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New work overturns date for chalk Long Man of Wilmington – University of Reading

The origin of the great hill figures cut in the chalk downs of southern Britain has always been a mystery, figures like the Uffington White Horse, the great phallic Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset and the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex. Many different dates have been argued for the Wilmington figure, some thought Celtic Iron Age, others pointed to a similarity with the figures on Roman coins or on an Anglo-Saxon buckle from Kent. A new archaeological study at Wilmington has produced dramatic new evidence of date which suggests that the earlier theories are wrong. The new study forms part of a BBC 2 programme entitled Figures in the Chalk to be broadcast at 7.30 on Thursday 2nd October in the series Landscape Mysteries presented by Aubrey Manning. An archaeological team from the University of Reading led by Professor Martin Bell excavated a trench at the base of the steep slope which is dominated by the giant figure. They were assisted by local archaeologists from the Mid Sussex Archaeological Group. The aim was to see how the landscape context of the figure had evolved. The figure can only have been created in a short grassland landscape, but how long had that environment existed? What could be deduced about the history of that landscape from the precise plotting of hundreds of pieces of pottery, flints, brick and other finds which could be used to date the layers of sediment at the base of the slope? This research also involved the technique of Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating of the sediments themselves and fired clay pieces, and a study of environmental change in the landscape using land snails in the sediments. Ancient tree holes showed the landscape had once been densely wooded, then some clearance and activity in the Neolithic c.4-5000 years ago. By the Bronze Age clearance had created open downs with evidence for cultivation leading to some soil erosion and hints of settlement near the base of the slope but no sign at this stage of particular activity or instability on the great slope above. This was followed by a long period of stable, short, sheep-grazed grassland when there is no evidence of erosion and very few finds to show that people were active in the area. Those stable conditions extended from the Iron Age, through Roman and Medieval times. Then there is a marked change; a layer of chalk rubble pieces cover a buried soil and from then to the present day the slope, although still short grassland, was much less stable, with the periodic erosion of chalk pieces and soil containing brick fragments and other artifacts indicating that the area had again become a focus of attention. The marked change is thought to relate to the making of the giant hill figure above. A range of types of dating evidence help to establish when the change took place. The buried soil contains some pieces of Medieval pottery and species of land snail which are not found in the area before the Medieval period. It also contains fragments of brick which have been dated by Dr Ed. Rhodes of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at Oxford using the Optically Stimulated Luminescence technique. This gives a result of c. 1545 AD and this date is consistent with a less precise date obtained by Dr Rhodes on the sediment in the buried soil itself. It is interesting that fragments of tile or brick were also reported during an earlier excavation on the Long Man when it was last restored in 1969. It seems that the figure may originally have been demarcated with bricks in the sixteenth century, long before its known restoration using brick in 1874. These various lines of new dating evidence are consistent in indicating that the figure was created in the sixteenth or seventeenth century AD. The new dating suggests a context in that period of religious and social conflict around the reformation, civil war and restoration. Who made the Wilmington figure, and why, remains a mystery. Interestingly a date during the period of Cromwell has been suggested on the basis of totally independent historic evidence for the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. Other hill figures, mostly of horses, are known to be of eighteenth and nineteenth century date. However, the Uffington horse remains the great exception, the same technique of Optically Stimulated Luminescence has dated sediments in the cut feature forming that outline to the later Bronze Age. Chalk figures were therefore present in the prehistoric landscape, but the giants at Wilmington and Cerne Abbas, now take their place as monuments of the early post Medieval period. That date is more recent than many had expected but these huge, still enigmatic, figures are none-the-less testimony to a social and religious context very different to the one which we know. For further information on the Wilmington Excavation contact Professor Martin Bell, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box227, Reading, RG6 6AB Phone 0118 987 5123 ext 7724 m.g.bell@reading.ac.uk.