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Coffin Stone

Coordinates: 51°19′4″N 0°29′45″E / 51.31778°N 0.49583°E / 51.31778; 0.49583
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Coffin Stone
The site today. The topmost stone was placed there by a farmer in the twentieth century and the actual Coffin Stone is visible beneath
Coffin Stone is located in Kent
Coffin Stone
Location within Kent
Coordinates51°19′04″N 0°29′44″E / 51.317806°N 0.495659°E / 51.317806; 0.495659
TypeMonolith; putative Long barrow

The Coffin Stone, also known as the Coffin and the Table Stone, is a large sarsen stone at the foot of Blue Bell Hill near the village of Aylesford in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Various archaeologists have argued—although not proven—that the stone was part of a chambered long barrow constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period.

If the Coffin Stone is part of a destroyed chambered long barrow, then it would have been built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Long barrow building was an architectural tradition widespread across Neolithic Europe although comprised various localised regional variants; one of these was in the vicinity of the River Medway, examples of which are now known as the Medway Megaliths. The Coffin Stone lies on the eastern side of the river, not far from the chambered long barrows of Little Kit's Coty House and Kit's Coty House; three other examples, the Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow, and Chestnuts Long Barrow, remain on the western side of the river.

The Coffin Stone is a rectangular slab lying flat that measures 4.4 metres (14 ft) long and 2.8 metres (9.2 ft) wide. Two smaller stones lie nearby and another large slab is now located atop it. In the 1830s it was reported that local farmers found human bones near to the stone. An archaeological excavation of the site led by Paul Garwood took place in 2008–09; it revealed that the megalith was only placed in its present location in the 15th or 16th centuries. Although finding no evidence of a chambered long barrow at that location, the archaeologists noted that the Coffin Stone might once have stood upright in the local vicinity.

Location

The Coffin Stone in a vineyard with nearby electricity pylons

The Coffin Stone is located in Great Tottington Farm,[1] which is now used as a vineyard.[2] As of 2005, the site was not signposted, but could be reached via a stile along the Pilgrim's Way.[3] The Coffin Stone is situated about 400 metres (1,300 ft) northwest of Little Kit's Coty House.[3] It is also a short distance north of the Tottington springhead.[4]

Context

The Early Neolithic was a revolutionary period of British history. Between 4500 and 3800 BCE, it saw a widespread change in lifestyle as the communities living in the British Isles adopted agriculture as their primary form of subsistence, abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that had characterised the preceding Mesolithic period.[5] This came about through contact with continental societies, although it is unclear to what extent this can be attributed to an influx of migrants or to indigenous Mesolithic Britons adopting agricultural technologies from the continent.[6] The region of modern Kent would have been a key area for the arrival of continental European settlers and visitors, because of its position on the estuary of the River Thames and its proximity to the continent.[7]

Britain was largely forested in this period;[8] widespread forest clearance did not occur in Kent until the Late Bronze Age (c.1000 to 700 BCE).[9] Environmental data from the vicinity of the White Horse Stone, a putatively prehistoric monolith near the River Medway, supports the idea that the area was still largely forested in the Early Neolithic, covered by a woodland of oak, ash, hazel/alder and Maloideae.[10] Throughout most of Britain, there is little evidence of cereal or permanent dwellings from this period, leading archaeologists to believe that the Early Neolithic economy on the island was largely pastoral, relying on herding cattle, with people living a nomadic or semi-nomadic life.[11]

Medway Megaliths

The construction of long barrows and related funerary monuments took place in various parts of Europe during the Early Neolithic (distribution pictured).

Across Western Europe, the Early Neolithic marked the first period in which humans built monumental structures in the landscape.[12] These structures included chambered long barrows, rectangular or oval earthen tumuli which had a chamber built into one end. Some of these chambers were constructed out of timber, although others were built using large stones, now known as "megaliths".[13] These long barrows often served as tombs, housing the physical remains of the dead within their chamber.[14] Individuals were rarely buried alone in the Early Neolithic, instead being interred in collective burials with other members of their community.[15] These chambered tombs were built all along the Western European seaboard during the Early Neolithic, from southeastern Spain up to southern Sweden, taking in most of the British Isles;[16] the architectural tradition was introduced to Britain from continental Europe in the first half of the fourth millennium BCE.[17] Although there are stone buildings—like Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey—which predate them, the chambered long barrows constitute humanity's first widespread tradition of construction using stone.[18]

Although now all in a ruinous state and not retaining their original appearance,[19] at the time of construction the Medway Megaliths would have been some of the largest and most visually imposing Early Neolithic funerary monuments in Britain.[20] Grouped along the River Medway as it cuts through the North Downs,[21] they constitute the most southeasterly group of megalithic monuments in the British Isles,[22] and the only megalithic group in eastern England.[23] The archaeologists Brian Philp and Mike Dutto deemed the Medway Megaliths to be "some of the most interesting and well known" archaeological sites in Kent,[24] while the archaeologist Paul Ashbee described them as "the most grandiose and impressive structures of their kind in southern England".[25]

The Medway Megaliths can be divided into two separate clusters: one to the west of the River Medway and the other on Blue Bell Hill to the east, with the distance between the two clusters measuring at between 8 and 10 kilometres (5 and 6 miles).[26] The western group includes Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow, and the Chestnuts Long Barrow.[27] The eastern group consists of Smythe's Megalith, Kit's Coty House, Little Kit's Coty House, the Coffin Stone, and several other stones which might have once been parts of chambered tombs, most notably the White Horse Stone.[28] It is not known if they were all built at the same time, or whether they were constructed in succession,[29] while similarly it is not known if they each served the same function or whether there was a hierarchy in their usage.[30]

A map featuring a river moving from the top of the image (north) to the bottom right corner (southeast). Various black dots mark out the location of Medway Megaliths on either side of the river.
Map of the Medway Megaliths around the River Medway

The Medway long barrows all conformed to the same general design plan,[31] and all aligned on an east to west axis.[31] Each had a stone chamber at the eastern end of the mound, and they each probably had a stone facade flanking the entrance.[31] The chambers were constructed from sarsen, a dense, hard, and durable stone that occurs naturally throughout Kent, having formed out of silicified sand from the Eocene epoch. Early Neolithic builders would have selected blocks from the local area, and then transported them to the site of the monument to be erected.[32]

These common architectural features among the Medway Megaliths indicate a strong regional cohesion with no direct parallels elsewhere in the British Isles.[33] For instance, they would have been taller than most other chambered long barrows in Britain, with internal heights of up to 3.8 metres (10 feet).[34] Nevertheless, as with other regional groupings of Early Neolithic long barrows—like the Cotswold-Severn group in south-western Britain—there are also various idiosyncrasies in the different monuments, such as Coldrum's rectilinear shape, the Chestnut Long Barrow's facade, and the long, thin mounds at Addington and Kit's Coty.[35] These variations might have been caused by the monuments being altered over the course of their use.[36]

The builders of these monuments were probably influenced by pre-existing tomb-shrines they were aware of.[37] Whether those people had grown up locally, or moved into the Medway area from elsewhere is not known.[37] Based on a stylistic analysis of their architectural designs, the archaeologist Stuart Piggott thought that the plan behind the Medway Megaliths had originated in the area around the Low Countries;[38] conversely, Glyn Daniel thought their design derived from Scandinavia,[39] John H. Evans thought Germany,[40] and Ronald F. Jessup suggested an influence from the Cotswold-Severn group.[41] Ashbee noted that their close clustering in the same area was reminiscent of the megalithic tomb-shrine traditions of continental Northern Europe,[25] and emphasised that the Medway Megaliths were a regional manifestation of a tradition widespread across Early Neolithic Europe.[42] He nevertheless stressed that a precise place of origin was "impossible to indicate" with the available evidence.[43]

Description

Detail of weathering on the Coffin Stone

The Coffin Stone is a large rectangular slab.[3] In the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was measured as being 4.42 metres (14 ft 6 in) in length, 2.59 metres (8 ft 6 in) in breadth, and about 0.61 metres (2 ft) in width.[44] The archaeologist Timothy Champion suggested that "the Coffin Stone" was "an appropriate name" for the megalith given its appearance.[31] Given the size of the megalith, it is likely that—had this been part of a chamber—then said chamber could have measured as much as 3.75 metres (12.3 ft) in height and would have been the largest of all the known Medway Megaliths.[45] There may have been a stone façade in front of the chamber, and if so, these may be the stones now found in the Tottington's western springhead.[46] At some point in the twentieth century, another large sarsen slab was placed on top of the Coffin Stone.[47]

In Evans' view, the nineteenth-century discovery of human remains at the site "strongly suggests" that the Coffin Stone was the remnant of a destroyed chambered long barrow.[4] Some archaeologists have argued that evidence of a barrow could be visibly identified; Ashbee noted that a mound was visible "in much reduced form until the 1950s but can today [2005] hardly be traced".[48] However, in 2007, Champion noted that the trace of the mound could still be seen.[31] Had this once been a long barrow then it may have been flanked by kerbstones; various stones found nearby may have once been these.[46] Had there been a barrow, it is likely that ditches would have flanked its sides.[49] Conversely, archaeological investigation in the 2000s found no clear evidence of a chambered long barrow having stood on the site.[50]

Antiquarian and archaeological investigation

Antiquarian descriptions

Illustration of the Coffin Stone with a tree growing over it; published in John Thorpe's 1788 book Custumale Roffense

The antiquarian William Stukeley made note of the Coffin Stone in his posthumously published 1776 work Itinerarium Curiosum II. This book contained the first published illustration of the monument.[51] Stukeley had been alerted to the site by his friend Hercules Ayleway, who in a 1722 letter told Stukeley of "a large stone 15 foot long, called the coffin".[52] The site was next described by John Thorpe in his 1788 book Custumale Roffense; he believed that it was Stukeley himself who had given it the name of the "coffin stone".[52] Thorpe visited the site and provided two illustrations of it; one of these showed a spindly tree growing from around the stone.[52]

Circa 1840, the antiquarian Beale Post visited the site and drew a sketch of it.[53] In his unpublished manuscript on Kentish antiquities, he reported that in 1838 or 1839 a sack full of human remains had been recovered close to the Coffin Stone.[54] In 1871, Edwin Dunkin provided an account of the site in The Reliquary. He related that as well as being known as "The Coffin", it was also called "The Table Stone".[55] He believed that it had once stood upright on that same spot, representing "a sepulchral memorial or mênhir of some ancient British chieftain".[55] Dunkin recorded that human remains—including two human skulls, other bones, and charcoal—had been found nearby during the 1836 removal of a hedge which "concealed more than one-half of the stone".[56] He also noted that fragments of Roman pottery had been found nearby,[55] and that local farmers had been moving sarsen blocks to the adjacent springhead; "more than fifty blocks, large and small, lie about the yard."[57] In 1872 James Fergusson referenced the site in his Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries; Their Age and Uses, referring to the presence of "two obelisks, known to country people as the coffin-stones — probably from their shape".[58]

In 1893, the antiquarian George Payne described the monument in his Collectanea Cantiana, noting that locally it was known as both the Coffin Stone and the General's Stone.[59] Ashbee later suggested that Payne was actually confusing the Coffin Stone with the General's Stone, which was a separate megalith found several hundred metres away, in the same field as Kit's Coty House.[58] In his 1924 publication dealing with Kent, the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford, then working as the archaeological officer for the Ordnance Survey, listed the Coffin Stone alongside the other Medway Megaliths.[58] In his 1927 book In Kentish Pilgrimland, William Cole Finch included a plate of the Coffin Stone; the photograph featured his son standing atop it and shows various broken sarsens piled up at the monument's eastern end. Finch's plate represented the first published photograph of the megalith,[58] although was likely also the last published depiction of it before another large sarsen was placed atop it.[47] Finch measured the sarsen and found it to be wider than Thorpe had reported, also making note of plough damage and breakages.[58] In a 1946 article on the folklore involving the Medway Megaliths, Evans noted that the Coffin Stone, like several other megalithic features in the area, was being associated with a burial following the fifth-century Battle of Aylesford. The idea that one or more of these monuments had been linked to the Battle was first mooted by early modern antiquarians, before filtering into local folklore.[60]

Archaeological investigation

The Coffin Stone with Blue Bell Hill in the background

In 2005, Ashbee noted that he had raised the issue of the site's preservation with English Heritage and that their representative had informed him that they would not consider according it legal protection because they thought it a natural feature.[48] The idea that the stone might have been natural had previously been voiced by the archaeologist Glyn Daniel on his visit to the site.[58] Ashbee commented that "it has, however, for long been manifest that English Heritage is more concerned with commercialisation than affording appropriate protection to our national monuments".[48]

Ashbee noted that any evidence for a chambered tomb at the site might be ascertained through geophysics or excavation.[58] Led by the archaeologist Paul Garwood, a program of field surveys, geophysical research, and excavations took place at the site as part of the Medway Valley Prehistoric Landscapes Project during 2008 and 2009. This found evidence for prehistoric activity in the vicinity of the megalith and, although they were unable to closely date these archaeological features, the investigators established that there was no evidence that a chambered long barrow had once stood there.[50] The archaeologists determined that the stone had only been moved to its present location at some point in the post-medieval period (1450 to 1600). There was a large hollow in the chalk nearby which was akin to that found by excavators near to the Cuckoo Stone in Wiltshire; the archaeologists interpreted this as an extraction hollow, suggesting that the Coffin Stone had once stood upright at that spot.[50]

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Dunkin 1871, p. 68.
  2. ^ "The Aylesford Megalithic Cluster". Aylesford Parish Council. Archived from the original on 2009-09-10. Retrieved 2009-08-28. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b c Philp & Dutto 2005, p. 6.
  4. ^ a b Evans 1950, p. 65.
  5. ^ Hutton 1991, pp. 16–17.
  6. ^ Hutton 1991, p. 16; Ashbee 1999, p. 272; Hutton 2013, pp. 34–35.
  7. ^ Holgate 1981, pp. 230–231.
  8. ^ Hutton 2013, p. 37.
  9. ^ Barclay et al. 2006, p. 20.
  10. ^ Barclay et al. 2006, pp. 25–26.
  11. ^ Champion 2007, pp. 73–74; Hutton 2013, p. 33.
  12. ^ Hutton 1991, p. 19; Hutton 2013, p. 37.
  13. ^ Hutton 1991, p. 19; Hutton 2013, p. 40.
  14. ^ Hutton 1991, p. 19.
  15. ^ Malone 2001, p. 103.
  16. ^ Hutton 2013, p. 40.
  17. ^ Malone 2001, pp. 103–104; Hutton 2013, p. 41.
  18. ^ Hutton 2013, p. 41.
  19. ^ Holgate 1981, p. 225; Champion 2007, p. 78.
  20. ^ Champion 2007, p. 76.
  21. ^ Wysocki et al. 2013, p. 1.
  22. ^ Garwood 2012, p. 1.
  23. ^ Holgate 1981, p. 221.
  24. ^ Philp & Dutto 2005, p. 1.
  25. ^ a b Ashbee 1999, p. 269.
  26. ^ Ashbee 1993, pp. 60–61; Champion 2007, p. 78; Wysocki et al. 2013, p. 1.
  27. ^ Ashbee 2005, p. 101; Champion 2007, pp. 76–77.
  28. ^ Ashbee 2005, p. 101; Champion 2007, p. 78.
  29. ^ Holgate 1981, p. 223.
  30. ^ Holgate 1981, pp. 223, 225.
  31. ^ a b c d e Champion 2007, p. 78.
  32. ^ Ashbee 1993, p. 58; Ashbee 2000, pp. 325–326; Champion 2007, p. 78.
  33. ^ Holgate 1981, p. 225; Wysocki et al. 2013, p. 3.
  34. ^ Killick 2010, p. 339.
  35. ^ Wysocki et al. 2013, p. 3.
  36. ^ Ashbee 1993, p. 60.
  37. ^ a b Holgate 1981, p. 227.
  38. ^ Piggott 1935, p. 122.
  39. ^ Daniel 1950, p. 161.
  40. ^ Evans 1950, pp. 77−80.
  41. ^ Jessup 1970, p. 111.
  42. ^ Ashbee 1999, p. 271.
  43. ^ Ashbee 1993, p. 57.
  44. ^ Dunkin 1871, p. 74; Ashbee 1993, p. 83; Ashbee 2000, p. 334.
  45. ^ Ashbee 2005, p. 102.
  46. ^ a b Ashbee 2005, p. 106.
  47. ^ a b Ashbee 2005, p. 34.
  48. ^ a b c Ashbee 2005, p. 191.
  49. ^ Ashbee 2005, pp. 107–108.
  50. ^ a b c Garwood 2012, p. 2.
  51. ^ Ashbee 1993, p. 68.
  52. ^ a b c Ashbee 1993, p. 82.
  53. ^ Ashbee 1993, pp. 82–83.
  54. ^ Evans 1949, p. 135; Ashbee 1993, p. 83.
  55. ^ a b c Dunkin 1871, p. 74.
  56. ^ Dunkin 1871, p. 74; Ashbee 1993, p. 83.
  57. ^ Dunkin 1871, p. 75.
  58. ^ a b c d e f g Ashbee 1993, p. 83.
  59. ^ Payne 1893, p. 127.
  60. ^ Evans 1946, pp. 40–42.

Bibliography

Ashbee, Paul (1993). "The Medway Megaliths in Perspective" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 111. Kent Archaeological Society: 57–112. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ashbee, Paul (1999). "The Medway Megaliths in a European Context" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 119. Kent Archaeological Society: 269–284. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ashbee, Paul (2000). "The Medway's Megalithic Long Barrows" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 120. Kent Archaeological Society: 319–345. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ashbee, Paul (2005). Kent in Prehistoric Times. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 978-0752431369. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Barclay, Alistair; Fitzpatrick, Andrew P.; Hayden, Chris; Stafford, Elizabeth (2006). The Prehistoric Landscape at White Horse Stone, Aylesford, Kent (Report). Oxford: Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture (London and Continental Railways). {{cite report}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Champion, Timothy (2007). "Prehistoric Kent". In John H. Williams (ed.). The Archaeology of Kent to AD 800. Woodbridge: Boydell Press and Kent County Council. pp. 67–133. ISBN 9780851155807. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Daniel, Glynn E. (1950). The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Template:Cite article
Evans, John H. (1946). "Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths". Folklore. 57 (1). The Folklore Society: 36–43. doi:10.1080/0015587x.1946.9717805. JSTOR 1257001. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Evans, John H. (1949). "A Disciple of the Druids; the Beale Post Mss" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 62. Kent Archaeological Society: 130–139. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Evans, John H. (1950). "Kentish Megalith Types" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 63. Kent Archaeological Society: 63–81. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Garwood, P. (2012). "The Medway Valley Prehistoric Landscapes Project". PAST: The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society. 72. The Prehistoric Society: 1–3. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Holgate, Robin (1981). "The Medway Megaliths and Neolithic Kent" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. 97. Kent Archaeological Society: 221–234. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hutton, Ronald (1991). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-17288-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hutton, Ronald (2013). Pagan Britain. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-197716. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Jessup, Ronald F. (1970). South-East England. London: Thames and Hudson. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Killick, Sian (2010). "Neolithic Landscape and Experience: The Medway Megaliths" (PDF). Archaeologia Cantiana. Vol. 130. Kent Archaeological Society. pp. 339–349. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Malone, Caroline (2001). Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-1442-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Payne, George (1893). Collectanea Cantiana: Or, Archæological Researches in the Neighbourhood of Sittingbourne, and Other Parts of Kent. London: Mitchell and Hughes. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Piggott, Stuart (1935). "A Note on the Relative Chronology of the English Long Barrows". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 1. The Prehistoric Society: 115–126. doi:10.1017/s0079497x00022246. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Philp, Brian; Dutto, Mike (2005). The Medway Megaliths (third ed.). Kent: Kent Archaeological Trust. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wysocki, Michael; Griffiths, Seren; Hedges, Robert; Bayliss, Alex; Higham, Tom; Fernandez-Jalvo, Yolanda; Whittle, Alasdair (2013). "Dates, Diet and Dismemberment: Evidence from the Coldrum Megalithic Monument, Kent". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 79. Prehistoric Society: 1–30. doi:10.1017/ppr.2013.10. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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51°19′4″N 0°29′45″E / 51.31778°N 0.49583°E / 51.31778; 0.49583

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