Corner Posts Research Articles

R. G. Collingwood Memorial Fund

sides, the plank measures 277 cm by 17.4 cm, and is 3*5 cm thick. The edges are bevelled on top and bottom, and the surviving section of seat-hole, when ext nded, has an estimated diameter of 19.-o cm. These dimensions compare well with surviving stone examples at Cuicul, Sabratha and Leptis Magna, and confirm the view that it forms the front section of a standard 'key-hole' pattern lavatory-seat-making it the first wooden example from Britain. Large public lavatories in Roman Britain appear to be confined to Coloniae and municipia where the numbers of population created a demand for public services, including sanitary facilities, to be maintained by economic growth and constant use. Examples of combined-system sewerage are to be found at Lincoln, Colchester and York, with latrines at Silchester, Verulamium and Wroxeter. In the lesser centres, small towns and villas, the need for sanitation remained, but economics of construction and maintenance favoured smaller or seperate systems, and drains are more often used either for surface water or to channel foul water into individual soak-aways. The lack of complex sewerage arrangements at Neatham, and the large number of pits, suggest that this find belongs to a simple domestic lavatory-either part stone (many of the examples at Ostia must have been provided with wooden seats, though their frequent absence may also result from later stonerobbing), or a cess-pit with seat supported by corner posts (as at Porchester). Its surprising thickness is essential if it is to be strong enough to support someone whilst retaining the accommodating slot in the front-a functional necessity omitted in many reconstructions.

Tolu Bommalu Kattu. Omrids af skyggespillet i Andhra Pradesh

Tolu Bommalu Kattu. Omrids af skyggespillet i Andhra Pradesh

Den norske stavkirke

The Norwegian stave-church. An analysisBroadly stated, the extensive debate on the origin of the so-called fully developed Norwegian stave-church has centred around two main points of view. One view is that it has developed from Norwegian monumental buildings of the pagan period, and both hov and borg have been named as prototypes. Another view is that the »basilical« stave-churches, as they are often called, are a brilliant Norwegian adaptation to wood of the stone basilica.An inescapable objection both to the »basilica theory« and to the idea that the archaeologically demonstrated wooden churches with two longitudinal inner rows of wooden posts sunk into the ground should be the immediate forerunners of the fully developed Norwegian stave-churches is that the post rows in the latter not only follow the side walls of the nave, as they do in a basilica, but also cross it, following the gableends. Roar Hauglid, among others, has asserted (3) that it was probably necessary to have these transverse rows of supporting posts for structural reasons, when the principle of sinking the posts into the ground was abandoned and the support obtained in this manner thus no longer available. Recent archaeological investigations into the earliest Norwegian stave-churches seem to show, however, that here too it was primarily the walls themselves, just as in the preserved stave-churches, that provided the supporting element. The transition from churches with earth-sunk posts to churches resting on ground beams has thus apparently not necessitated major changes in the appearance of the stave-church.If the architects of the Norwegian stave-churches with posts had intended to construct a regular wooden church with a tripartite nave modelled on the stone basilica, it was well within their capacity to do so without transverse rows of posts and these are in fact very difficult to account for by any of the current theories on the origin of this type of stave-church. Furthermore, the stave-church chancel is also a departure from the basilical canon, in that it is tripartite like the nave. We are forced to admit that the stave-church with posts is basically different from what we otherwise know of contemporary church building types. It is, as will be apparent from the following analysis, a quite unique architectural form.The accompanying drawings of a typical Norwegian stave-church (fig. 2) clearly show that it has been constructed as a deliberate combination of two stave-churches with undivided naves, one church inside the other. The »inner« church is elevated over the »outer« church. Fig. 1 shows how the inner church above the lower roofs presents itself as the stave-church with undivided chancel and nave it theoretically is. It rests on the long posts which form the inner posts of the nave and chancel of the whole edifice, and as the lower halves of these posts have no intervening supports it is not a particularly stable structure.The outer church is apart from its roofs likewise merely a stave-church with undivided nave and chancel with walls resting directly on the ground surface and thus sufficiently stable to support the inner church too. Its walls are connected to each of the posts of the inner church by tie-beams and collar braces (fig. 3), and in this manner the inner church is supported by the more stably constructed outer church.It is not unlikely that this sophisticated architectural product is uniquely Norwegian. At least, corresponding structures have yet to be demonstrated outside Norway. This combination of two specimens of the well-known unit -the stave-church with undivided nave and narrower eastern chancel- to form a single, complex building, is an architectonic innovation. The elevated inner church is made as transparent as possible below so that the two churches together form an open plan peculiar to the fully developed Norwegian stave-churches. This feature is most pronounced in churches like Hurum and Lomen, where only the corner posts in the inner church are carried down to the floor, so that the division between the two churches is almost obliterated.Future research should seek to discover when this practice of combining two churches to form one building was initiated and what can have inspired it. It is possible that the tendency to make the interior more complex, which is evident in many buildings of the period, contributed to this development.Knud J. Krogh

A Drop-Net Deer Trap

A drop-net, 70 x 70 ft, made of No. 60 nylon with 3'/2-inch mesh, was developed to capture deer in areas of high deer density. An explosive trigger device was employed, fired by pushbutton or by radio control. In a 9-month period, about 340 animals were captured, mostly white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and axis deer (Axis axis). The average catch was 10 and the maximum was 23. The drop-net trap is highly portable, can be erected quickly, and permits individual animals to be selected for capture. In trapping white-tailed deer and axis deer in central Texas in box traps, several problems were presented. Traps were bulky to move about and were readily sprung by other animals. Because of buck dominance at a bait station, a preponderance of bucks was often captured, resulting in the capture of too few does during the limited trapping period. The box traps were not big enough to accommodate axis deer which normally feed in a group. If several deer entered at one time the door would not close properly. Axis deer also were subject to excessive injury in a box trap. As a method to overcome some of these problems, the drop-net deer trap was developed as a means of mass capture in areas of high deer density.2 The drop-net is a modification of one developed by Glazener et al. (1964) for use on turkeys. Acknowledgment is due M. J. Anderegg for assistance in testing the net and developing deer-handling procedures. CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRAP Preliminary trials were made with a net of No. 60 spun polypropylene with 4-inch square mesh, but this net proved too light and was replaced with one made of No. 60 nylon, rated at 550 pounds breaking strength, with 3?-inch mesh. The net is 70 ft square The net was treated with Netset (Adams Net and Twine, East St. Louis, Illinois) to retard knot slippage and abrasion, and to give a dull finish. A 4-inch steel ring was tied at the center. Four lengths of pipe, 2 inches x 10 ft, were used as corner posts. All posts were equipped with a boat winch bolted in the center of the pipe and a 4-inch pulley bolted to the top as described by Glazener et al. (1964). A 12-ft length of 11/4-inch lightweight steel tubing supported the center of the net. Two %i6-inch chains, 16 ft long and fitted with hooks, were used at each corner as anchors. Stakes made from %4-inch reinforcing steel, 2? ft long, were driven to sufficient depth for deadmen. Corner triggers and center trigger, similar to the one described by Sugden (1956), are shown in Fig. 1. A 16-inch length of Y4-inch braided polyethylene (commonly used as tow rope for water skiing) was used as a trigger. With a special splicing fid, loops were spliced in each end of the trigger rope and a blasting cap inserted. The firing device contained a sensitive (Sigma 4 F; 10,000 ohms) relay to close the blasting-caps circuit. The wiring diagram is shown in Fig. 2. A simple push1 Contribution from the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program, Project W-76-R, U. S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department cooperating. 2 Hawkins et al. (1968) have recently employed the cannon net for trapping deer, to avoid difficulties associated with box traps.

The Built-in Bed Tradition in North Yorkshire

DURING October, 1959, I was privileged to examine a number of cruck-framed long-houses in 'Cleveland, under the guidance of Mary Nattrass, who has recorded a great deal of material on the vernacular architecture of this part of North Yorkshire. In the course of this survey we visited several dwellings which still retain the built-in beds that were formerly in general use in that area. The most interesting is that in one of the ruined cottages at Cote Hill, towards the head of Farndale. This cottage consisted Inainly of a large kitchen-living room entered through a small entrance lobby. At the end opposite the hearth was a tiny parlour, which served also as a bedroom for the occupier of the house and his wife, and this was covered with a loft. At one side of the kitchen were two small recesses, the one nearer the hearth serving as a dairy whilst the other housed a built-in bed, measuring 7ft. 6in. by 5ft. 6in. (Fig. 1). Only the bed recess now remains but Mrs. Mary Wilson, who occupies the neighbouring Oak Crag, slept in the bed when a child. The bed itself was of the same type as those found elsewhere in the North Yorkshire Moors, consisting of four corner posts joined together by boards, from which ropes or thongs stretched lengthwise and across the frame at intervals of about four inches. The front of the bed was covered in with a deep board which projected several inches above the thonging and so retained the deep feather mattress. The whole was enclosed by two massive wooden doors and covered on the top with boards (Fig. 2). This bed is much larger than the normal and Mrs. Wilson informed me that it accommodated the four children when they were young, whilst their parents slept in the parlour. The arrangement of the dairy and bed recess at Cote Hill is very similar to that described by McCourt from Lisnarmuck, near Tobermore, Co. Londonderry, although in the latter the cuilteach and pantry project partly as an outshot. The farmhouse of Oak Crag, which adjoins Cote fIill, is also a cruckframed building with many interesting features. One room at the end has

The Effect of Excluding Rabbits from Acidiphilous Grassland in Breckland

(Watt 1957) combined a record of the change, with an explanation of the different results in terms of the different initial floristic potential and the duration of the experiment. The floristic changes in the enclosed area were interpreted as part of a pattern determined by stages in the life cycle of the dominant Festuca ovina. Data from acidiphilous grassland show corresponding changes which are presented only in the detail necessary as a background to the formulation of problems raised by the various patterns of behaviour shown by the different species (Watt 1960). The acidiphilous grassland (grassland F of Watt 1940) grows on heavily podsolized infertile sand. At the start of the experiment (1936) it was dominated by Cladonia silvatica agg. with Festuca ovina, Agrostis canina, A. tenuis; Lixzula cammpestris, Galium saxatile and a few other species forming a sparse population of individuals or patches. Intensive grazing continued until 1941 when the rabbit population was virtually exterminated. After the war a few rabbits returned but their numbers remained small until 1954 when they were wiped out by myxomatosis. No sheep have been grazed on the area. In 1941 tanks introduced a new factor. Crushed in dry weather by the tanks, the lichen fragments were blown away leaving bare soil: in wet weather the lichen was pressed into a slime which dried to a crust checking wind erosion. In the years of the war little erosion took place and Polytrichum piliferum and P. juniperinum initiated a widespread colonization and succession (Watt 1938) whose development to a pasture was expedited by the abundant seed production of the ungrazed Festuca ovina. Agrostis spp. too spread, but not so fast. The slight grazing of the post-war period has made little impression on a pasture in which Festuca ovina and Agrostis spp. are now the physiognomically dominant plants, accompanied by subseral stages with Polytrichum spp., Cornicularia aculeata and species of Cladonia. Deschampsiacflexuosa, present in one patch on the warren in 1936, now forms several colonies in the area of grassland F. Small areas of lichen-dominated vegetation escaped destruction by tanks. These happily included the permanent control plot, whose carpet of Cladonia remained intact, the nearest tank track running obliquely to it and 25 cm distant at its nearest point. The enclosure, established in 1936, was similar in area (6 m x 6 m) and construction, with four corner posts and wire netting (3.2 cm mesh), sunk 15 cm in the soil. As in grassland B a distinction must be made between the margin of the enclosure under the influence of the wire netting and the rest of the plot. At the

Meare Lake Village, 1935

AN exceptionally interesting find in the excavations of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society at Meare Lake Village of the present season, which ended on September 19, is that of a timber substructure of a remarkable and unusual character in one of the mounds. It consists of a squared arrangement of oak beams, 11J feet in length, crossed at the angles and secured by oak piles or corner posts placed vertically through the mortice holes. The arrangement was almost square, the area enclosed by the timbers being fifty-three square feet. The inner area was crossed by one large oak beam; and poles of alder and silver birch laid out in parallel order in both directions under the oak beams combined to form a raft-like structure. The earlier rectangular building on this structure would appear, judging from the position of piles around the area, to have been superseded by the more usual round dwelling, of which the superimposed hearths were found in the position and relation in which they were to be expected. A somewhat similar square timber structure was found in the west village some years ago, and traces of rectangular huts were found at five points, though not in situ, in the Glastonbury Lake Village. From the range of finds in the area of excavation of the present season, it is evident that this quarter of the village was a centre for weaving. Weaving combs, bobbings, needles of bone and no less than twenty-four spindle whorls were found. Among other objects were an iron dagger with bronze fittings, bronze finger rings, yellow paste beads, three spurs of fighting cocks, linked bronze wire and two ‘cheek-pieces' of horses' bridle bits. Among the finds from the excavations of this and previous seasons, to be exhibited in the new Wyndham Galleries of the Somerset County Museum at Taunt on, is a mounted set of the spikelets and grains of Triticum dicoccum found at Meare, with a set of its modern counterpart by its side. These have been prepared by Sir Rowland Biffen.

Abstracts and reviews

The site of the observatory, the construction of the variation building and the mounting and adjustment of the variation instruments were described in Part I of Volume VI of the results of the German Antarctic Expedition (see this Journal, Vol. XI, No. 4, page 202).The absolute observatory was placed on the open plateau as far as possible from the “Magnetberg” and other points of local magnetic disturbance. It was built in the shape of a regular octagon, with a low pyramidal roof, so as to offer as little resistance as possible to the strong winds liable to be encountered in such an exposed location. Each side was 1.35 meters wide and 3 meters high, the height of the building to the top of the roof being 4 meters. The door was on the southeast side, the side least exposed to the wind. A vestibule with outer door provided an efficient brace against the frequent storms from the northwest, and this with braces from the timbers of the foundation to the corner posts on three other sides proved sufficient to keep the building firmly in place. Two windows in the roof furnished light, while suitable holes in the side walls, fitted with copper shutters, made it possible to observe the various marks used in the declination observations. The building was covered on the outside with sailcloth, so as to present a smooth surface to the wind.