A "divine" purpose? The legacy of T. C. Lethbridge - Topics, Notes And Comments

From them one learns to recognise the great gulf which exists between those who really use their brains to solve important questions and those who think that anything can be answered if you dig a big enough hole (Acknowledgements in T.C. Lethbridge, 1957).

Introduction

The year 2001 marks the one-hundredth year since the birth of one of the most compelling, if not controversial, figures in the history of twentieth-century British Archaeology. Thomas "Tom" Lethbridge (1901-71) was at one time an honorary keeper of Anglo-Saxon antiquities at the University of Cambridge, author of a number of books on the British Dark Ages and maritime archaeology, a leading light in the Cambridge Antiquarian Society; but he is perhaps better known today as the pioneer in the scientific study of one of the most arcane aspects of archaeological survey: dowsing. The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the legacy of this intriguing man--a former fellow of the Society of Antiquaries--after the centenary of his birth and the thirtieth year since his death. Before considering the controversies that surrounded his life, a brief biographical sketch of Lethbridge is needed to frame the context for his later ideas, which crystallised as a reaction to a rather rigorous and unbending training as an antiquarian.

Lethbridge: The Man and the Archaeologist

Lethbridge's academic and own personal life could be seen as a perfect conventional paradigm. Born into an old Devonian family, he was educated at Wellington College and went up to Trinity College Cambridge ostensibly to read for the Natural Sciences Tripos, but he ultimately came into the formidable orbit of Louis Clark, the then Director of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and a lifelong interest in archaeological fieldwork was kindled. Lethbridge made three expeditions to the Arctic between 1921 and 1937, but ultimately found his interest in the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England and, as a man of extensive means, he was able to indulge what was becoming more than a mere hobby. Lethbridge's obituary in the Antiquaries' Journal of 1972 hints already that he was beginning to acquire a more curious approach to the past, something that would have initially sublimated itself in a preoccupation with experimental archaeology, but would later lead to other things. Lethbridge, according to his obituary, emphasised "experimental testing of what he found by observation," but also "respected the work of others, yet he preferred to test that too" (Anonymous 1972).

The apogee of Lethbridge's career in mainstream academia came with his appointment as honorary Keeper of Anglo-Saxon antiquities at the museum in Cambridge, but it would be fair to suggest that Lethbridge never really felt at home here, despite his leading a number of excavations for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and his publishing extensively. The eminent archaeological historian, Glyn Daniel, noted this theme in his Antiquity editorial in the year after Lethbridge's death. Daniel stated that that this "colourful, stimulating, provocative and often controversial" figure never felt as if he was a member of the mainstream archaeological establishment. Daniel attributes this feeling of insecurity to a "dilettante" outlook and emphasises Lethbridge's "semi-professional" status (Daniel 1972). As an archaeologist, he had a distinguished if fairly unspectacular reputation, but perhaps Lethbridge needed more of a challenge; it is almost as if he anticipated the widening interest in popular archaeology that has burgeoned in recent years.

Lethbridge's book Merlin's Island shows how his ideas were steadily developing in the context of his later interests (Lethbridge 1948); essentially a personal book, filled with anecdote and reminiscences, it was rather aimed at a wider, popular audience. Although it was not generally appreciated by academic reviewers, this work occasionally met with qualified praise. Typical of the tone of the reviewers is a piece from the respected journal Antiquity (Wainwright 1948). The reviewer suggests that Lethbridge's views are "not likely to be taken seriously," but half-admiringly, perhaps, concedes that Lethbridge "has not written a cautious book for cautious scholars." Lethbridge's written style, which according to the reviewer stripped away the technical minutiae, wins praise too, as does his continued emphasis on what may be now termed as experimental archaeology. It was the Gogmagog controversy, however, that could really be seen as the main departure point in Lethbridge's academic career.

The publication of Gogmagog: The Buried Gods (Lethbridge 1957) ruffled some feathers in the conventional and somewhat rarefied atmosphere of the Cambridge archaeological milieu. During the few years prior to this study, Lethbridge had fallen under the influence of one of the greatest characters of post-war British archaeology, Margaret Murray. On the one hand, Murray was an archaeologist of enviable reputation, but she too had an interest in the more arcane aspects of her discipline, especially in the concept that witches represented the female leaders of a pre-Christian fertility cult. Many scholars have investigated the idea of an archetypal female earth deity in prehistory. The poet Robert Graves's book The White Goddess, for instance, draws on a plethora of classical and biblical sources to promote the concept of a universal female deity (Graves 1948, passim). In recent years, the late archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has used the image of the mother goddess to drive home the concept of an androcentric nature of early Neolithic societies, although this concept is now regarded as being archaeologically unfashionable and largely untenable on current evidence (for example, Fleming 1969; Hutton 1997).