Small is beautiful: exploring the drawbacks of megacities

Haunted by Ostrogothic and Hunnic raids, Panticapaeum still survived as a Byzantine citadel. It lived through a succession of Khazar and Slavic lordships to become the modern city of Kerch, now once more trying to persist through a precarious situation in the current war in Ukraine.…

DNA, diets, and dealing with the weather

Svante Pääbo is the second member of his family to be elected a Nobel laureate: his father, Sune Bergström (1916-2004) shared the same Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1982. Is there a gene, one wonders, for Nobel-Prize-winning science?…

War Classic: Zola’s ‘The Debacle’

La Débâcle prefigures both the changing nature of warfare, and the ongoing struggle of France’s national identity. Within 22 years, another generation would be sacrificed defending their homeland.…

Ancient DNA and ‘Anglo-Frisians’

I have a personal dislike of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to describe the people and culture of southern and eastern Britain from the 4th to the 8th centuries because it is anachronistic – it implies homogeneity where I see much more interesting diversity…

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Excavating Scotland

Moving geographically west to east, we then come to Bearsden on the north-west outskirts of Glasgow. This site is, if not the most excavated of Antonine sites, then certainly that most visited by Current Archaeology.…

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Review – The Lost King

to highight Langley’s contribution, the film underplays or completely omits the work of the many female academics who played a key role in the project. Jo Appleby does appear in some scenes, but others like Turi King, Deirdre O’Sullivan, and Lin Foxhall are absent.…

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Odin: wisdom, war, and poetry

Odin is a war god, fomenting conflict to see who is worthy of entering his hall, Valhalla, and ultimately fighting at Ragnarök (the events, including a battle, at the end of the world). But he is also a god of magic and wisdom, something he is always seeking…

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John Wesley Gilbert (1863-1923)

Gilbert was one of the first Americans – of any ethnicity – to undertake archaeological work in Greece. There, he is likely to have met Heinrich Schliemann, rediscoverer of Troy, and certainly he did groundbreaking excavation work on the neighbourhoods of Athens…

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A century of Tutankhamun

What Carter and his Egyptian team found at the bottom of the stairs and along a short corridor stunned the world, of course – especially those countries barely beginning to recover from the dreadful losses of the First World War.…

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Excavating Northamptonshire

If there is a challenger to Piddington’s crown as the ‘prime’ site of Northamptonshire, then the multi-period site of Raunds in the north-east of the county, with its intriguing history of early medieval and later settlement, is a strong contender.…

Heritage on the River Thames

I was reminded of his contempt for journalism during the summer, when the BBC and scores of newspapers that consider themselves serious reported that the drought was so severe that the source of the River Thames had dried up.…

Animal habits

One common motif is that of a knight in armour engaging in combat with a snail. Another is that of the killer rabbit, shown wielding sword, axe, or bow and arrow as it fights against those hunting it.…

Evolution in the air: the urban conundrum

The human ape, with our big, social brain, is well suited to a life of dense social interaction. So, when faced with limited resources and growing populations, similar solutions tend to present themselves – in very different corners of the planet.…

Ancient newsreels

It portrays a ferocious Maya chief clad in a jaguar skin, with a jaguar’s head on his own, spearing an unfortunate captive. First seen by an outsider in 1946, the paintings are as close a reflection as you are likely to see of life in an elite Maya centre.…

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War Classic: The Campaigns of Napoleon

Chandler sees Napoleon as a gifted improviser whose operations were nonetheless underpinned by certain consistent principles. Amongst his key skills as a commander were a personal charisma that inspired and moulded others to his will…

Excavating Staffordshire

Staffordshire’s coverage in terms of prehistory begins intriguingly late. The one big surprise to me while researching this column was that the oldest sites featured only date to the Iron Age. If you are an archaeologist at work in the county, here is a chance to remedy this.…

Pagans and folklore

I was conscious of being several decades older than most of the other graduates, but as Rosemary Cramp said when I told her about my plans, ‘Nobody under 50 should study for a PhD because they don’t have enough experience to make an original contribution.’…

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Halet Çambel

This ruined city had richly carved monumental gateways and, even more significant, an 8th-century BC stela that, bearing the same text in both the Phoenician alphabet and Luwian hieroglyphics, gave Çambel the key to unlock the Luwian language for future scholars.…

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