It is always a joy and a privilege to visit excavations on behalf of CA, but I seldom get to see a dig on the scale of the project currently under way beside the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. There, major road improvement works are allowing an entire historic landscape to be explored in minute detail, with finds spanning 6,000 years.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is relatively little sign of the dead among these discoveries – but burial grounds form the focus of a new exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands. Its displays draw together the latest research on the sweeping Roman cemeteries that once bounded Londinium. Behind the material evidence, we find powerful and poignant human stories dating back 2,000 years.

At ‘Rat Island’, off Portsmouth, storms have exposed lonely graves dug into unconsecrated beach shingle. Were their occupants Napoleonic-era prisoners of war, or civilian convicts from the prison ships that once moored in these waters, as local legends suggest? Moving from cutting-edge science to the heady early days of modern archaeological practice, we look back over the last 70 years with influential Norfolk archaeologist Peter Wade-Martins; while, at Stonehenge, we join an experiment examining how the famous bluestones may have been moved (my arms have only just recovered).

Finally, we recently received an email from the father of a nine-year-old girl called Rose. We were delighted to hear she has started to get involved in digging – and reading CA! – and her proud dad is asking for advice. We’re all in favour of helping inspire the next generation of archaeologists – why not read the letter on p.6 and let us know if you have any words of guidance or encouragement for budding diggers?

Carly Hilts