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Excavating the Hebrides

the star of the show is undoubtedly Cladh Hallan in the south of the island, famous for its Bronze Age ‘mummies’, the earliest evidence of deliberate mummification found in Britain.

Minerva: cultivating wisdom

A deity of wisdom and war, born fully grown, and armed, from the head of her father Zeus/Jupiter, Minerva – and her Greek counterpart Athena – played an important part in Greek and Roman religion.

Becoming an archaeologist

Archaeology is not immune to wider social changes... the #BlackLivesMatter movement focused attention on the colonial pasts of many nations and on the challenges of the post-colonial present.

Seasons and the city

Even reputable observers like Pliny the Younger often ended up at the mercy of the competence of later scribes. As his writings only survive as copies, it may be no more than a scribal slip of the hand that immortalised August as the month when Pompeii met its fate.

Right Ban Non Wat from the air. The excavations took place under the tall central building with a yellow roof.

A chicken coup

An infant who died at birth during the fourth Bronze Age phase was interred with a hen’s egg over the left hand; perhaps the infant was holding it when placed in the grave. What better symbol can be found for the regeneration of life itself than an egg?

War Classics: Crucible of War

Venturing beyond the ultimate British victory in North America, Anderson delves into parallel conflicts in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and India, as well as a subsequent uprising by Native Americans in Pontiac’s War of 1763

Above There are many multi period sites in Scotland that have been highlighted over the decades: CA 360 reported on the Tarradale Through Time Project, which uncovered the history of the Black Isle from the Mesolithic to post medieval period, while CA 280 investigated the inhabitation of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula from the Neolithic to the 19th century.

Excavating the Highlands

To many, this part of the country is the ‘definitive’ Scottish landscape of their dreams, the stuff of countless movies and TV shows. To less romantically inclined archaeologists, it is a place forged by the environmental extremes experienced there.

ABove Hilda Petrie (1871 1956) climbs down a rope ladder into an excavation shaft.

Hilda Petrie (1871-1956)

Having learnt Arabic, Hilda would hire and pay their workers. She slept in a hut at Tarkhan with 80 skulls by her bed, living off canned pilchards and bully beef.

1922.5377 Didrachm (Coin) Depicting the God Janus

Janus: two-faced god of beginnings

As we enter a new year, many of us find ourselves both reflecting on the past and making plans for the future. This dual outlook is embodied by the two-faced god Janus, who governed the first month of the year in ancient Rome

Unlocking Prehistoric Houses

Down we probed into each and, before long, another surprise. Each contained a human skeleton, ranging from an adult woman to a child and, finally, a new-born infant. They were burying the dead under the floorboards!

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?

RIGHT The latest CA was a special issue, highlighting new evidence of migration in the early medieval period.

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

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.

Left Sally Hawkins as Philippa Langley.

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.

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

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

Left A famous face: Tutankhamun’s gold mask. From The Story of Tutankhamun.

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.

Above & Left Northamptonshire is home to many rich Roman sites, such as the Roman villa at Piddington, which has featured several times in the magazine, including in CA 146, and at Priors Hall near Corby, where the discovery of a villa, linked industrial site, and intriguing Roman Celtic temple mausoleum was detailed in CA 370.

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.

Below This sculpture of Neptune, carved by Raffaele Monti for the 1851 Great Exhibition, was originally positioned at the head of the Thames in Trewsbury Mead, but was relocated in 1974 to St John’s Lock, Lechlade, due to vandalism.

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.

RIGHT The unicorn has been a popular creature in mythology for many centuries, and often appeared in medieval art. This tapestry is part of a series of wall hangings known as The Hunt of the Unicorn.

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.

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

Right Featuring in the news section of CA 188, this colourful 2nd century AD bronze dish, known as the ‘Moorlands pan’, was found in 2003 along the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border; inscribed on it are the names of several forts along Hadrian’s Wall.

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.’