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Clodgy Moor boat slate: A Later Neolithic sailing ship?

Graham Hill.

Introduction.
On 12th April 2008 I was intensely searching the surface of a small area of a ploughed field; hoping to find more Later Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery1 and fine flint tools of that era.2 The sun glanced off a small fragment to show a zigzag decoration bounded between 2 lines. Another find, but not pottery this time; a tiny slate plaque. Left. First drawing. The bottom edge is a natural straight plane and the other three edges have been broken, removing some of the incised decoration, but not recently as there is a feint patina on the damaged areas. Recent damage from ploughing is distinguished by whitish scuffs against a pale greenish grey background.

Cleaning and conservation.

I recorded the find spot as SW 45XXX26XXX1on my Lorance GO GPS and put the slate into an individual sealable finds bag to avoid the jostle of flints; as was my field procedure2 with fragile Neolithic pottery. At home, after gently cleaning off the excess dirt with water I assessed that it would be a mistake to try to clean into the incisions for the following reasons: They may be carrying remains of a deposit that could be cross referenced with that from a pit containing diagnostic pottery etc. from a future site excavation. The surface of the incision might retain graving details that would imply the type of tool used and being in soft slate, this could be lost by over-cleaning. An unusual and potentially important object which happens to be of apparently quite low technological requirements to make should be cleaned for recording by someone other than the finder so as to rule out the suspicion of faking the evidence if the object were presented to the archaeological community in a highly cleaned condition. Assessment of the decorated slate might lead to the decision to use expensive and specialised state-of the art techniques to analyse the tiny remains in the incisions. At least some of the incisions should be left untouched in case future techniques enable dating or environmental evidence to be gained from the incised surface and deposit even if nothing is available at this time.

As soon as I had completed my finders examination of the slate I donated it to the Royal Cornwall Museum where it is awaiting study in a sealable bag.

2 images of the slate at actual size, with the second view similar to how it appeared in the sunlight when I found it.

Looking at the decoration.

The bias of the finder is explicit from the introduction. At first I thought I was looking at a doodle by a Later Neolithic person; perhaps thinking of decorating a Grooved Ware pot or something more perishable made out of antler or wood. The boldness of the sub-parallel lines1 which converge; perhaps to meeting points beyond the broken edges suggest something more intentional. Catching the light from different angles brings out the partially deposit filled orangey fine lines, worked as 2 sets of zigzags to fill the spaces between the parallels. Below this design is a parallel but straighter deeply cut, yet broken line and above a line at right angles which breaks into and firmly attaches to the decoration. Floating free by broken edges in the top left corner a diagonal line is decorated by a swagged line. Suddenly the piece resolves itself into a sailing boat. Closer inspection strains the eyes and requires higher light levels, side lighting and rotation of the piece to make a composite of the fine lines revealed at only some angles: a visual puzzle that may only be solved after cleaning.

Basic elements of the design.

The 3 lines; parallel but convergent at the ends are the hull lines1 of a boat. The straight broken line below is the sea or surf. Later I shall explain that this is the edge of the surf meeting the boat where it is beached. The vertical line meeting the hull from above is the mast. The diagonal floating near it is the yardarm and the swagged line attached is where the material of a sail is fastened to it.

Looking closer.
Part of the lower hull line is missing but the eye follows the gap to where it reappears near to the right end which I shall call the bow rather than the stern but without conviction. The reason for the gap is because in between the boat and us an activity is occurring which requires a great deal of mostly short groups of lines filling the space that would have carried the zigzag decoration and continuing up to cross the upper hull lines and float in the space above the deck. 3

The interpretation of this area is crucial and although I have made some progress there is much patient work to be done by others, actually handling the slate. In 2010 Anna Tyacke; Finds Liaison Officer for Cornwall allowed me to gain access to the boat slate and to take further pictures under strong artificial light available at the museum, using my 4 Mega pixel compact camera1 at a standard distance through the magnifying lens of a thread counting device. Below is one of these images. This technique works well for flat objects and the image is calibrated on the edges in fractions of an inch and in millimetres. Unflipping the calibrated frame allows wider unframed images at the same scale (suitable for montage) and these will be used later in this document.

Zoom in!
You can see that there is a wealth of detail.1 Despite much study of all the images at this resolution and quality, the finest details remain tantalising and enigmatic ; as I described the slate to Carl Thorpe, who has the task of the definitive assessment.

Problems of reading the lines.

The side lighted views of the slate show that there is natural rippling in the surface and this affected the original cutting to some degree as well as the ease of reading the decoration afterwards. The lines seem to have been applied in at least three main degrees of depth. Wide lines overcut to make surf, hull lines, mast, yardarm and perhaps some of the lines near the bow. Boldly cut lines, mostly cut only once and making most of the zigzag decoration on the hull, waves and some of the line groups between, near the bow. 4

Very fine and lightly scored lines; some amongst the decorative zigzags, many of the details beneath the deck to the shore and the constructions on and above the deck. Some very fine details which appear to change at different angles of light and may be more fine lines or a natural property of the uneven, wavy surface of the slate. They occur in all decorated areas and as dashes above the deck towards the mast as well. Below is a montage1. Other images will be presented to counter the inadequacies of this one and a resource image folder available as a reference for this document.

A further level of difficulty in interpreting the lines is to decipher what line the scriber was intending to convey as there are limitations to their ability to render some of the very small details using the tools available to them on the less than even surface into which they incised. I shall draw your attention to the most obvious group of fine lines floating above the hull. It comprises a straight vertical from which groups of short lines are running diagonally and horizontally left from the vertical line. For my argument the interpretation of this motif is critical. An assessment needs to be made as to how accurately it has been rendered, given that it measures only 3mm by 1mm And how it and other elements are influenced by accidental(perhaps doubling) tooling marks?

What tool was used to inscribe this plaque?

I returned to looking at these images in March 2013 after completing a reproduction of the Truro EDC incised Later Neolithic slate disc. Archaeologists at its place of safe-keeping in Truro agreed that the work could not have been done with a metal tool at that time and so I rendered the task using flint; similar to what had been found in its burial pit. What I reproduced were occasional changes of quality to the fine lines where the tool tip had shattered, with multiple parallel scratches and more commonly a single extra parallel line where the tool had broken slightly or been used slightly side on1. From the area of Paul village, Sheffield and Clodgy Moor there have been a number of incised slate plaques found. Some are broadly datable; such as the Ogham Slate, 5

found by David Edwards near Paul2. The reproduction I attempted used a fairly blunt steel knife and the smooth oval section cuts were similar and expected for a metal tool. Nearby I found a slate of likely an Early Medieval Artists experimental work using a sharp iron tool. It is shown below.

Close up views of the lines show how the cut is quite deep and with a sharp groove in places. Where the tool has sometimes come in from the side it has shaved or broken away the edge on one side of the cut. On the next page is a cross-hatched slate. It is one of half a dozen I have found. Some are cutting boards and the cuts look similar, though finer than those above with pseudo patterns of parallel, bunched and cross-hatched character. Some however do not look to have been metal knife incised with some doubled lines and striated interior surfaces of the incisions visible; implying flint tooling. The complication is that as well as cutting board marks, chequerboard Neolithic designs of single lined and overcut designs are known. Judge for yourself! 6

Unfortunately this side is slightly out of focus, but doubled lines can be seen. The drawing on the next page will exclude the accidental scratches which are also

multiplied as they are often from being scratched by rock. The accidental abrasions are labelled A to G.

Image is a magnified view of part of the cross-hatched slate. Zoom in to see doubled lines and lines with striated internal surfaces(best view is the bottom left-top right line); indicating flint rather than metal tool working.

The other side of the slate; though dominated by a major diagonal plough scratch has a wealth of lithic scratched lines to explore. Was this made by cutting vegetables or is it a deliberate design? It is time to return to the boat slate and look for signs of the tool used. It will be hard to rule out metal tools as most of the internal surfaces of the larger cuts are covered by the orangey deposit and the other incisions are just too fine, but there may be some doubled or multiple lines to indicate a flint tool.

This extreme side lit view highlighting vertical lines between the deck and the shore reveals doubled lines. The lines below the surf line were dismissed as accidental plough damage.
There is another explanation, which might fit the distribution, sizes and directions better. Zoom in under the bow.

Ref. 4

A find of a tally marked slate 3 with the Truro EDC inscribed disc and the experimental finding that I was producing the same effect on a scrap slate to test my resharpened flint cutting tool when making a copy lead me to conclude that:

The invention of Futurism!

Many of the small doubled lines in mostly vertical groups are not accidental and were made just below the decorated area. They could have been done on a separate slate but this action, moving the attention from a very small, intensely worked piece would have broken contact with the work. The prominent vertical line appears to start as a finer thin line at the top and may prove to have been recut as an experiment before proceeding with reworking the main hull lines to their final form. The tolerance of tool testing marks below the image suggests that this part was held in the hand and the unobscurred details above used as prompts in the remembering and retelling of a story that I will attempt to retell at the end of this document. The tool that I propose to have made this work is made of FLINT because: There are closely spaced doubled lines. There is an area of testing the resharpened tool. There is a wide range of types of line; from wide and recut to ultrafine and closely spaced; easily produced by a flint tool but requiring a variety of specialised metal ones Later I shall bring in decorative parallels with Later Neolithic Styles; hence predating metal tools. 10

Here it is!
The drawing left is of a dihedral burin1; made of good quality nodular flint, judging by the remaining cortex. Therefore, as with much other flint on the site it was imported from at least as far East as Devon2. The tool has use gloss and was found 50 metres from the boat slate. It is unlikely that by chance this was the actual tool used to incise the boat slate but the accompanying book3 to st the Ice Age Art exhibition that I visited on April 1 2013 at The British Museum explains that it was burins that were the versatile tools capable of cutting the wide lines and the very fine ones with the wonderful precision and frankly moving beauty that was seen in the Palaeolithic works in ivory, bone, tooth, slate, ochre, clay and sandstone. The continuation of that technical competence in flint tool use is seen in the boat slate as are many of the decorative tropes that we consider to be Later Neolithic; actually appearing in the Upper Palaeolithic and indeed continuing to the present.

Surface finds close to the boat slate

Image is actual size and is of some of the finds between 12th-17th April, 2008. The top left flint is a broken leaf arrowhead; heavily glossed as though it has been repeatedly 11

used and retrieved from a straw target. To its right is another broken leaf with a small and a large chisel arrowhead and an end scraper on a flake completing the top row. 545.7 is an awl. The bottom right notched object carries nodular cortex from imported flint. [imaginatively] It has the shape of a large bird; perhaps waterfowl were hunted here. Worthy of mention, found nearby is a slate bracer1, a collection of fragments; some reused from a finely polished rectangular section imported flint axe2 and the evidence of the finishing of greenstone(Group I) axe rough outs3 to completion at this site(Jones, forthcoming). Group I Cornish axe heads are widely distributed throughout Britain. Left: Grooved Ware pottery from Clodgy Moor and below: the underside of a finger nail incised Peterborough Ware rim found 8 metres from the boat slate.

All the lines

In 2010 I traced off the magnified photographic images this drawing.

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Below I made a new version on Permatrace1 donated by Matt Mossop and augmented by studying digital versions of the photographs, further magnified on a laptop computer.

Although the drawings are similar there are differences in some of the very fine lines and this is a clue to the areas for closer study of the slate and the better photographic imagery to follow

Describing the picture.

There is clearly far more here than a sailing boat. Artistically the lower keel line of the boat is broken to emphasise the action in the foreground. It is action . It is not static. It could be called a commotion. Human figures with movement in their limbs are pitching off the boat as others with square heads and forward pointing arms confront them. Hence this is the surf and not the open sea. The axe headed man is bearing a smaller axe headed man in his arms. We are the bearers of the axe heads confronting the ship. We can scale the people to be able to judge the size of the boat and we could argue about the functionality of the infill lines. We could debate about whether there is a single bank of oars indicated by parallel diagonal lines that run from the upper hull into the water. Is the mast single or a bipod with an apparently truncated straight line going up from the hull towards the top of the other mast? What kind of material is the sail? Surely it is fine canvas and not available in Britain in the Neolithic? The design at the midpoint of the hull has not escaped your attention. What do you think? Anna Tyacke quipped that it was a paddle wheel ;-). If it is structure then there are few parallels but many myths and rock carvings have images of boats carrying the sun1. A practical explanation might be that the boat came from the same direction as the suns travel: from THE EAST. Maybe it is just carrying pieces of the sun as copper alloys and gold. There are figures on the deck. Are they men? Are they kinds of symbols? Is it like Ogham scratched across a line or Futarch running down a bone?

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Is this symbol somehow familiar?

Below is the only piece of Beaker pottery2 I found amongst the hundreds of Neolithic pottery fragments at Clodgy Moor. I am holding it up to a reconstructed example3 in The British Museum. An attempt to justify the construction above the hull as a Beaker man.4

Ref. 5 I am suggesting a particularly memorable contact between Grooved Ware people and Beaker sailors in 2500-2200 B.C.(calendar years)6

2nd draft of an epic(approved by John)

Not sure how it started. I admit we felt a bit intimidated. Its some craft. Their intentions were not entirely honourable. I mean they could have had the earth. They were Gods but betrayed themselves. Pieces of the sun1 we would have believed but they are men! I would drink with them2 if I could trust them. We were ready. We tracked them along the coast and caught them in peril and well we slaughtered them to a man if the truth be known. The boat is logical.3 The sail is fancy.4 The axes we know about as far as we can know.5 Their arrowheads take no prisoners.6 We will hold fast but I fear the times they are a-changin.7

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References and notes Introduction

1.Henrietta Quinnell assessed the pottery finds found up to 2011 at Clodgy Moor as follows: Bronze Age; 18, Beaker; 1, Grooved Ware; 256. Peterborough Ware?; 1, Early Neolithic; 4. 2. The pottery and flints recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme as part of The Clodgy Moor Project 2011-12, lead by Andy M. Jones & Anna Tyacke.

Cleaning and conservation

1.Handheld GPS has proved to achieve 5m accuracy in service and has transformed my fieldwalking since 2007. This public document has the findspot GPS redacted to the same degree as in the Portable Antiquities Scheme database. 2.My GPS assigns a waypoint number to each findspot. I write this in pencil on the flint and put it in the bag and write its detail on the accompanying card i.e.; 1F[flint] scraper. Pottery sherds I draw around with a thickness bar I on the card with the find number inside the outline i.e. 2X[pottery] and put the piece into a separate bag to the hard[flint etc.] finds. Hence all the finds can be traced back to their unique findspot after cleaning.

Looking at the decoration

1.Main hull lines are recut with uneven width and occasional fine accidental short break outs.

Basic elements of the design

1.The 2 upper hull lines might be one above the other but I think that they are side by side with cross pieces and the mast breaking the upper line to be fixed in between.

Looking closer
1.Kodak EasyShare CX7430

Zoom in!
1.You may be reading this as a free online document. I am very grateful to the publisher. It is unfortunate that at the 200-400% linear magnification necessary to see some of the details on the original images, the online copy may have already pixelated. Larger images are at the back of the document. If these are inadequate I will email you original images on request. amanda.blunsdon@btinternet.com

Problems of reading the lines

1.Montage rendered with free program: Paint.NET

What tool was used to incise this plaque?

1.Hill, G. E. 2013. Truro EDC incised slate disc: Observations on attempting to reproduce it. Scribd.com pp.6 Inattention to tool upkeep lead to some scuffed pioneering lines. 2.Google: BabelStone Blog: Penwith Ogham Stone. 3.As ref.1, pp.7 4.Small text is blurred on internet document version. It reads: Surf and sun decoration above. Below are groups of scratch lines.

Here it is!
1. Finds.org / Portable Antiquities Scheme Database. Public-885821 2.Beer flint. 3.Cook, J. 2013. Ice Age Art : arrival of the modern mind. The British Museum Press. pp. 184-5. Varying the angle and part of the tool edge to the material can also change 15

the nature of the incised mark providing as much versatility as a set of modern nibs or engraving tips(fig. 11).

Surface finds close to the boat slate

1.Bracer: CORN-B38773. Speculations as to its use lead to Hill, G.2011.A Bracelet to Die For: The Beaker Vambrace and Community Defence Against the Threat of the Copper Dagger. Scribd.com 2.Clodgy Moor Danish polished axe fragments found close together on the PAS database: Public-4D2A44, Public-4D0155, Public-4CD597, Public-49EA06 3.Axehead Roughout: CORN-0107A5 etc.

All the lines

1.Pre-cut A3 sheets of 75 micron double-matt manual drafting film

Describing the picture

1.Gelling, P. & Davidson, H. E.1969. The Chariot of the Sun and other Rites and Symbols of the Northern Bronze Age. Aldine Press. pp. 10, fig.4 and many other examples. 2.Beaker pot sherd from Clodgy Moor; 530.1, CORN-294E07 3.Clarke, D.L.1970. Beaker Pottery of Great Britain And Northern Ireland 2, photograph 3: Wessex/Middle Rhine beaker from Sewell, Totternhoe, Bedsfrom a male burial with bracer, bone toggle, and European spiral-top 8% tin bronze pin 4. The Beaker stick symbol is general and not confined to the beaker example from Sewell as it shares strong closely spaced multiple bands of horizontal lines with decorative diagonal fills in between, as do most Continental beakers. The 2 diagonal flourished lines below the strong vertical might be feet and hence giving life to the Beaker marked stick above the hull with perhaps indigenous lozenge Grooved Ware fine lines to the right of it boarding the vessel? [Better images needed]. 5.Small writing is blurred on internet version. It reads: From scratches on a tree, to a scratched fence post and a cross-scratched line on a portable object. 6.Scottishheritagehub.com/Chalcolithic (Early Beaker), 25th-22nd century BC[Period 1] 1) A Continental ethos whereby male standing was measured not only by prowess as a hunter/warrior but also by the undertaking of heroic, long distance journeys.

2nd draft of an epic ( approved by John)

1.1st contact with gold and copper alloys and the status given to their bearers.The effect of reflective surfaces on human cultural and technological development is explored in Shiny things Scribd.com (Hill, 2013) 2.Beakers were apparently used for drinking beer. Angel, M. et al.2006. Beer and Bell Beakers: Drinking Rituals in Copper Age Inner Iberia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 72, 2006, pp.243-265. 3.Coracles of skin or birch bark stretched over a wooden frame were likely indigenous to Britain.McGrail, S. 1981. The Ship: Rafts, Boats and Ships from Prehistoric times to the Medieval Era. H.M.S.O pp.13-4 boats capable of carrying cattle would have been required to bring this element of the Neolithic economy from the Continent. 4.Reputed lack of woven cloth in Britain until The Bronze Age but was available in Europe and the Near East. James, J. M. 2005-7. A short history of linen. Timelesscreations.ca/linen.pdf Neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland turned upremnants of linen threads, ropes, cloth and fishing nets. 5. Copper and copper alloyed with tin as bronze. Utzi [with a barbed and tanged arrow in his back] and his copper alloy axe from the Italian/Swiss border were dated to 3300 to 3200 years B.C. Spindler, K. 1995. The Man In the Ice. pp. 80 6. Barbed and tanged arrows. Public-1033E4, Public-5EE772 etc.7.Bob Dylan 1964 16

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I hope that these last few pages at maximum image size will enable you to have a reasonable view when you zoom in, even if your copy is not as high definition as my original.

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