where we will find another world of Stone's, stars, circles, status secrecy,  sacredness, mystique and masons. Another world of facades made to impress!

But there remains to tell of a curious ending to our visit at Avebury. We had just finished doing our tour of the circle and had entered the space in front of the National Trust museum when a low flying black helicopter passed over head! Knowing all those legendary associations of black helicopters with UFOs and corn circles I was absolutely gob-smacked! Moreover, even though I had been taking lots of pictures of Avebury I didn't quite have my camera at ready at that moment, just when I wanted it! Some people would say that's down to the camera imp who turns up and does his stuff whenever the strange makes a showing! I don't, of course, believe in black helicopter conspiracies but, I thought, what a fitting piece of symbolic synchronicity to end a day at Avebury! I was left chuckling over it for some time!

Footnote:

* As we know the construction of the LHC required a large number of specialists each very skilled in their particular specialism. It is an interesting question, then, as to the specialism break down at Avebury. The construction and running of the henge at Avebury would require manual skills, engineering skills, knowledge of the heavens and presumably priestly skills. Perhaps even ancillary tasks like catering and miscellaneous services were needed once the crowds converged on the site! An interesting exercise is to look for parallels between the specialisms needed at Avebury and the specialisms needed at the LHC!

NOTE: Link on New Grange: Quotes from the article:

One of the most tantalizing aspects of Newgrange is that it appears to be astronomically oriented: every year, on the morning of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, sunlight penetrates the passage and illuminates the floor of the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens within the chamber so that the whole room becomes dramatically illuminated. This event lasts for 17 minutes, beginning around 9 am.

“To the Neolithic culture of the Boyne Valley, the winter solstice marked the start of the New Year– a sign of nature’s rebirth and promising renewed life to crops, animals and humans. It may also have served as a powerful symbol of the inevitable victory of life over death, perhaps promising new life to the spirits of the dead,” said World Heritage Ireland.

Creswell Crags

Creswell crags is a small limestone gorge not far from the Derbyshire peak district. Amidst the soft rolling landscape of a modern arable setting it cuts an anomalous and peculiar scar on the landscape (ignoring the far bigger scar created by the nearby opencast mining operation). But what makes the gorge stand out most is that it is a time capsule from an era far older than anything else I have yet dealt with on this blog.

During a recent visit to the Crags I was impressed by the depth of time this small Limestone gorge and its collection of caves represent. Quite apart from the geology of the crags (which presumably started with the formation of a layer of limestone strata in carboniferous times) the impressive human interest value of the site goes back many thousands of generations, right back, in fact, to over 40,000 years  ago when Neanderthals occupied the gorge. According to Creswell Crags’ wiki page its caves not only hosted Neanderthals but also saw phases of human occupation around 30,000 years ago and then again around 14 to 13 thousand years ago. The latter were seasonal hunter gatherers who arrived from the continent and used the caves during the cold British summer of a glacial interstadial. It was this latter group who left the recently discovered (2003) sensational cave art – sensational because it is the only known cave art in Britain.

The Paleolithic human prehistory of Creswell Crags makes the other ancient sites I have mentioned in this blog look more like memories of yesterday; even the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age structures of Britain are recent by comparison. From our perspective  a time of 13000 years ago might feel as though the benefits of the end of the ice age were just round the corner, but no; the end of the ice age was still 3000 years off and that equated to hundreds of generations of these nomads' short and hard lives; life as they knew it was going to continue for them just as it had for many generations before that. For these people each year was just another year in what to all and intents and purposes was an endless cycle. I doubt they had much sense of history. A sense of history requires, like a landscape, features to act as landmarks in order to give it character, identity, distinctiveness and a sense of time passing by. The concept of an historical progression may never have occurred to them

Given that today we are familiar with the idea of some kind of origin from which history unfolds and changes, it raises the question of just how a people trapped in a seemingly endless cycle viewed the world. What were their beliefs about the origins, nature and purpose of their world? Did they even have such beliefs? Whatever they believed, it would, of course, have been mediated from one generation to the next by an oral tradition that was propagated down the centuries and millennia. I tried to put myself in the position of one of these wandering cave dwellers: In the dark caves at night as sleep stole over them, did they have questions in their minds about their lot? Did they wonder if life had always have been like this and for how long? Did they wonder what life would be like thousands of years hence? Could they even conceive such questions? Or perhaps they were assured that their oral traditions provided all they needed to know and thought no more of the matter. When one draws back and imagines these people contemplating such questions, there seems to be as much chance of an ant crawling around on the face of a mountain grasping his full context. Or alternatively if our ant is the ant equivalent of a Young Earth Creationist he can postulate that the mountain is no bigger than a cosy ant hill and thus feel less lost in his surroundings.

Do the artworks at Creswell Crags give us any clues about the beliefs of these hunter-gatherers? Trouble is, the very meaning of the cave art is itself an enigma. All we can do is use our imagination and knowledge of similar cultures in an attempt to connect with these ancient peoples. The archeo-anthropologists are probably best qualified to speak on this issue: The cave art may have been a teaching aid for trainee hunters, helping them to identify their quarry, perhaps via some form of ritualized initiation. There appears, however, to be no cosmological questions addressed by their art: Only what was needed to survive in a harsh environment was upper most in the minds of these people.

The humble cave dwellings of the Creswell Crags nomads differs markedly from the other two places we visited on the same trip – the impressive Elizabethan Wollerton Hall in Nottingham and Castle Acre priory – both very modern constructions by the standard of this post. After the deep time signified by Creswell Crags, these places, which in comparison go back to times we know so much about, seem prosaic and commonplace. As a living space Wollerton Hall, in particular, is as far removed from the setting of Creswell Crags as could possibly be:

…and yet on turning a corner in this now museum I came across a sight that for obvious reasons reminded me sharply of Creswell Crags:

....yes, a row of trophies bagged by that now politically incorrect animal the trophy hunter. What was once common place necessity 15000 years ago, in later times became the privileged pass time of the rich in an agriculturally based economy. The trophy hunter displays his trophies because his respect for his quarry reflects some glory and dignity upon him. So perhaps this vestigial hunter instinct throws some light on the enigmatic cave art of Creswell Crags.