(This article was published in Archaeology Ireland Summer 2007.)

Whether actively used in the physical manifestation of ritual or metaphorically in cosmological explanations, food – the processes and tools that create it, the vessels that contain it, the social situations in which it is shared  - can have a profound symbolic potency.  Drawing upon the interpretive work of Joanna Brück it is proposed that the discovery of food production tools at Stamullin, particularly from contexts that also yield human remains, reveals a latent symbolism in what appear to be ordinary, every-day objects.

Late Bronze Age Enclosure A Late Bronze Age bivallate enclosure was excavated by the author for Arch-Tech Ltd at Stamullin, Co. Meath from November 2005 to July 2006.  The site was situated 0.9km northeast of Stamullin village, just west of the Julianstown interchange off the M1 motorway. Analysis of results is still ongoing, but of particular interest are the artefacts recovered from the outer enclosing ditch.

The ridge-top enclosure consisted of two ditches, both of which were roughly oval in plan with undug causeways forming eastern entrances. The inner ditch, which enclosed an area 28m x 22m, was cut by and encompassed by the more substantial outer ditch to create a large outer enclosure that measured 57m x 47m. Initial dating of charcoal samples has dated the inner ditch to Cal BC1010-830, and the outer to Cal BC920-800.

Inner Ditch

The eastern part of the inner ditch was blunted V-shape in profile (1.70-1.95m wide; 0.63-1.30m deep). To the west the ditch became U-shaped in profile and less substantial (0.90-1.10m wide; 0.40-0.75m deep). Emphasis was placed on the ditch around the entrance area only, suggesting that its function was one of demarcation and a display of defense, rather than being intrinsically defensive. Within the inner enclosure a mettled trackway led from the entrance towards a possible circular structure.

Outer Ditch

The digging of the outer ditch completely removed the northern part of the earlier inner ditch but retained its shape, suggesting that it was still visible at the time. The outer ditch was substantial, particularly to the west (4.60m wide; 1.79m deep), and for most of its circuit its profile was blunted V-shape. In the western part a sequence of backfilling and recutting substantially reduced the monumentality of the ditch, and made it proportionally more comparable with the eastern part. Whatever factors had necessitated a substantial western portion had apparently dissipated by this stage.

Depositional Access Points

At least two areas within the outer ditch contained unusual concentrations of artefacts and bone. They have been interpreted as depositional access points - points within the ditch deemed appropriate for concentrated single-event deposition or repeated depositional episodes, rather than just an accumulation of occupation debris.

A cobbled surface was found nine metres north of the entrance along the outer edge of the ditch. It marked a point where the outer ditch widened and its sides became gently sloped and slightly stepped. This appeared to facilitate access to the ditch; a theory strengthened by the discovery of a human skullcap and two abutting cattle skulls in this area. The carefully deposited cattle skulls were recovered from a lower fill that accumulated while the cobbled surface was still visible. A metre south of this, a partial human skullcap was recovered from a context that sealed the surface, which suggests that the access point was no longer in active use, the skullcap representing a closing deposit. Another partial human skullcap was found in the western part of the ditch, in a primary fill that was sealed by the backfill layer. Perhaps this too marked a closing deposit.

Further north, a second depositional access point was identified, with a polishing stone, a saddle quern and three unusual clay objects found in close proximity. The clay objects were made of low-fired/sun-baked clay and ranged in height from 4.5 –5.5cm, with circular bases 5.5cm in diameter.  The upper parts of the objects terminated in two protrusions/horns, with a gap of 4-5cm between them. Two of the objects had blackened bases and reddened surfaces suggesting that they had been subjected to heat following their manufacture. One of the fire-affected pieces was recovered from the base fill, while the other two were found in the context above. The objects have been interpreted as pieces of briquetage and are suggestive of salt production. The discovery of utilized fire-affected pieces alongside a piece that was never used was fortuitous for identification, but originally the deposition of the used alongside the unused could have been deliberate and significant.

Salt Production

The term briquetage has been used since the 18th century to describe a range of clay objects used in prehistoric salt production. This distinctive suite of artefacts consisted of evaporating vessels, moulds and pedestals. Briquetage sites are known in central Europe, along the Atlantic coast of Europe, and in England, particularly along the Essex coastline where they are referred to as the Red Hills.

The extraction of salt from material in which it is already concentrated 
(e.g. seaweed, beach sand, salt-saturated clay) is more economical than using seawater, which only has a salt concentration of 2.6% (Harding 2000, 249). At the Red Hill sites coastal seawater pools were exploited. During hot weather the water evaporated and the salt-saturated crust was removed and roasted, the heating of the clay enabling a more successful extraction. Brine was added to dilute the roasted clay; the resultant concentrated solution was poured off and heated in an evaporation pan, which rested on pedestals over a fire lit on a clay hearth. When the salt had settled to the bottom of the pan it was drained and packed into moulds and dried over a low heat. The site at Stamullin is located 3km from the current coastline, and salt production could have taken place within the catchment area of the site.

The objects from Stamullin appear to be pedestals. Oxidisation on the base of two of them suggests that their bases were sealed by another surface. They could have been placed on their base and used in pairs with a round-bottomed vessel resting on their protrusions, as at some of the prehistoric salterns in the Fenlands in England (Lane & Morris 2001). Paired pedestals could also have been used with ceramic bars to from a grate-like surface, upon which a flat-bottomed vessel rested (de Brisay 1975, 6). Alternatively the pedestals could have been inverted with a vessel resting on the flat surface. Pedestals from La Panne in Belgium were used in an inverted position to compensate for sandy or gravelly work surfaces (Riehm 1961, 189-90).

Briquetage emerges during the Bronze Age, increasing in frequency from the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age. At Tetney, Lincolnshire, a short clay pedestal with two protrusions was found in a feature that dated to 845-745BC (Palmer-Brown 1993, 145). The dates from the outer ditch at Stamullin place the briquetage pedestals within this chronology and perhaps at the earlier end of the sequence.

Decommissioning of Saddle Querns

Anne Connelly’s catalogue of Irish saddle querns identified four sub-categories based on shape – oval, pear-shaped, trapezoidal and sub-rectangular. Three of these sub-categories are represented in Stamullin, with all of the examples recovered from the outer ditch. Two sub-rectangular querns were deposited grinding surface down.  One was recovered from the northern depositional access point, from a lower primary fill of the ditch.  The second was found in the southwest part of the ditch, from the base fill of the recut phase. Further west along the base of this recut, a trapezoidal quernstone with cup-like depressions in its base was positioned grinding surface down. In the northeast part of the ditch a small pear-shaped quern was found from an upper fill. Three of the querns at Stamullin were deposited grinding surface down, a trend that has been noted at other sites (e.g. Rinnaraw, Donegal). This focus on the grinding surface appears to reflect a proscribed way of depositing or perhaps “decommissioning” saddle querns. Interpretation The recovery of partial human remains and food-processing tools from the outer ditch at Stamullin may be paralleled in Britain.  Joanna Brück has interpreted similar artefact concentrations from Middle and Late Bronze Age settlement sites in Britain as revealing how the lifecycles of people, settlements and certain objects could have been seen as interlinked. Human remains could have been a powerful metaphor for transition, death being as she says the “ultimate transition” (Brück 1995, 261). The presence of human remains in contexts that also produce occupation debris/rubbish, suggests that rubbish itself was viewed as an intrinsicallypowerful symbol of transition, decay and renewal (ibid. 153). Brück argues that certain artefacts, because of their associative transformative processes, could have been used in the negotiation and commemoration of transformative social and biological processes.

As such, the quernstone, the grinding surface of which was the arena for the physical transformation of grain into flour, could have taken on a symbolic significance. Boundaries and enclosure ditches were often chosen as backdrop to the depositionof these objects to mark important moments in the life of an individual or of the settlement as a whole (Brück 2001, 153).

Irish Applications

At Stamullin the deposition of human skullcaps within the outer ditch might have marked a period of abandonment and/or remodelling, with one skull sealed by a backfill layer, the other deposited after a cobbled surface had fallen into disuse.  The location of a skullcap north of the entrance might also have marked a spatial transition point. The occurrence of human remains alongside tools and settlement debris informs the deposition of the skullcaps with another layer of significance, perhaps reflecting the artefactualisation of human remains and their use as a tool in the social and cosmological life of the settlement.

None of the saddle querns were fragmented, but were whole and in good condition. Three of them were deposited grinding surface down, which suggests that the grinding surface, the transformative arena of the object, was treated in a special way. Perhaps the decommissioning of these symbolically powerful tools required that the grinding surface be buried.

The deposition of the used briquetage pedestals alongside the unused could also have been significant. In representing the utilization of the individual artefacts an allusion was perhaps given to the overall transformative process with which they were associated – the transformation of water into salt. Their role in the production of salt, a commodity of great importance in prehistoric times, could have imbued them with both an economic and possibly symbolic significance. Their close proximity to one of the saddle querns, another transformative tool associated with food production, is pertinent.

The material recovered from the outer ditch at Stamullin could easily be interpreted as representing settlement debris with unusual isolated stray finds of partial human remains. However, if the approach Brück applied to the British material is employed, a connection between these artefacts emerges. Partial human remains and everyday food processing tools were both being deposited in a spatially significant place, perhaps to mark and explain important moments within the life of the settlement. As symbols of transition and transformation, an underlying symbolic commonality may have linked these apparently disparate artefacts, which made it appropriate that they be deposited in a similar way. While beyond the scope of this article, the application of Brück’s approach to the wider Irish archaeological record could be informative.

The material from Stamullin shows that it is perhaps an artificial construct to separate what the modern observer distinguishes to be the domestic and ritual, for as Brück puts it “daily practices are informed not only by practical considerations but also by the same cosmological and symbolic principles that structure ritual” (Brück 1995, 254). The ritual in everyday things should not be overlooked - food for thought.

This article is based on a paper presented by the author at the Bronze Age Forum 2006.  The excavation and post-excavation work was fully funded by the developers - Sammon Contractors Ltd. and Sean Reilly. Thanks are due to the excavation team for all their hard work, and to Mick O’Donoghue for the finds illustrations.

References

Brück, J., 1995, “A place for the dead: the role of human remains in Late Bronze Age Britain”. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 61, 245-77.
Brück, J., 2001, “Body metaphors and technologies of transformation in the English Middle and Late Bronze Age”. J. Brück (ed) Bronze Age Landscapes. Tradition and Transformation, 149-160. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Connolly, A,    1994.    “Saddle Querns in Ireland”. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 57, 26-35.
Harding, A.F., 2000, European Societies in the Bronze Age. Cambridge University.
Lane, T. & Morris, E.L. (eds), 2001, A Millennium of Salt-making – Prehistoric and Romano British Salt Production in the Fenlands. Lincolnshire Archaeology and Heritage Reports Series No.4.
Palmer-Brown, C.,1993,“Bronze Age salt production at Tetney”. Current Archaeology no.136 Vo.XII no.4, 145-7.
Riehm, K., 1961, “Prehistoric Salt-Boiling”. Antiquity XXXV,181-220.