Letters from CA February 2021/March 2021
Your thoughts on the London Blitz, Cerne Abbas Giant, and Dad's Army
Current Archaeology
Finds tray – Iron Age swan neck pin
This is a complete copper-alloy ‘swan’s neck’ pin, a kind of artefact generally dated to the Iron Age. It comprises a circular flathead, which appears sub-rectangular in cross-section with rounded edges. Each flat side of the pinhead is decorated with…
Reviving Ousdale Broch
A recent conservation project has breathed new life into an Iron Age broch in northern Scotland. The Ousdale Broch, just south of Berriedale in Caithness, used to be considered one of the best-preserved brochs in the region. At some point…
Assessing the accessibility of Atxurra
Cave painting is one of the earliest forms of human culture, one of the first outlets of our creativity. But the meaning that these paintings had to the communities who created them remains a bit of a mystery. Who painted…
Artists on the edge of the world: exploring the British Isles’ earliest art at Les Varines, Jersey
Archaeologists excavating a 15,000-year-old campsite at Les Varines, Jersey, have recovered ten fragments of stone decorated with hundreds of interweaving lines. Recently published analysis of these ‘plaquettes’ suggests that they may represent the earliest artworks yet identified in the British Isles. Carly Hilts reports.
World News: Norway, Indonesia, Spain
Viking ship burial in Norway A Viking ship burial was recently discovered at Gjellestad, Norway, during a ground-penetrating radar survey. It is now being excavated by the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. The ship is just one part of…
Evidence of Roman reprisals in Essex?
A recently revealed Iron Age settlement in Cressing, near Braintree in Essex, appears to have been almost completely destroyed during the second half of the 1st century AD. Dating to around the time of the Boudican uprising of AD 60/61,…
Caistor Roman Project gets a boost
Caistor Roman Project (CRP) – a community archaeology group centred around the Roman town of Venta Icenorum at present-day Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk – received an unexpected morale-booster in August: an emergency grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund,…
Great Pyramid artefact found in Aberdeen
In December 2019, a small fragment of cedar, which had been missing for more than 70 years, was rediscovered within the collections of the University of Aberdeen. The fragment may, at first glance, seem unprepossessing, except for the fact that…
News in brief
Surveying Dunfermline Abbey A recent project led by Dr Michael Penman from the University of Stirling in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland has conducted a series of ground-penetrating radar surveys of Dunfermline Abbey, revealing the possible layout of the original…
Unusual burial discovered in Leith
A recent excavation along Constitution Street in Leith, in advance of an extension to the Edinburgh tram line to Newhaven, has uncovered hundreds of human remains from a late medieval cemetery and, underneath it, a mysterious stand- alone burial. The…
Bronze Age monument uncovered in the New Forest
Community excavations on the Beaulieu Estate in the New Forest have uncovered an enigmatic Bronze Age monument, as well as evidence for Mesolithic activity, greatly adding to our knowledge of how this area of Hampshire was used during prehistory. Aerial…
Neanderthal neighbours: tracing evidence for our closest hominin relatives in Britain
Neanderthals have long been stereotyped as our less-capable cousins, but advances in archaeological research have given fascinating new insights into the lives of our closest hominin relatives and the world they inhabited, as Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes explains.
Current Archaeology Live! 2021 Conference
It is almost time for Current Archaeology Live! 2021, which will run from 26 to 28 February. While this year’s event will be entirely online, and things will look a bit different to what you are used to, we still…
Britain’s first 5th-century mosaic identified?
New dating evidence from Chedworth Roman Villa in Gloucestershire may have identified Britain’s first-known 5th-century mosaic, researchers have announced. Founded in the 2nd century and reaching its zenith 200 years later, the Cotswold site is one of the country’s largest…
Mapping the coast edge: Flimston Bay, Pembrokeshire
Flimston is a baseline study site for the EU-funded Ireland–Wales CHERISH project (2017-2023), which is studying climate change and eroding coastal heritage in Ireland and Wales.
Impinging on the Past: a rescue excavation at Fladbury, Worcestershire, 1967
The report on this significant site is most welcome. While earlier and later prehistoric features were present, as well as a small Roman cemetery, the chief interest lies with the mid-Saxon oven/grain-dryer complex. This feature was clearly explored most determinedly,…
The Archaeology of East Oxford – Archeox: the development of a community
Think of the archaeology of Oxford and thoughts will inevitably turn to the historic city centre. In the suburbs, however, there is a heritage every bit as rich and distinct. The Archeox project was set up to investigate the archaeology…
A Biography of Power: research and excavations at the Iron Age oppidum of Bagendon, Gloucestershire (1979-2017)
Bagendon has long been the poor relation of British late Iron Age oppida, lurking on the distribution’s western fringe. Its extensive, intermittent ramparts have long been known, but only in the 1950s did limited excavations reveal its character. Tom Moore’s…
Offa’s Dyke Journal, Volume 1
The archaeological societies founded in the 19th century embraced all aspects of the discipline, and from about the beginning of the 20th century societies came to be formed. In recent years, they have been joined by more-specialist societies and journals.…