Barrow-born: archaeological practice as a literary device to evoke horror in the works of Nigel Kneale

We will explore how Nigel Kneale used archaeological and prehistoric sites and practices to evoke a sense of dread and horror in his writing and in translations of this work for film and television. The focus of the paper will be his use of the trope of archaeologists uncovering things that should have been left undisturbed – the dangers of deep time – and the ways that archaeological practices and research seem to have informed his work. It started, as it usually always does, with an excavation, in this case in Hobbs End underground station in London. Not only was this archaeological procedure the catalyst for the events in Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59 and 1967) but it was the arena within which horror played itself out until it could no longer be contained within the trench. Subsequently a whole host of instances of what Adam Scovell has termed ‘ancient evil’ escaping or extracted appeared in Kneale’s works. Prehistoric and ancient evils were unleashed in various ways: initially by more scientists, essentially aural archaeologists, in The Stone Tape (1972), but increasingly by others – a vet (the Beasts episode Baby, 1976), youths (Quatermass IV, 1977), a deranged entrepreneur (Halloween 3 Season of the Witch, 1982). This shows a progression from the dangers of doing archaeology towards the dangers of the archaeology itself. Moshenska has called this the ‘archaeological uncanny’, a general fictionalised unease with what archaeologists might be uncovering. This is also a recurring theme in the horror writing of MR James and HP Lovecraft, and more recently has found itself expressed in folk horror film and TV. Francis Young has termed this ‘archaeophobia’ defined as “the terrifying consequences of dabbling in archaeology”. Therefore, in our chapter, Kneale’s work will be situated in broader discourse about caricatures of our discipline especially within fiction, film, and TV of the horror genre. We will also explore Kneale’s descriptions and depictions of archaeologists at work, and what might have informed his writing about megaliths and pagan rites. This will be the first assessment of Kneale’s works from an academic archaeological perspective.