[HN Gopher] 'Stunning' Anglo-Saxon burial site found along HS2 r...
___________________________________________________________________
'Stunning' Anglo-Saxon burial site found along HS2 route
Author : samizdis
Score : 69 points
Date : 2022-06-16 10:04 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Hopefully _their_ Minister of Culture won 't order the artifacts
| be melted down into scrap, but who knows?
| Thorentis wrote:
| Why is it that we are allowed to unearth these remains, but when
| it comes to remains of e.g. native Americans, or Indigenous
| Australians or Canadians, there is a push to have them reburied?
| Seems like a double standard to me.
| markozivanovic wrote:
| I just thought of a similar thing when reading the article. My
| question was more in the direction - will someone unearth my
| remains in a few hundred years? How many years does it have to
| pass for your bones to become something that might end up in a
| museum?
|
| I guess a lot of people have the wish to be buried and left
| alone once they die. How do we deal with ethical questions
| regarding archeology? If you had an ancient burial site with
| clear writings on the entrance like "PLEASE DON'T UNEARTH US"
| :)), would that be honored?
|
| That also makes me wonder - do you fellow hackers feel
| connected to your ancestors? Are generations that lived
| hundreds and thousands of years ago just fun stuff to look at
| when you visit a museum, or they're something more to you?
|
| I'm getting off-topic now, but just like the vastness of the
| universe can make you feel small and insignificant, time may
| even be worse in that regards.
| the_biot wrote:
| Well, technically it's a bunch of Anglo-Saxons digging up their
| ancestors' remains, so that's ok.
|
| In the case of indigenous Americans/Canadians/Australians it's
| _also_ a bunch of Anglo-Saxons digging up the remains, and that
| rubs some people the wrong way :-)
| laputan_machine wrote:
| That's probably incorrect. Britain is a diverse place with
| historical cultures of Celts, Jutes, Picts, Romans, Anglo-
| Saxons, plus an influx of recent immigrants from various
| countries.
|
| Assuming that every archeologist is a descendant of Anglo-
| Saxon heritage is pretty funny.
| Veen wrote:
| Genetic studies have shown that most people in England who
| aren't descended from recent immigrant populations have a
| large component of Anglo-Saxon ancestry because there's
| been so much mixing and internal migration over the
| centuries.
|
| It's true that there have been many waves of immigration,
| but over time they mix so most of us can claim Anglo-
| Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, etc somewhere in the family tree.
| the_biot wrote:
| Hence the smiley.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| The number of ancestors is exponential in the number of
| generations. Anyone whose ancestors lived in Britain at the
| time of those cultures will be descended from all of them.
| CalRobert wrote:
| If memory serves, native American groups choose to do what they
| like with remains. NAGPRA -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Graves_Protect...
| - covers how to handle remains and cultural artefacts in the
| US.
| DC-3 wrote:
| One important reason is that the archaeologists excavating this
| site are by-and-large the direct ethnic descendants (and
| cultural inheritors) of the Anglo-Saxons, which is likely not
| the case for excavations in North America.
| mc32 wrote:
| What if the diggers are instead descendants of Celtic tribes,
| or Pictish or Jutes?
| dbingham wrote:
| Well all of the various tribes merged together for the most
| part. Most people in the UK are probably descendants of
| multiple of those old tribes.
|
| Another difference is that in the UK there isn't nearly as
| much of a history of recent oppression of the decedents of
| the anglo-saxons the way there is a _very_ recent and on
| going issue of oppression of the indigenous Americans and
| Australians. So there isn 't the issue of the excavations
| being yet another example of an empowered people overriding
| the wishes of a dis-empowered people.
|
| To put it another way, a large majority of the indigenous
| people of the Americas have expressed a wish that their
| ancestors not be excavated. And that wish has been ignored
| time and time again until recently (though it frequently
| still is ignored).
|
| Here, no clear majority of the descendants have expressed
| such a wish, there's no history of it being overridden or
| ignored, and the excavators (for the most part) are
| descendants.
| mc32 wrote:
| True not recent. But the Angles and the Saxons had their
| lands taken away, their language subverted and were
| repressed by the Norsemen... So not "recent" but also not
| "ancient".
|
| Incidentally a group known as the "diggers" did seek some
| redress from their successors.
|
| In any event, bones are bones. I feel that after certain
| cut-off point, they become historical and are fair game
| for archeology. It's another story if it's an active or
| tended to graveyard --but if it's not known and is
| forgotten, then I think it's a fair archeological site.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >So not "recent" but also not "ancient.
|
| Is the 11th century too recent to qualify as "ancient"?
| We're going back ~950 years here...
| mc32 wrote:
| Medieval, I would say. "Ancient" to me ends more or less
| with the fall of Rome (Not Constantinople).
| Tagbert wrote:
| And 600 years before the Norman invasion it was the
| Angles, Jutes, and Saxons invading and displacing the
| Britains.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yep, and Cornish and Manx... So, you know, it's just
| human activity. Which is why I think bones are bones and
| they should be treated the same.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Orders of magnitude more Native Americans assimilated into
| the colonial population than chose to live on reservations.
| globalise83 wrote:
| These people are the ancestors of modern English people and in
| our culture we don't have particularly strong feelings about
| unearthing the remains of people who died beyond living memory.
| Other cultures do for a variety of religious or spiritual
| reasons.
| [deleted]
| mc32 wrote:
| One bone is no more sacred than another. So, from that PoV, I
| think archeology should come up with some guidelines as to how
| to treat human archeological sites evenly rather than having a
| mish-mash of different rules for different bones.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| They have. Everyone is expected to follow something similar
| to the SAA guidelines:
|
| * Treat human remains with respect
|
| * Consult with descendent communities
|
| * Follow the law
|
| In the UK, the government usually combines #2 and #3 in one
| entity.
| mc32 wrote:
| So in the UK, if they find a "Viking" burial site they have
| to consult with whom? Sweden or Denmark? And Roman, Rome
| does not exist, but I guess Italy is arguably the closest
| political entity, do they consult with Italy?
|
| It seems they should just have some standard way to deal
| with this.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| During the excavations to build 30 St Mary Axe- better
| known as "the Gherkin"- in London, the grave of a young
| girl from Roman Londinium was found.
|
| She was reburied with something approximating Roman
| funeral rites, and the new grave is marked with an
| inscription including the traditional Roman phrase "Dis
| Manibus" (To the Spirits of the Underworld) [0].
|
| [0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-the-
| unknown-lond...
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The "descendent community" is the UK government, which
| claims all the lands within its borders and a few sites
| outside. That bit can also be interpreted as applying to
| the local landowners as well.
|
| But if Sweden or Italy cared, yes it might be a good idea
| to give them a call and let the interested parties sort
| it out between themselves.
| mc32 wrote:
| Fair enough, though I don't think it would make much
| sense to involve indirect descendants of expired
| political entities.
| dagw wrote:
| _Seems like a double standard to me._
|
| The representatives of 'native' Anglo-Saxons currently living
| in the UK don't seem to be too bothered and aren't pushing for
| it in the same way as the representatives of other native
| peoples.
| lkramer wrote:
| They quite often rebury remains from more recent burials in the
| UK (100-200 years ago), for instance if the land of an old
| cemetery is repurposed (there have actually been several
| examples of this on HS2 as well). I don't quite know what the
| criteria is, but I think if there is little scientific value in
| the find, they will tend to rebury it. What will happen is they
| exhume the graves, categorise everything, and then rebury the
| remains.
| tobylane wrote:
| The namer of Australia was moved to build HS2.
| https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/hs2-triggers-the-
| final-...
|
| Yes, sometimes they'll study a find then rebury it under
| protective layers of sand/gravel or a concrete cap. It can be
| due to the research being finished and the find is too
| delicate to lift.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| The final paragraph:
|
| _" Objects that have been unearthed will be preserved and many
| will eventually be displayed in museums. But larger finds will be
| bulldozed to make way for the new rail line."_
|
| So much destruction and expense for what increasingly seems like
| a vanity project.
| philjohn wrote:
| It's not a vanity project though.
|
| It's to take load of the existing train lines to enable better
| (more frequent, faster) local services with longer distance
| services bypassing these lines.
| smcl wrote:
| Yes, one hundred thousand times this! The national government
| desperately want to cut bits of it to save money, so there's
| a concerted effort to paint it as an unnecessary boondoggle,
| and a lot of people are buying that. And they always say "why
| don't we focus on increasing capacity on the existing lines?"
| - which is insane because HS2 _is doing precisely that_.
|
| Or it would if they didn't keep cutting bits from it
| _(cough)golborne spur(cough)_
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| (I wrote the grandparent "vanity project" comment)
|
| I do understand that hs2 is about adding capacity, not
| speed. And I agree that we need more non-car and non-
| aviation capacity.
|
| What i disagree with is provisioning that capacity in the
| form of a _single_ railway line that goes nowhere near
| almost all of the country.
|
| I described it as a vanity project because politicians
| (particularly the current pm) like being associated with
| big, impressive, expensive infrastructure developments. An
| alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on
| improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail
| lines and rolling stock could deliver similar objectives
| while benefitting more of the country. And by being more
| distributed, it would be more fault tolerant. But it
| probably wouldn't create photo ops for politicians in hiviz
| jackets, or translate into votes.
|
| And i _hate_ the landscape and habitat destruction inherent
| in building hs2. Too much damage has been done already.
|
| My taxes help pay for this thing. I dont think my
| scepticism and disgust is uninformed.
| FreezingKeeper wrote:
| On the Golborne Link, I think they had a fair bit of help
| from the NIMBYs too
| smcl wrote:
| Very helpful too that one of the NIMBYs is a local MP who
| happened to be overseeing the no-confidence vote in
| Boris.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| _So much destruction and expense for what increasingly seems
| like a vanity project._
|
| It's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly
| after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various
| views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not,
| but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not
| really seriously considered it.
|
| I'd encourage you to read this article (from a few years ago
| now, but still applicable) which I think is a good summary as
| to the importance of the project generally. Even if you
| disagree, it will hopefully lead to more informed discussion:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistic...
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > it's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly
| after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various
| views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not,
| but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not
| really seriously considered it.
|
| I wouldn't say it was blithe dismissal. See my later comment
| up-thread
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770221
| kmlx wrote:
| > So much destruction
|
| i don't want to be too philosophical about this, but:
|
| i love history and it's lessons, but at the same time i prefer
| the future.
|
| we tend to cling to the past, historical lessons, historical
| figures, but this usually hides our own insecurity about the
| future. i think there is a lot less to be learned from our past
| that can improve our future than many people believe. but we
| continue digging up our past, hoping to learn more about
| ancestors, when in fact we simply don't know the future, and
| this scares us.
|
| > what increasingly seems like a vanity project
|
| "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars", etc
| etc
| Singletoned wrote:
| > "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars",
| etc etc
|
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-will-never-be-
| carbon-...
|
| It doesn't look as if HS2 will help towards climate change,
| even in the long run...
| mojzu wrote:
| Not sure if the linked articles covers it due to the
| paywall, but according this article [1], the estimate that
| carbon emissions to build it would exceed emissions is
| possibly overly pessimistic. Such as predicting that air
| and car travel will get cheaper over time and rail travel
| more expensive
|
| Although if the estimate is accurate I would still hazard a
| guess that it could be a net positive if it successfully
| increased capacity/speed to the point where people
| considered it a viable alternative to air/car journies and
| it was combined with policies to reduce the costs of rail
| travel/discourage air and car travel where possible
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-
| hs2-rea...
| dkarl wrote:
| I wonder if studies are systematically underestimating
| modal shift because it's impossible to quantify the
| cultural shift from a generation that saw car travel as a
| sign of upward mobility to a generation that sees
| unnecessary car travel as tasteless and harmful.
| Latty wrote:
| As a reminder, the Japanese ministers who set up the bullet
| trains resigned in shame when the project overran, it was
| described in a similar way and generally derided, and is, of
| course, now a symbol of the nation and vital to the economy and
| general life for a lot of people there.
|
| Infrastructure is expensive, hard, and takes a long time. It
| always will be, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
| I'll take what little infrastructure that isn't car-centric we
| can get.
| billyruffian wrote:
| I live in a smallholding. When the Milford Haven gas transit
| pipeline was being layed just by the corner of my field they
| found a henge. Yep, a stone circle, or the remains of it
| burried right in my back garden, along with countless Beaker
| People artefacts. The archeologists came, measured and sampled,
| and the pipeline now runs right through the middle of it. (It
| did make a curve around a badger sett though).
|
| This is a little but old island. Spit and you'll hit history
| which is pretty awesome but you've got to build for the folk
| who are living here now.
| gnu8 wrote:
| That really is awesome. How big is a smallholding?
|
| I have several acres of trees in the states and there is
| almost nothing interesting out there. Some trash from hikers
| is the most I ever see.
| superb-owl wrote:
| Serious question: at what point does grave robbing become
| archaeology?
|
| I'll be irked if someone 1000 years from now unearths my
| carefully lain grave, inspects its contents, and picks apart my
| bones. The typical response is "you'll be dead, what do you care"
| but I think that's trivializing a lot of deeply held feelings.
| danparsonson wrote:
| For myself, as someone of no special significance, I hope to
| find some little out of the way burial site, and arrange to be
| buried with as much finery as I can afford at my allotted time,
| in the fond hope that some archaeologist will unearth the site
| 1000 years hence and assume that I was an important figure and
| those buried around me were my subjects :-)
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Get buried in a pine wood box, you'll be gone in < 100 years.
| Plant a tree ontop and create something productive in your
| later years.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That seems to be the way to go. I used to want to be cremated
| but now that seems ridiculous given that I'd be ending my
| existence with yet another display of extravagant and
| pointless waste, so a pine box where I can return to the
| earth with the least amount of fuss is really appealing.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| There is a growing[1] movement of being buried covered in
| mushrooms, including the box you are in, to speed up the
| decomposition, and to leave as little impact on the land as
| possible.
|
| I previously wanted to be cremated, but now being composted
| by fungi seems to be the right way to go.
|
| --
|
| [1] no pun intended.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You're welcome to whatever opinion you have, but as an
| archaeologist cremation or not doesn't really change the
| amount of fuss given to the dead. I've excavated huge
| burial mounds with both. The cremated remains are usually a
| lot easier to deal with though.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I just meant from an environmental point of view, not a
| "digging me back up" angle.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| This is my primary concern, I would rather sequester
| carbon as a tree than contribute it in particulate via
| cremation. Disclaimer, if my next tree self burns down
| that's on the tree and not me :)
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Not to mention that you're depriving nature of any
| nutrients you are holding. You're jealously burning your
| wealth to ensure that no one else can have it.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The line is pretty blurry at times. Some universities have been
| terrible about meeting NAGPRA requirements to return human
| remains, for one thing. In the early 20th century, a Catalina
| Island newspaper described grave robbing as a fun day out for
| the family. On the other hand, plenty of rich dudes in the
| 1800's tried to give it more credibility even if they were
| doing much the same.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| They're digging them up anyway for the train line, so the
| archaeology doesn't really cause any additional problem.
| dagw wrote:
| _Serious question: at what point does grave robbing become
| archaeology?_
|
| Serious answer: When you are doing it for research, have been
| given permission from the relevant local authorities and turn
| over everything you find to the relevant authorities rather
| than keeping it for yourself.
| zarzavat wrote:
| I suspect you're in the minority. Most people would be thrilled
| if in 1000 years people were still talking them, even if it's
| only because of the bling they were buried with.
| trhway wrote:
| Make sure that a note to that effect is placed in your grave.
| Ekaros wrote:
| How well did that work for ancient Egyptians? The future
| generations are bound to desecrate any grave eventually. They
| always have and always will.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| "Piss off! I'm only resting."
| doctor_eval wrote:
| "I'm pining for the fjords!"
| gerdesj wrote:
| I aint'd dead.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Well, technically that is what the various ancient greats
| tried to achieve: that graverobbers would be so terrified
| they'd skip that grave and the ones that persisted ended up
| being given the Indiana Jones treatment. Not that it
| mattered, eventually you run out of traps and there are
| always more grave robbers. So in the long run it all gets
| found and that's before nature has its way with the
| environment where your gravesite is located.
|
| Personally, I'll go for cremation, the idea to continue to
| occupy a plot of land after I'm dead sounds pretty selfish.
| rlpb wrote:
| I don't think you have a right to claim some piece of land for
| eternity, at the expense of future people who want to use that
| space to live in (or for their infrastructure).
|
| So if your grave can't just remain there, what's the
| alternative? Do you just want it destroyed without inspection?
| treis wrote:
| Moved and interred in a more convenient location?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| People forget where burial grounds are all the time and the
| first reminder is when a backhoe goes through a grave. Best
| case, they call an archaeologist to figure out if there are
| any more and to relocate what's left.
| rlpb wrote:
| The body would still be claiming some piece of land for
| eternity; just somewhere else. This would still break my
| "no claim on land for eternity" requirement.
| treis wrote:
| Perhaps this is semantics, but you're not placing a claim
| on a piece of land for eternity. You're placing a claim
| on any piece of land. And it's not for eternity. It's for
| so long as the land is not otherwise used or until
| geologic forces make it irrelevant.
| jstanley wrote:
| Do you think everyone who ever died should have a claim over
| the land they're buried in _for the rest of all time_? That
| seems obviously not workable.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Don't get me started on conservation of old buildings.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Dr Rachel Wood, the lead archaeologist for Fusion JV, the
| company that carried out the field work
|
| Is common in the UK for archeological work to be done by
| companies? In my country it is done only by state institutions.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The UK (and to a lesser extent the US) have robust private
| archaeology industries. It's a pretty well accepted career
| path, but not the only one. Government and academic positions
| still exist (and are usually more sought-after).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Because the UK is small and congested and old, it has a lot of
| historical sites juxtaposed with modern development. Developers
| are required (by law or code or something not sure) to do
| archeological studies when developing, so they hire companies
| to do it for them.
|
| How does archaeology work where you live? Do you have to pay
| the government to come and do it for you?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >How does archaeology work where you live? Do you have to pay
| the government to come and do it for you
|
| I live in Romania. You do not have to pay.
|
| The reason companies are not allowed to do archeological work
| is because all artifacts belongs to the state by law, and
| because there is no legal framework to allow companies to do
| it.
|
| If you find something by accident in your yard or elsewhere,
| you have to give it.l and also report the location. After
| that some archeologists will come to verify if the place is
| an archeological site or not. If it is, depending on its
| importance, they can dig it up quick and discharge the site,
| or can stay for years and either expropriate you for a nice
| amount or offer you compensation for the time you couldn't
| use your property.
|
| Also, it's illegal to treasure hunt or use metal detectors
| unless you are legally registered. If you find anything of
| value, you have to give it but you get a reward of 10% of the
| evaluation.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| So sounds like the same as in the UK, but instead of the
| tax payer subsidising the development, the developer is
| expected to pay for the archaeological work since they're
| benefiting from the commercial development.
|
| I don't know if you've got the funny idea that these
| commercial archaeology companies dig up the artefacts...
| and then own them? That's not the case. It's the same as
| for you in Romania, just the archeologists are a
| professional service, not civil servants.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Though I think the UK has slightly different rules on who
| owns antiquities (and of course they differ between the
| constituent countries of the UK).
|
| In England, only certain items (essentially those which
| have a significant precious metal content, plus
| prehistoric metal items) are classified as Treasure and
| belong to the Crown. Other antiquities are by default the
| property of the landowner to dispose of as they see fit,
| though metal detectorists and others searching for
| antiquities usually have an agreement with the landowner
| about sharing the finds or the proceeds of sale.
|
| For instance, the Crosby Garrett Helmet [0] was sold at
| auction to a private buyer based in the UK for over PS2M,
| which was split between the finder and the landowner.
|
| Scotland has a broader definition of treasure that would
| almost certainly have included the helmet.
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_Garrett_Helmet
| Flatcircle wrote:
| How many years have to pass between respecting the burial sites
| of the dead and a scientific dig that unburies everything in the
| name of research?
|
| Not judging just asking a philosophical question.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Well, HS2 is going to destroy the burial site anyway so it
| makes sense to investigate before that happens.
| pestatije wrote:
| Some people are never buried in the name of research.
| heurisko wrote:
| If you're interested in this, then you might be interested in
| "The Dig", a recent dramatisation of the discovery of the Anglo-
| Saxon burial treasures at Sutton Hoo.
|
| In addition to the discovery of the treasures themselves, the
| real-life story of the finders, Edith Pretty and Basil Brown, is
| also of interest.
| WilTimSon wrote:
| Wasn't it somewhat twisted around in the movie? I'm almost
| certain I read something about it being an inaccurate depiction
| of the events. Though I admit I enjoyed the film, nice trifle
| to put on for an evening in.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Seems fairly accurate besides the romantic storylines
| Hollywood adds:
| https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/the-dig/
| Dave3of5 wrote:
| Was is promptly demolished to make way for the Tory partys'
| vanity project ?
| antihero wrote:
| It isn't a tory vanity project, it's a huge boost for our rail
| infrastructure which is unfortunately getting ever more
| weakened.
|
| In fact, if it wasn't for HS2 we likely wouldn't have found it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-16 23:02 UTC)