Interpersonal violence has been a fact of human existence for much of our long history – but how far is this reflected in the archaeological record? With a major new exhibition now open at the National Museum of Scotland, Matthew G Knight and Hannah Boddy examine traces of past conflicts spanning 4,000 years, and consider how to present these stories to modern audiences.
The Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) has been excavating sites along the banks of the River Great Ouse since 1994, keeping one step ahead of sand- and gravel-quarrying that is steadily transforming the landscape from solid ground to a series of lakes that will eventually form a large nature reserve. Chris Catling reports on the latest volume to emerge from this project, which brings together a series of excavations exploring a c.5km length of the river at the point where it enters the Fen marshlands near Earith in Cambridgeshire.
Many of Cornwall’s churches preserve centuries-old murals of saints and religious scenes. Laura Miucci shares some of the stories behind these colourful creations, and explores how organised Community Archaeology visits to sites like these can boost the well-being of participants.
The discovery of two Viking hoards in 2011 yielded silver coins, ingots, and jewellery. Dot Boughton, Gareth Williams, and Barry Ager reveal how they also provide a window into a turbulent time.
Prehistoric forests, the skull of a child, the slipway of a Victorian engineering masterpiece and part of a Tudor palace jetty: all have emerged from the mud and gravel on the foreshore of the Thames, thanks to an exciting new project to record the archaeology of London’s great river. Nathalie Cohen tells CA about the Thames Discovery Programme.
Sensational discoveries of metal masks in a subterranean temple have led to calls for Javanese history to be rewritten. Fiorella Rispoli investigates.
Divers recently discovered a 3,000 year-old shipwreck near Salcombe, which carried a huge cargo of copper and tin: is this the first evidence for Late Bronze Age long-distance maritime trade in bulk goods? Chris Yates, of the South West Maritime Archaeological Group, explains.
In Brian Fagan’s latest instalment of all things archaeological that are both exotic and entertaining, he reads a Jamestown tablet, gets spiritual with the Hopewell, and finds gomphotheres with Clovis points.
Crete lies in an earthquake zone. This has affected the island over the centuries, but how? Although never fully recognised, in the 1850s Captain Spratt, of the Royal Navy, worked it out. Dudley Moore explains.
Today, only 20 people live on Foula, and the ferry takes just one car at a time. More than 3,000 years ago, Bronze Age people erected a monument of 290 standing stones on the tiny, rocky, storm-battered island of Foula. As John Oswin reports, members of the Bath and Camerton Archaeological Society – working a long way from home – have been exploring.
How do you deal with a witch? In 17th century England, the answer was obvious: you prepare a ‘witch bottle’, with contents equally as bizarre as those in the cauldron of Shakespeare’s
In 1969, fire raged through this exceptional Elizabethan house. Paul Drury explains what archaeologists were able to rescue from the burnt-out husk.
Geography made a unitary empire embracing the Mediterranean and temperate Europe inherently unstable; but the wreckage of the Roman Empire contained the building blocks of modern Europe. In the third and final part of our series based on Cunliffe’s new book, Europe between the Oceans, we chart the changes from Caesar to Charlemagne.
In CA 224 we reported a splendid new discovery from Vindolanda. The excavators – and just about everyone else – thought it was part of a calendar. Not so, says leading ancient technology specialist Michael Lewis. It is something much more spectacular. The 8cm-long bronze fragment turns out to be part of one the most sophisticated technical devices known to antiquity: an anaphoric water-clock.
The former frontiers of the Roman Empire are set to become the world’s biggest single archaeological site. UNESCO World Heritage Site status is now in prospect for the frontiers as a whole. Historic Scotland’s David Breeze is a leading advocate of the move. Neil Faulkner asked him to explain why the Roman imperial frontiers deserve such special treatment.
The Bamburgh Research Project is picking up the pieces of the archaeological work started by legendary eccentric Dr Brian Hope-Taylor, who had left virtually no record of his excavations – or so it was believed. The story of Bamburgh is two-fold: before properly investigating the site, the team must first excavate the archaeologist who worked there 60 years ago.
In the second part of our mini-series based on Barry Cunliffe’s new book Europe between the Oceans, our focus is the period c.2800-140 BC. We see the rise and fall of great civilisations, and a looming clash between a Mediterranean-based superpower and the Celtic peoples of Iron Age Europe. Once again, it is the movement of people, goods, and ideas that is central to Cunliffe’s vision of Europe’s distinctive history.
How were Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs or Minoan Linear B deciphered? Drawing on his latest masterful book, Lost Languages, author Andrew Robinson hands us the keys to decoding the past.
Barry Cunliffe’s latest book represents the synthesis of half a century studying the archaeology of Europe, an achievement comparable with that of Gordon Childe in the 1930s. In this article, and in two more to follow in succeeding issues, Current Archaeology summarises his conclusions.
Apart from his red hair, beard, giant girth and his equally gargantuan appetite for wives, the one thing we all associate with Henry VIII is the event that the authors of 1066 and All That called, with an eye for a memorable spelling mistake, ‘the Disillusion of the Monasteries’.
In the early 18th century, Palladian style ruled England as the most fashionable for a British country house or public building. The man responsible, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753), designed the building that started this architectural revolution. English Heritage archaeologists have recently had a rare chance to investigate Britain’s first ‘Palladian’ country house.
The Gods of the Pacific are powerful gods. Some have called them idols – more have called them art. And the Gods of the Pacific have had an enormous influence on European art throughout the 20th century. The Gods were powerful, and their power could be dangerous as well as life-enhancing. And this power had to be contained: the Polynesians had a word for the means by which this power could be contained and controlled: Tapu. Tapu means ‘marked’ or ‘set apart’: anything that was Tapu had to be wrapped and kept separate. And the word Tapu has also migrated to Europe and has become our word Taboo.
Stonehenge is merely one part of a much wider sacred landscape represented today by the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The evidence is mounting that Stonehenge itself represented a domain of the ancestors, and, as such, a place in which the final rites were performed in elaborate ceremonies marking the passage of the recently deceased from life to death.