Interesting as both history of England and history of archaeology. Was This Camelot?, an excavation report of archaeology at Cadbury “Castle” in Somerset, is old by scientific standards (1972) and shows it, particularly in some of the comments on the use of geophysical data and carbon dating, and, of course, in giving even modest credence to the historicity of Camelot.

Some background (let me stress I’m nowhere near being up to date on this stuff). Cadbury “Castle” isn’t even remotely like the mental image that springs to mind when you hear “castle”; it’s what’s known as an Iron Age Hill Fort. That requires some sub-background; in this context Iron Age refers to the period after the introduction of iron weapons but before the Roman occupation of Britain – let’s say from around 500 BCE to 50 CE. (Of course, after that is still technically “Iron Age” – but not archaeologically). An “Iron Age Hill Fort” is a mostly earth-embankment edifice, usually (but not always) on a hilltop, and probably a “fort” in some sense of the word. (There’s some argument about the “fort” part, with some suggestions that the things are, instead, elaborate cattle enclosures or “ritual” sites. It’s true that some show no sign of ever being attacked – but then again, neither does the Maginot Line, and nobody has ever suggested that was a cattle enclosure).

Then, Arthur. Up until relatively recently (say, around 1990 or so) it was allowed that Arthur had some sort of historical reality – certainly not as King Arthur of the medieval and later romances, but at least as some sort of post-Roman but pre-Saxon military leader. That’s fallen apart now, as the earliest sources seem to be derivative of each other and Arthur isn’t mentioned by some sources that would be expected to acknowledge him (Bede, for example). Even when this book was written, people were pretty dubious – but it’s always easier to get funding if you name somebody people have heard of, which is why this is titled Was This Camelot? and the group that organized the excavation was The Camelot Research Committee. (Author Leslie Alcock notes that “Camelot” is even more dubious than “King Arthur”, since the term doesn’t appear until French romances in the 13th century CE, and Cadbury “Castle” was not suggested to be “Camelot” until the reign of Henry VIII. Alcock also notes that using “Camelot” did bring in a lot of interest, and therefore money – but also various cranks, including an engineer who claimed he had a device that would pinpoint the golden door Arthur was sleeping behind).

The irony, of course, it that the site turned out to have a history going back to the Neolithic and forward to King John. This is despite the fact that the relatively flat hilltop was plowed for centuries, and thus everything above bedrock was hopelessly gone or muddled. Much of what was left were holes in the bedrock, variously decided to be storage pits, “refuse” pits (abandoned storage pits that got filled in with stray trash – nobody went to a particular amount of trouble to landfill in the Iron Age) and post holes or trenches. Some of these were exposed by directly digging away the topsoil to see what was underneath, but others turned up as the result of another unsolicited inventor (not the “golden door” guy) who offered his homemade radio frequency soil anomaly detector. This device turned out to be rather touchy to use – it indiscriminately detected both soil conductivity and magnetic field variation; could not be reliably calibrated and thus only showed anomalies relative to other features in a restricted area; and had no recording capability and thus depended on the operator reading an analog meter and recording the results. Still, when measurements were plotted they did show lots of interesting linear and circular features – some of which actually turned out to be there when excavated.

The Neolithic results turned out to be stone tools and a little pottery, which presumably been lying on the surface and the swept into pits. Some Bronze Age pottery and tools showed up, and the first hint of structures on the site – patterns of post holes that seem to show building outlines. There were some strange results in some of the “storage” pits; deposits that, in addition to the usual potsherds, included calf skeletons and (in one case) a human lower jaw. This led Alcock to reluctantly use the term “ritual” site, which he acknowledges is the last refuge of the archaeologist who can’t think of any other explanation.

The Iron Age and Roman periods gave the most dramatic results – it was an Iron Age Hill Fort, after all – including the elaborate defenses and a “massacre layer”, which was so grim some of the excavators refused to work there. The timing of the massacre was interesting – the initial assumption was that it was a last stand of Celtic defenders as the Romans swept westward from their initial landings in Kent in 43 CE. As it turned out, however, the pottery found in the massacre layer was quite a bit later – around 70 CE – which fit neither with the Roman invasion or the Boadicea rebellion. The “massacre” evidence is a bunch of dismembered bodies buried under stone blocks from the defenses. Alcock’s conclusion is a Roman attack on the site, followed by the bodies – including men, women, and children - sitting around for a while to be dragged around by animals, followed by the Romans coming back and collapsing the gate passage defenses on top of the remains. I’m skeptical; Alcock doesn’t cite any evidence (tooth marks, for example) of bodies being scavenged by animals. Nor is there any suggestion why the site was attacked – assuming the date Alcock uses is correct. That doesn’t mean I have any better idea, of course.

Finally we get to something that can be called “Arthurian”. There’s a renewal of the site, with some of the partially filled in ditches dug out, and a revetment around the periphery of the hill. And Alcock finds what he calls an “Arthurian feasting hall”, based on a set of post and/or stake holes defining a roughly rectangular building. The tentative idea is that (according to what was thought in 1972) Arthur fought and won a battle at a place called “Badon”, which might be Bath, which isn’t far from Cadbury. So maybe if there was an Arthur he might have fought at Badon, which might be Bath, then maybe came back – or came from – Cadbury and had a carouse. Why not?

The remaining archaeology of interest is an Ethelraedian “emergency mint” – which turns out to be nicely mortared stone and which is actually documented in the historic record – and a little bit of digging and repair of the defenses by King John – also documented. Then that’s it until Henry VIII’s “official” antiquary shows up and decides the place was Camelot. (There was considerable interest among English kings with less than perfect titles to the throne in connecting themselves with Arthur. Norman kings took interest in the 1191 discovery of the graves of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury Tor – which you can see from Cadbury Castle – and Henry VIII may have encouraged the connection with Camelot).

Quite well done in terms of book production – unlike a lot of archaeological work there must have been finances left over to publish the results. There are numerous maps and illustrations – B&W and color – of the site in various stages of excavation and of finds and artifacts. Given the date, however, the best can that can be said about the Arthurian part is that this is how people were thinking about it in 1972. (In fairness to Alcock, he stresses that the connection with Arthur is very tentative). ( )

This is a good record of an archaeological dig at a controversial site. I would prefer Arthur to have been more than a legend created to make the steadily penalised Welsh feel a bit better about their past and this is a must read book for people who like their speculations feel a bit more grounded. ( )

While now superceded by the official two-volume academic excavation report, Cadbury-Camelot (as this book became known) was noteworthy in that it gave a relatively immediate presentation, synopsis and discussion of the literally ground-breaking dig at this Somerset hillfort in the swinging sixties to an eager public. I say eager because, while the pages also detail the Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman and medieval period occupations amply found at Cadbury, most public attention was focused on the Dark Age or early medieval, the so-called Age of Arthur beloved of Dr John Morris and other contemporary writers.

What was Arthurian about what was found? First and foremost is the Dark Age hall found on the summit plateau of the hill, its plan revealed by postholes (the remains of original wooden posts would have decayed over the course of a millennium and a half, of course). Then there was an encircling wall composed of timber, stone and earth which it was postulated could only have been ordered to be built by an ‘Arthur-type figure’. Into that wall, at the southwest corner, was found evidence for a substantial wooden gate with a rough road surface leading into the hillfort. Finally there was the substantial haul of Mediterranean pottery fragments which indicated that an elite had the clout to import exotic goods from far afield.

Where Cadbury-Camelot scored was that it was authored by the director of the dig himself who, until he declared himself 'agnostic' regarding Arthur, had made much of him as a possible historical figure in this work and particularly in his Arthur's Britain. I'm almost certain that the late Professor would latterly have been even further along the agnostic continuum; I do know that, as one who was there at the time, I was aware that he was largely dismissive of what he saw as the antics of Arthurian romantics beefing up the significance of each archaeological revelation. Nevertheless, Cadbury-Camelot remains as a worthy exemplar of an authoritative yet popularising account of a dig that, in this case, captured the imagination of the public at large.

http://wp.me/s2oNj1-cadbury ( )