A Victorian 3D image thought to be the earliest-known family photograph to have been taken at Stonehenge has been identified in the collection of Queen guitarist Dr Brian May. CA went to see the ‘stereo view’ on display at the monument’s visitor centre.…
Found over a number of weeks in 1942 and1943, the treasure that was dredged from Llyn Cerrig Bach, a small peat-filled lake on the Isle of Anglesey, is still revealing new information 70 years after it was found, as Chris Catling reports.…
The extraction of slate from the hills of Snowdonia is not just an industry – it is a way of life bound up with chapel, politics, and the preservation of the Welsh language. Chris Catling explains why the Welsh Royal Commission is supporting efforts to have this industrial landscape…
Until recently, Leicester’s Roman cemeteries had seen little major excavation, and their burial practices were poorly understood. Now an investigation in the city’s West End has given a wealth of new insights into the Roman town’s diverse population, as Mathew Morris reveals.…
For decades, the accepted view of the Orcadian Neolithic was one of two cultural packages with a sharp break in the middle. New research has revealed a much more complex and nuanced picture, however. Carly Hilts spoke to Colin Richards to find out more.…
In October, the contents of the Metropolitan Police’s Crime Museum went on public display for the first time at the Museum of London. This teaching collection has amassed artefacts from a succession of notorious crimes, but it also invites us to reflect on their legacy, as Jackie Keily told Matthew…
At its peak, New Bailey was the largest jail in England, but its imposing Georgian buildings were designed on the basis of radical progressive ideals. Modern development has wiped away all traces of the pioneering prison above ground, but archaeologists are now bringing its methods to light once more, as…
These remains come from sites scattered from the Scottish Highlands to Dorset, and range in date from c.2200-750 BC…
Just how quickly did Bronze Age people bury their dead? New work by Lauren Bailey, Martin Green, and Martin J Smith at Canada Farm suggests that they went to some lengths to display the deceased prior to their finally entering the earth.…
Excavations in Colchester have revealed where a couple stashed their valuables before Boudicca sacked the city. These artefacts, and the charred debris found strewn above them, provide a poignant insight into those on the receiving end of the Iceni’s wrath. First, Philip Crummy and Adam Wightman shed light on…
'The ship operated as a trade vessel, but was commandeered three times, before being finally ordered into service by Philip II of Spain as part of his Armada campaign.’…
A new horizon has opened up at Butser Ancient Farm, the famed experimental archaeology site. A Neolithic enclosure now joins the farm’s recreated Iron Age and Roman dwellings. Tiffany Francis brings us up to date.…
What was it like to be a child growing up within the turbulence and destruction of Reformation England? Drawing on his research of over 4,500 skeletons, Bennjamin Penny-Mason reveals an untold story.…
Stonehenge has to be the most intensively studied prehistoric monument in the world, which begs the question: ‘is there anything left to say?’ A new English Heritage study of the wider Stonehenge World Heritage Site landscape has come up with a few surprising facts which, if not all new, are…
Everyone has heard of the aqueducts of Rome, but what about those of Medieval Exeter? Professor Mark Stoyle is on a mission to make them better known, as Chris Catling reports.…
The Scottish island of Iona was one of the most influential Christian centres in Early Medieval Europe. But how much of its first monastery, built in the 6th century, has survived to the present day? As 2013, the 1,450th anniversary of its foundation, approached, it was time to find out,…
What did the fragmentary Bronze Age boats found around Britain look like when complete, and what were they like to handle? The best way to find out, Robert Van de Noort told Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts, is to build one yourself.…
Burnt mounds are an archaeological enigma: recent discoveries at Hoppenwood Bank, a bog near Bamburgh in Northumberland, call into question even the little we thought we knew. They show that some of these mainly Bronze Age features date back to the Early Neolithic, and are associated here with a series…
As the asparagus season gets under way, and possible Romano-British asparagus beds are discovered in Cambridge, Stefanie Hoss explores how a Mediterranean passion for this delicacy developed offshoots in the northern provinces.…
For up to 4,500 years, a series of sunken dug-out canoes have been lying, forgotten, on the bottom of Lough Corrib in Co. Galway. Now these vessels are beginning to surrender their secrets once more, in an investigation by Ireland’s Underwater Archaeology Unit, spearheaded by Karl Brady.…
Major new restoration work at Knole, one of England’s greatest mansions, has granted archaeologists access to previously hidden spaces, and uncovered a forgotten history. Nathalie Cohen takes us for a tour.…