They depict one of the most significant events in English history. Now a collection of incredibly rare maps representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada will remain in the country, following the success of a last-ditch fundraising appeal. After a sale last summer, it was feared that the set of…
It was once the launch centre for nuclear missiles capable of immense destruction. Now, a former military complex has found new life as an Airbnb guest house.…
A new home in Cardiff Bay for the Museum of Military Medicine has been given the green light by the local council. Currently based in the village of Mytchett, Surrey, where it was long known as the Army Medical Services Museum, the site contains a collection of more than 30,000…
Arguably, one of the biggest challenges that continually faces archaeology is accessibility. While that can be interpreted in several different ways, what I’m going to concentrate on in this month’s ‘Science Notes’ is access to data. With the advent of Open Access, as well as more excavations making it to…
Recent analysis of 12 teeth, first excavated at the Palaeolithic site of La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey between 1910 and 1911, may provide new evidence of cross-breeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in this region. The teeth were found behind a hearth in the cave, within the layers…
The remains of a Victorian bathhouse have recently been discovered beneath a car park in the Mayfield area of Manchester. The site was excavated by archaeologists from the University of Salford’s Centre for Applied Archaeology in advance of the development – plans for which include new residences, retail space, leisure…
The remains of an extravagant but previously unknown garden from the Elizabethan period have recently been revealed at Coleshill in Warwickshire. The site was first identified a few years ago during an aerial survey that revealed the remains of Coleshill Manor and an octagonal moat. For the past two years,…
A large Anglo-Saxon cemetery has recently been discovered at Overstone in Northamptonshire. With 154 interments, it is the largest burial ground from this period ever found in the county. The 15ha site was excavated by Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) throughout 2019, overseen by RPS Consulting, working on behalf of…
Recent research has potentially identified an intriguing new connection between Stonehenge and a partially dismantled stone circle in south-west Wales – furthering the connection between these two areas during the Neolithic period. Previous work on the origins of Stonehenge’s smaller stones, known as ‘bluestones’, has provided strong evidence to support…
Analysis of more than 300 human skeletons, recovered from three different medieval burial sites across Cambridge, has provided interesting new details of the city’s inhabitants, and the individual risks they may have faced based on their position in life. The sites all date to between the 10th and 16th centuries,…
Recent research on an intriguing assemblage of artefacts excavated from a Classic Maya sweat bath in Guatemala is revealing new details about ritual activity at the unusual structure. This sweat bath at Xultun, named Los Sapos (‘the toads’), was explored by archaeologists from the San Bartolo-Xultun Archaeological Project (directed by…
Home-improvements and gardening have been on the rise under lockdown in the UK, and, in a few cases, work in the garden has led to archaeological discoveries. One household in the New Forest area in southern England uncovered a Tudor coin hoard while pulling up weeds in their back garden.…
A Sulawesi warty pig painted in red ochre on an Indonesian cave wall may be the world’s oldest known representational image of an animal, dating back at least 45,500 years, according to a study recently published in Science Advances. Archaeologists from Griffith University and Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (ARKENAS) found…
A missing piece of wood, one of the three objects collected from the Great Pyramid of Giza by engineer Waynman Dixon in 1872, has been rediscovered in a cigar box in the University of Aberdeen’s museum collection. Two of the objects Dixon discovered in the Queen’s Chamber of the pyramid…
Recent excavations in the Regio V district of Pompeii have unearthed a well-preserved Roman thermopolium – a hot-food shop – in its entirety. The counter, with a painting of a Nereid (a sea nymph) riding on a seahorse was partially excavated in 2019 as part of the Great Pompeii Project.…
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 them and for what purpose? In this month’s ‘Science Notes’,…
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 between 2013 and 2015, however, a calamitous combination of damage…
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, could this be evidence of Roman reprisals against local groups…
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 this small find is one of only three artefacts ever…
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, which enabled them to follow up on geophysics carried out…