IWMW2009 Keynote 1 Tuesday 28th 2009 University of Essex, Colchester

I’ll be getting around to blogging in more detail about the things I’ve seen, heard and participated in, such as Agile development , Scrum, site search evaluation, course finders and killer apps as well as system management techniques and discussions on how best the sector communicates in future, regionally, nationally and broader still.

The food, people and low-flying geese have been great too.

We still have lots to come this morning, with presentations about how the BBC produce websites and the products of the Developer Lounge event.

On second viewing its clear the show has less to do with the Hill than I’d previously thought. Rather it uses the Hill -aptly- as a jumping off point for a whistlestop tour of the complex, making a couple of stops for reconstruction footage before closing with a possible date for the mysterious mound’s construction. With that in mind it’s difficult to compare infotainment telly with comprehensive analytical survey.

“We can’t say that the Beaker People built Silbury Hill”

the show stresses the importance of Beaker folk to Silbury and their influence on changing times in Britain. Mike Parker-Pearson explains common Beaker burial techniques, with accompanying 3-D clip while Mary-Ann Ochota is shown some typical examples of Beakers found in the British Isles.

It must’ve been the Beakers then? Yet they conclude that: “We can’t say that Beaker people built Silbury Hill”.

We can say “In view of the amount of evidence for Beaker activity within the Wider landscape it is surprising that no beaker evidence comes from the mound itself.” (Analytical survey, page 69)

The striking thing is that the survey is more entertaining. Full of the detail archaeos, students and amateur megalith botherers like myself would love, but laced with references to anecdote and folklore, the old petrol station at the foot the Hill, countless stylised depictions and descriptions through history, and even attempts to make Silbury into a garden feature!

I’m currently reading Mike Pitts’ Hengeworld, and came across this interesting little statement which puts some perspective into the BBC show’s obsession with foreigners “who swept across Europe with their fine pots, loosing arrows into the air”^[2]:

“it would be true to say that though Beaker People can still be found in books or heard about in guided tours, for the past twenty years or so few practising archaeologists have believed in them. Instead the fine pots and other artefacts are thought to be a still visible manifestation of some lost fashion, ritual practice or social phenomenon that spread from one community to another, subtly changing as it passed.” (Pitts, page 88).

http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=426

1. The investigation and analytical survey of Silbury Hill. Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI/22/2002.
2. Pitts, M. Hengeworld. Arrow Books. 2000. Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI/22/2002.

Bassist Abby Travis

This is my design for this year’s ‘Megameet’, an informal gathering of people with themodernantiquarian.com in common. It’s been a while since I designed anything for print, and given a little over a week to realise it I ought not to complain about the outcome. Somewhere between those old Railway posters of sunny England and a Clarice Cliffe pot.

The image is oil on cardboard, with some colour adjustments (the sky was originally signal red!), taken into Illustrator for the typography, which uses the ‘Pete-Boy Vikings’ font, seriously but sympathetically cut up for my own use.

Tesco shareholders have not backed proposals to improve welfare standards for chickens championed by TV cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The chef wanted investors to adopt new standards for rearing birds, but the plan got fewer than 10% of votes at its annual general meeting in Solihull.

Hugh’s Speech is available here at Chickenout.tv.

Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP.

He is to force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency which he will fight on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit.

update: 4 hours later, the Party machine has rolled on. The top news item at conservatives.com reads “Dominic Grieve appointed Shadow Home Secretary” (Yawn).

Interestingly their site became quite flakey when the story broke, impying they’re not used to much traffic – is it any wonder.

Ed Tudor-Pole. He likes Black Jacks.

Ade Payne

Jethro Tull

bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/…