British Archaeology 42

Short item reporting that visitors are to be admitted to the site of the Elizabethan Rose Theatre in Southwark, London, for the first time in four centuries, when a show telling the history of the Rose and of Bankside will be staged as part of a campaign to raise funds for a full excavation of the site. In addition, an assessment of the location and degree of survival of the archaeological remains of all surviving Elizabethan theatres in London has recently been published by English Heritage. Eight of the twenty-four theatres assessed are thought to survive well. LD

An example of a Civil War defensive earthwork, long buried under thick vegetation, has been cleared and surveyed by archaeologists from the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) and the site's owners, the National Trust. The survey found that Gallants Bower, built by Royalist forces in 1643 as one of a pair of forts on either side of the Dart estuary near Dartmouth in Devon, survives almost complete with five massive bastions up to five metres high, linked by a large curtain wall. This short item outlines the history of the site, which is a rare survival in the national context. Au/LD

This short item reports on recent and current threats to archaeology services in England and Wales. Worcestershire County Council had proposed the closure of its archaeology service, but this now looks less likely following a wave of local media and public support for archaeological work in the county. Proposals elsewhere, however, include the abolition of Northamptonshire Heritage's education service, cutbacks for museum archaeology in North Somerset, and loss of the post of park archaeologist within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority. These renewed pressures follow the fragmentation of services in Bedfordshire, and deep cuts over recent years to archaeology in counties such as Buckinghamshire, Staffordshire and Hampshire. The article gives some examples of the work undertaken by the Worcestershire and Northamptonshire services. LD

Until recently it was considered that the Neolithic period in Orkney was firmly split into an earlier and a later period, characterised by quite distinct forms of material culture, including architecture and ceramic styles. The basic premise underlying this view can be traced back to VG Childe in the early 20th century. However, newly excavated evidence and alternative views of 'culture' are now beginning to change conceptions. This article discusses evidence from excavations at Pool on Sanday by the University of Bradford and of a late Neolithic village at Barnhouse, and from an ongoing landscape project by the Universities of Glasgow and Sheffield in the Cuween/Wideford area of Mainland. A far more complex situation is emerging than was previously considered; it now seems likely that a wide variety of settlement forms ranging from individual 'farmsteads' to small 'hamlets' to large 'villages' characterised the Neolithic in Orkney. In addition, the amazing quality of the data that can be obtained is making it possible to begin to explore subtleties of the social world, looking at how Neolithic Orcadians defined themselves and understood the world in which they lived. LD

This short article looks at the career and achievements of OGS Crawford, founder of the journal Antiquity and one of the 20th century pioneers of British archaeology. Crawford introduced the air-photography of earthworks shortly after the First World War. However, the discipline also owes him a great debt for his many years' work as Archaeology Officer to the Ordnance Survey, fighting for archaeology's place in the cartographic record. Anecdotes featuring Crawford's cap are included, and these illustrate his determination and passion. LD