Blick Mead, Ancient Spring Worship, Practical and Spiritual Harmony

About a mile east of the world famous ancient site Stonehenge, lies one of the most intriguing and relatively unknown Mesolithic sites in the UK, “Blick Mead”(Gleaming Meadow). This 10 thousand year old site was only discovered after an investigation of the much later Iron Age Hill Fort known as “Vespasian’s camp”. Despite its name, the Hill Fort has no formal connection to the Roman emperor, other than it would have most likely been occupied when he marched his troops through that part of Britain in around 43 AD.

Initial interest was raised in this part of the site, when a small team surveying just to the east of the Hill Fort, in only a couple of days found over 200 pieces of worked flint. The Flint dated from the Mesolithic right up until the Bronze age. If we take into account the later Iron age Hill Fort, this gives us a period of human occupation spanning over 7 thousand years. This huge span of time coupled with the fact that sites containing such an abundance of Mesolithic finds are themselves rare, meant the archaeologist knew that this site was one of possible great significance.

The most impressive early find though, was not man made, but natural. The site was very wet and because of Victorian landscaping around the area, this was thought at first to of been the remnants of a Victorian pond feature. After closer inspection though, this was no Victorian folly, but an ancient freshwater chalk spring, that dated right back to the earliest occupation of the site, in the Mesolithic. The spring itself maintains a constant temperature of around 11 degrees Celsius all year round, which although not the hottest of springs, would mean the waters would never freeze over. If this wasn’t enough, it also contained a rare type of Algae Hildanbrandia. This Algae has a rather unusual and very interesting property, Flint submerged in the springs waters, would upon being removed and left on the bank for a few hours turn bright pink.

Since these initial finds, over 10 thousand pieces of worked flint have been unearthed. The Flints themselves, being sealed under a layer of silt were in perfect condition, as if they had just been made. This level of preservation means it was unlikely the tools were ever used, but placed deliberately either shortly after creation, or created directly on site. Along with the Masses of flint Animal bones were found mostly from Aurochs and Wild Boar. These finds along with large quantities of burnt flint, suggests that the site was also host to large feasts involving possibly hundreds of people. The range of style and material of the flints as well as a Dog tooth, whose isotopes suggest it was reared in the very north, make it likely that the site attracted people from all over Britain.

In this very brief overview of Blick Mead, we can already begin to see that it was a very special site in ancient times. A Spring that never freezes, the chalk landscape, possible votive offerings, large feasts, highly symbolic animal bones, and wide attraction, all speak of a highly significant ritual area. Not only this but lying only a mile east of Stonehenge, means its well within the wider Stonehenge complex of ancient structures. For those that don’t know, the Stonehenge site marks almost the centre of a vast array of ancient intrigues spanning thousands of years. Blick Mead though, is possibly its oldest yet, giving it great significance in the question why Stonehenge position was chosen.

Even in this this small write up of the site, of which I left much out, there is far too much to detail in one article. Each aspect like the Spring or chalk landscape deserve several articles in their own right. Instead of trying to cram it all into one article, I will instead use the Blick Mead site to talk about a more philosophical question on our ancient forebears. The sites spring gives us a perfect opportunity to explore a more philosophical/spiritual question.

The spring at Blick Mead, never freezes, while this might just seem an interesting anomaly at first, has some rather interesting consequences. Those who have ever tried their hand at gardening, or by chance happen to of run a farm, especially in the colder climates like Britain, will know that temperature is a key factor in germination. Now of course our Mesolithic ancestors were not farmers, they were hunter gatherers, but germination times are still important to their way of life.

The springs consistent temperature means that as the winter months began to come to an end, the area surrounding the pool, would be the first place in the local area to show the signs of spring. The slightly warmer water than the area around it, would raise the temperature of the surrounding earth by a couple of degrees. Much like how farmers and gardeners alike, cover their fields with fleeces, this small increase in warmth will give your plants a head start. This fresh vegetation would in turn draw to it local wildlife, looking for fresh shoots to eat after a barren and harsh winter, giving our ancestors perfect hunting grounds. Of course even in midwinter, it would still draw wild life especially if other watering holes had frozen over.

This is where the interesting question arises, “was our ancestors veneration due to practical reasons, or spiritual ones”. It would be quite easy for the atheistic mind to look at this scenario and say, there is nothing “magical” about this spring, it simply had important practical purposes, and our forebears unable to understand the reasoning behind it, in their ignorance simply attributed its uniqueness to some magical force of a God or Goddess.

As much as we may not wish to admit it, the atheistic mindset has a point rite? And one, if we wish to understand our ancestors we as more spiritually minded, have to answer, if we are to be resolved in our beliefs. If we refuse to answer such questions, we become no better than him. Like some eastern faux guru, all we have to offer is belief without substance, much as the atheist attributes everything to simply chaos of chance, we would attribute everything to simply some unseen unknowable force that has no practical grounding. One calls it chaos the other a divine force, but with neither able to explain its mechanisms, both are based on simple “faith” and nothing more.

I have always been slightly amused by archaeologists when they find a site they don’t fully understand. They will normally divide into two camps, that of practical or ritual. Similar to the example above, One side argues the unknown aspects have some practical purpose, whilst the other will attribute it to some ritual one. For me personally the argument seems rather silly, as if the divine is within nature, and nature is practical, then these two points should not be in opposition, but in harmony.

Now before I run off on a hundred different digressions, best we go back to Blick Mead. How can we bring harmony between the practical and the spiritual?

Well first we have to understand a little of what was going on at the site, again though we will have to keep this rather simple for practical purposes. The flints give us a clue, as given their condition it would be reasonable to assume they may have been votive offerings. To add to this there are also bronze age finds on the site. A bronze age knife was among them, this knife is of particular interest because its construction meant it would be not the most practical of tools. It was made from an old spear head, and was attached to the handle by only a single rivet, giving it limited usage. This was found alongside other Bronze age offerings and appear as the flints as classic votive offerings.

Votive offerings are one of the oldest forms of religious practice and we know it is religious in nature because it continued rite up until and past Roman times. Much like a prayer we have examples where offerings were made either to simply give praise to the Gods and Goddesses or to ask for assistance in times of need. The most common place for Votive offerings is ancient springs or where Rivers meet, so this too is in keeping with our site. In fact this tradition is still imprinted on our minds to this very day, not only do we have “holy wells” but if you have ever thrown a coin into a wishing well, you have practised the ancient tradition of votive offerings yourself. The wishing well being the last remnant of a tradition that goes back to the Mesolithic and possibly earlier, making it one of the earliest forms of worship we know of.

This gives us insight, albeit speculative, into the practices being conducted there, they were offering objects precious to them to some unknown God, Goddess, or force. They were giving thanks and possibly asking for assistance in hard times. This then would clearly make the practices there ritual in nature.

If we go out on a bit of a limb, we could also say that the Deity worshipped at the site may have had some significance to Spring time, given the practical nature of the site. Looking at comparative ideas from later times, we could also say maybe a Goddess dwells within the spring, as in its locality this chalklands Spring would be where spring time would appear to spring from.

So now we have a local Goddess that embodies the ideas of rebirth and spring, dwelling in some ancient watering hole. If though we are to accept the logical reasoning for the sites anomalies, then we cannot attribute them to a Goddess, as they can be explained away with the rational. If then The Goddess is not the reason for the phenomena then why is she there? Modern ideas of Gods are heavily influenced by Christianity, that of some all powerful force, that is the reason and creator of all things, in ancient times though this is not true. Ancient Pagan ideas have thousands of deities, all having specific but limited powers. For example Romans just didnt go around planting temples to any deity they wished willy nilly. Instead of “claiming” a land for a God of Goddess, it was more a case of finding out which one dwelt there. Over time national representations of these forces replaced more local ones, so some standardisation occurred, but there was very much the idea that Gods, Goddesses, ancestors or spirits would live in environments conductive of their powers and in harmony with them. So why a Goddess of spring would dwell in an area such as Blick Mead almost doesn’t need answering, it was simply because it was suited to her.

We can also look at this from a very practical standpoint and not just historical. Again through the simple observation of nature, we see that all things dwell in places that are suited for them. We in more natural times were no different. Take for example the first farmers, they did not just randomly place themselves anywhere, they would of sought out the most conductive environment for their practice. They had a mission, and that was to grow crops, so would find areas with all the correct conditions for the growing of strong and healthy crops. So as a living being, a Goddess with the mission to bring forth new life, would find the best start point for such activities, no?

The more atheistic among you may be going, hold on though, is this a bait and switch, what does this Goddess do then, if it is not create the environment? And again this is a fair question, and one that needs to be answered.

No matter how much you believe in the glorious creativity of chaos and chance, a question that still cannot be answered is life itself. We may know how to germinate a plant seed, and be able to break down all of the components that make it, but even with knowing its perfect environmental conditions and all the bits we need to recreate it, we can’t. The magical component of life, what the ancients would call the animating force, is still unknown to us. Thus the animating force still possesses within it a “magical” nature.

This article is already very long, but I will have to add a piece on Craig Venter’s work, as it will be used to critique the above statement. For those that do not know Craig venter is said to have “created a new lifeform” synthetically. He copied and replicated an existing genome synthetically, and added a watermark to the genome, then placed it in an existing organic “emptied” out cell. For me anyone claiming a copied genome placed into an existed biological cell is new life, is being a little optimistic. The whole story reads more like the tale of Frankenstein than the majesty and beauty of life.

Our ancestors were not so stupid that they would not have understood the practical nature of the environment. On the contrary being surrounded by the natural they would be experts in its observation, and as observation is akin to wisdom, they would be most wise in the logical nature of their surroundings. Yet they still attributed a special nature to the spring, one they endowed with a soul, a living consciousness and the power of animation. When facing the question of the animating force, they did not simply dismiss what they could not understand as some random occurrence, they through their observational wisdom saw a logical explanation that behind this fantastical time of year there was a powerful force of creation. One that by its perfection was no random event, but a concise one, that could only be the doing of a conscious creator.

Even if venter did create life, it would only serve to prove that life begets life, which is no new observation, but a timeless one and the very reason our ancestors saw within the spring a Goddess. The spiritual and the logical are not opposites, but reflections of each other.