O.B.O.D. Druid Camps!

Alban Arthan Dates 13th Dec 2004 Imbolc Dates 30th Jan- 3rd Feb Beltane Dates  Apr 24th to May 2nd Lughnasadh Dates Jul 22nd to Aug 1s Samhain Dates Oct 22nd to 31st Oct

Windmill Hill & Druid Camp, the cattle of cognizance.
by Chris Park

In the Neolithic Age a place was monumentalised upon the landscape of the Kennet Valley in a grazed and cultivated woodland clearing upon a hill, today known as Windmill Hill. This causwayed enclosure overlooks the Avbebury complex, one mile to the north-west of the henge and stone circle. First excavated in 1925 by Alexander Keiler, this monument revealed a massive amount of flint scatters, human and animal bones, pottery sherds and noelithic material and became so important by that it named a culture: The Windmill Hill Culture. The hill has been excavated since and sports Bronze Age barrows, Romano-British finds and although there is much evidence of site continuity throughout time, it sits on the periphery of everyday neolithic life.

Whilst researching this enclosure I became fascinated with its parallels to our modern Druid Camps.

The site consists mainly of three concentric rings of ditches and related banks, with the most likely main entrance in the north west, although one may have entered the site from almost any direction through the causeways into the middle and inner enclosures. The excavated ditches and pits revealed a large quantity of bone, flint, ceramic deposits and charcoal. These were not just waste pits, and the depositors may not have even had a concept of waste. The general take on these ditches, like most other neolithic pits, is that they contained meaningful, symbolic depositions within the landscape demarcating place. Most of the stone tools found were hardly used, and some seemed to have been purposefully broken. The animal bones found were mostly articulate joints, predominantly cattle, then sheep and pig, some goat, dog, cat, fox, hare, bird etc. The pits seem to have been immediately filled in after the depositions had been made, sealing them into the place seemingly after a feast had occured. Each ditch and pit is unique, and they weren’t all created at once. Windmill Hill is thought never to have been a settlement, but a liminal place, away from the practice of everyday living, a place where people gathered at certain times to do particular things- certainly ritual, possibly of religious nature. Two infant burials have been excavated there with their heads pointing east, hands on their knees. There is also a frequent scattering of human bones.

If you were a neolithic person you might walk there with your cattle, prize bull, or tribe and enter the clearing, moving towards the ditches and mounds that marked the space and all that had been before, where your ancestors or kin had been, where you had learnt a new skill, traded or gifted livestock, made friends, met a partner, had a great feast after which you had deposited your best flint knife or a single sherd of your finest pot in a pit amongst the symbolic objects of others there. Some have suggested it was an elite home due to the fine wares found there, but others dismiss this due to its distance from the main neolithic settlements. There has been pottery found there originating from Cornwall, a stone axe from Wales and many other artefacts suggesting this was a trading place or a redistribution centre, a neolithic farmers market, trading livestock, tools and wares and even people. However, the vast amounts of material deposited at causewayed enclosures discounts the idea that material was being moved off-site, but being used on-site

There is a definite hierarchy of space created by the three concentric rings, ordering the way individuals and congregations moved through the space, like a Shinto shrine where one passes through the Torii gateways to the centre, the holy of holies or most meaningful place. The amount of atrefacts found is densest in the centre and depletes outwardly, which suggests the centre was the most important part. It is unlikely that the site was a fortification of some kind as there are so many entrances and the central enclosure is upon the slope of the hill not the crest so there is no strategic advantage gained. One would be able to see right into the middle if approaching from the valley.

The shaping of the landscape into ‘place’ through these monuments, the construction and hierarchy of space, the liminality and peripherality, the feasting, meeting and coming together of poeple from different places, the leaving behind of pits and the possible trading, ritual and social interaction within causewayed enclosures are familiar phenomenon to all who have ever celebrated the season at a Druid Camp.

When we travel to Camp we leave behind us the ‘everyday’ and enter into a liminal time and space where we share our druidry and spend our seasonal holy days. We enter into a geometric site plan of maybe a pentagram or a bardic symbol, a temple space of astronomical alignments with familiar and meaningful architecture. We enter the hierarchy of space through the gateway and move within the three concentric circles of our boundary, structures, ceremonial circle and the sacred central fire pit. We may bring with us our wares to sell or trade, and maybe not cattle, but our ideas, skills, music and love to share. Our inspiration and seed thoughts (prize bull or ram) and our willingness to be inspired (cows or ewes). We make ritual and feast, then leave pits and offerings behind us. We celebrate the season and the land, do meaningful things, go through rites of passage or initiation and then we go home again, exiting through the gateway to return at someother significant time.

The first thing that is done when the O.B.O.D. Campsite is built is the finding and marking of the centre, to marry or create the site plan with the place. The pits from previous camps are encountered; fire pits, compost and shit pits. The site continuity is embedded in the fields we use, and a particular tree, horizon, hazel pole or piece of pottery may spark our memories and create a deep sense of place. No-one has been buried on camp, but there is a contemporary ecological burial very close to one site. In some cultures ‘kin’ is applied to those who eat together and the sense of family that is expressed upon camps is found here. Not many of us herd livestock or make flint tools, but if all these archaeological trends are correct then Druid Camp is quite closely related to the way neolithic people created and used causwayed enclosures. There is so much more that could be said, and I heartily recommend a journey into the archaeology of the Neolithic Age if you’ve not already been there.

Chris