When it was completed in 1209, medieval London Bridge was the only fixed crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston-upon-Thames (until Fulham Bridge was built in 1729). Remarkably, it was also home to some 500 people – equivalent to the population of a small medieval town. In London Bridge and…
Thomas Hardy’s second novel – Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) – is a masterpiece of rural comedy with a tragedy at its heart: the usurpation of the centuries-old tradition of church music, represented by the loss of the west-gallery musicians and singers from the Mellstock Quire in favour of the…
Excavations at a site believed to have been used as a ‘summerhouse’ by Alasdair Ruadh ‘Maclain’ MacDonald, chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe from 1646 to 1692, have revealed a coin hoard underneath the grand fireplace. The University of Glasgow carried out the excavations in Glencoe this past August, as…
Earliest engravings? A series of marks, found in the La Roche-Cotard cave on the north bank of the Loire River in France, could be the earliest examples of Neanderthal engravings yet found. Surveys of the cave walls in 2013 and 2016 found a series of shallow engravings, including more than…
When a team from Oxford Archaeology and RPS Consulting were called in to evaluate a brownfield site at King’s Hedges, on the northern outskirts of Cambridge, they did not expect to come across much as the site had already seen significant development. To their surprise, however, a number of exciting…
Work by MOLA in advance of the development of a Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire has uncovered the remains of an experimental catapult from the Second World War. Known from historical records, the catapult in question was called the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Mark III Catapult and was…
Extensive excavations near Newark-on-Trent have revealed a complex farmstead that was in use from the late Iron Age through to the Roman period. Back in June, the investigations – carried out by MOLA ahead of the construction of the Newlink Business Park – revealed the remains of two Roman wells…
This is an early medieval brooch made from a gilded silver penny, which was found over a year ago by a metal-detectorist in Wiltshire. It was recently acquired by the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, after having been declared Treasure. The penny from which the brooch is made was struck in…
Survey records 30 wrecks sunk during Operation Dynamo Over the course of two weeks in September and October, DRASSM (the French marine heritage agency), in partnership with Historic England, carried out a survey of 30 shipwrecks sunk during Operation Dynamo, which saw the mass evacuation of 338,000 Allied soldiers from…
When you envisage Greek statues and friezes, you probably picture pure white marble sculptures, pockmarked with age – that is, after all, how they appear today. But that was not how they appeared to the ancient Greeks who made them, and carefully carved them with detailed textures and painted them…
New research is calling into question the origin and function of the Altar Stone at Stonehenge. A century ago, Herbert Thomas announced that the non-sarsens, dolerites, and volcanic tuffs making up the Stonehenge bluestones had been transported to Wiltshire from outcrops in the Preseli Hills in west Wales. He knew,…
A pair of Roman swords – the first to be found in the Cotswolds, and thought to be only the second time two have been found in the same context in the whole of Britain – has been discovered during a metal-detecting rally in Gloucestershire. The swords were found by…
REVIEW BY KK For those not familiar with the eponymous ‘bone chests’, they are the – rather innocuous-looking – wooden chests placed high atop the choir screens in Winchester Cathedral, which, based on the names written on the outsides, purportedly contain the remains of some of the most famous Anglo-Saxon…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions…
REVIEW BY VICKI CUMMINGS Six miles from Belfast city centre is the monumental complex at Ballynahatty. Today, the circular earthwork known as the Giant’s Ring, with a small megalith set at its centre, is still visible, but once this was one of the major late Neolithic complexes of Ireland (see…
REVIEW BY CH In the 4th century AD, a modest defended farmstead was established close to what is now Roscommon, in the Irish county of the same name, and over the next 1,000 years it evolved into a much more complex and higher-status settlement, accompanied by an equally enduring cemetery.…
REVIEW BY CH This magazine should reach you in November, bridging the period between Hallowe’en and Christmas – both dates traditionally associated with the sharing of spooky stories. If you would like your frights to have an archaeological flavour, this slim but spine-chilling volume should do the trick (or treat),…
REVIEW BY KK Rogers’ book serves well as a succinct introduction to the Roman towns of Britain. It starts by discussing how these towns evolved, whether de novo or through the expansion of pre-existing settlement sites, and highlights the different types of development, from civitas to coloniae. It then goes…
REVIEW BY AB Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire might be a peaceful spot today, but this steep valley on the River Severn was once a hub of industry and manufacturing, and the site of several key developments that drove the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the region is often regarded as…
• Pinnacle of power: the Iron Age hillforts of Wales
• A monumental mystery: the evolution of Arthur’s Stone
• A Cheshire treasure: unpicking the Knutsford Hoard
• The Hidden Valley: seeking Anglo-Saxons in in rural Lincolnshire
• Excavating Ankerwycke: from priory to pleasure ground…
In CA 388 we asked, ‘what are hillforts for?’, and Toby Driver’s new book Hillforts of Iron Age Wales has some suggestions. Based on his many years spent recording these monuments on the ground and from the air, he concludes that no single explanation fits every example. Rather, like terraces…