An enduring landscape: Uncovering 8,000 years of life and death on the Cotswold Edge

Recent excavations at Milestone Ground on the eastern edge of Broadway have revealed one of the most intriguing archaeological landscapes yet found in Worcestershire. Beneath quiet pasture lay evidence of human activity stretching back 8,000 years, including Mesolithic flint tools, Bronze Age burials, hundreds of Iron Age storage pits, a Roman farmstead, and the largest late Roman cemetery known in the county. Constance Mitchell reports.

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Excavating the CA archive: The Norman Conquest

The news that the Bayeux Tapestry will be making a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Britain from September 2026 until July 2027 made me think about sites associated with the Norman Conquest that might be of interest to the readers of Current Archaeology

History of the National Trust

It is said that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body, so as well as trying (but not always succeeding) to keep the body trim by going for a short run every day, Sherds also (more successfully) sets aside time to spend with a book in the evening.

Who cares for places of worship?

Under the rather ponderous headline ‘Revealing Misunderstandings about Stewardship of Our Ancient Churches’, Historic England has just published the results of its survey into public awareness of the crisis facing the nation’s places of worship. The results show that people are blithely unaware that many are at risk of closure and sale.

Inscribed amphora fragment

What is it? This small sherd of pottery, measuring 6cm wide and 8cm long, comes from the lower part of a Roman amphora once used to hold olive oil. The fragment bears

The Edward Thomas Fellowship

Sadly, trains no longer stop at Adlestrop, the station that is the subject of Edward Thomas’ best-known poem. That was lost to the Beeching axe in 1966, but there are plenty of

Deir el-Bahri, 1894

The exquisite results can be seen in Paget’s watercolour of bulls from one wall, and Howards Carter’s reproduction of a scene in which Thutmosis I and his mother Seniseneb make offerings to the god Anubis.

Finds Tray: Fibula brooch

This copper-alloy fibula brooch was found by a metal detectorist in 2019, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and recently appeared as a star find in the Portable Antiquities Scheme Annual Report (see here).

Finds Tray – Silver pendant

This is a medieval or early post-medieval silver pendant, set with jet, which was found last August by a metal-detectorist near Bletchingley in Surrey. It is probably a pilgrim souvenir dating to

Last Word: Neil Faulkner

Neil was an interesting person, as he lived two lives. One was as an archaeologist, as a tour guide, excavator, and valued contributor to our magazines. But he also had another life, as a revolutionary Marxist…

Investigating the Venus of Willendorf

New research into the Venus of Willendorf has shed more light on the fascinating prehistoric figurine’s construction and its possible origins. The c.30,000-year-old statue is exactly 11cm tall and depicts a stylised,

In-depth features

Llanbedrgoch: Exploring a unique early medieval trading centre on Anglesey

Ninth-century Carolingian coins from the reigns of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald are not the sort of objects you would expect to find on a remote farm on the Isle of Anglesey, so, when metal-detectorists began reporting these and other exceptional artefacts from the early medieval period, the National Museum of Wales (now Amgueddfa Cymru) sent Mark Redknap, then Curator of Medieval and Later Archaeology, to investigate. Between 1994 and 2012, Mark led ten seasons of fieldwork on the site, revealing the remains of a trading settlement with a form unparalleled in Wales. With the full report recently published, Chris Catling describes its key findings.

Time flies: Marking five years since the return of Time Team

In 2021, an archaeological household name returned to our (computer) screens, as Time Team relaunched on YouTube. Carly Hilts visited the team at their first dig of 2026 and spoke to the show’s creator and Executive Producer Tim Taylor about how technology gave the show new life – and could transform the future of how archaeological stories are told.

A monumental legacy: Aubrey Burl and The Stone Circles of the British Isles

This year marks a century since the birth of the pioneering prehistorian Aubrey Burl, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of his landmark study The Stone Circles of the British Isles, which is often considered the foundational work on the subject. To reflect these milestones, Neil Mortimer offers an overview of how the book came into being – and the occasionally unconventional approach of its author.

W A Stewart’s reconstruction of Hetepheres’ furniture

In the last issue, AE 153, Peter Lacovara celebrated the meticulous work of Dows Dunham in excavating the Fourth Dynasty (c.2613-2494 BC) Tomb of Queen Hetepheres I at Giza. In this issue, marking the 100th anniversary of the tomb’s discovery, Geoffrey Killen explains how William Arnold Stewart reconstructed the furniture found in the tomb.

Reassembling Tutankhamun’s Tomb

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 produced one of the most detailed archaeological archives ever created. Daniela Rosenow describes a new digital platform, the Tutankhamun Spatial Archive, developed by the University of Oxford’s Griffith Institute, which brings together this vast body of records, allowing researchers and the public alike to explore the tomb, its contents, and its excavation in entirely new ways.

August Mariette

Our series highlighting often overlooked Egyptologists continues with the legacy of a founder of the discipline, reassessed by Amandine Marshall.

Buried on the boundary: Interpreting Venta Icenorum’s enigmatic ditch deposits

The latest excavation by the long-running Caistor Roman Project has uncovered a series of unusual deposits within the monumental triple ditches that encircled Venta Icenorum, capital of the Iceni. At the same time, recent GPR surveys have shed new light on aspects of the settlement that these once-imposing earthworks surrounded. Giles Emery and Will Bowden report.

A tempered history: Touring the material legacy of teetotalism

Temperance halls, hotels, coffee houses, memorials, and drinking fountains blossomed in the 19th century under the influence of the burgeoning teetotal movement. Most have now been converted to other uses, but they are still there – if you know where to look. A new Historic England book by Andrew Davison draws our attention to this forgotten heritage, as Chris Catling reports.

Hawai‘i: Maritime journeys and an island kingdom

The ocean is integral to the story of Hawai‘i. It carried the first Polynesian settlers to the archipelago, and linked an island chain spanning 2,400km. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it also provided pathways for international diplomacy and unexpected alliances. Matthew Symonds spoke to Alice Christophe about the seldom-told stories brought to light in a new major exhibition at the British Museum.

In the heart of the Sahara: Rock art of Wadi Djerat

A narrow wadi in Algeria contains a remarkable concentration of rock art. Christoph Baumer reveals how these images offer a glimpse of a changing world, as a land of lakes and grasslands transformed into the Sahara Desert.

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