This Bronze Age button comes from a hoard of three copper-alloy items that also included two axe heads. One of the axe heads was noticed by a farm worker in 2021, while backfilling a water pipe trench in Lessingham, Norfolk.…
Archaeology is often confused with palaeontology – with most archaeologists having been asked at least once in their career about the most interesting fossil they have found. Now archaeologists from Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT), at least, can provide an answer…
Norwich today has more medieval churches than any other city north of the Alps. The Brooke Commission concluded in 1970 that only six were required for parish worship and that either alternative uses should be found for the rest or they should be demolished. Fortunately, 31 remain, with half a dozen continuing to be used as churches and 18 in the care of the Norwich Historic Churches Trust. A newly published and sumptuously illustrated interdisciplinary study shows us what these churches can tell us about the city’s past and its people, as Chris Catling reports.
Two recent discoveries – Britain’s largest hoard of Iron Age gold coins and a series of unusual elite burials – unearthed about 8km (5 miles) apart on opposite sides of Chelmsford, have shed vivid light on the area’s Iron Age importance, and how local communities responded to the turbulent period around the Roman conquest. Carly Hilts spoke to Angus Forshaw and visited a new exhibition of some of the finds.
A recently discovered high-status burial offers rare insights into ancient funerary practices and Colchester’s late Roman past. Carly Hilts spoke to Laura Pooley at a new exhibition about the finds.
The discovery of a 1,400-year-old die-stamp in Kent, bearing imagery strikingly similar to one of the motifs on the Sutton Hoo helmet, raises intriguing questions about whether elite armour like this – often interpreted as a Scandinavian import – could have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Carly Hilts reports.
Starting with the opening of the UK’s first science park in 1970, Cambridge has grown from the sleepy market town of 60 years ago into an internationally renowned centre of technical research and innovation at the centre of a metropolis…
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.
I visited Norwich as a teenager several times in the 1970s while my brother was at the School of Art there. Even then, the city was ‘known’ for having a church for every week of the year, and a pub…
This early medieval coin hoard was discovered near Maldon in Essex, in January 2025, by a metal-detecting group. Found dispersed across a field, its contents comprise 14 silver pennies, all the Long Cross type of Æthelred II (better known as…
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Grade II-listed house and garden at Marsh Lane, Harlow, by the architect Sir Frederick Gibberd and his wife. He is remembered for designing Liverpool’s Catholic Cathedral, dedicated to Christ…
Excavations in Colchester have unearthed a rare and exceptionally well preserved lead coffin, housing the remains of a woman who lived and died during the later Roman period. Recent analysis has now provided new insights into the experiences of this…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Strap-ends from belts and other attachments are common finds from the early medieval period. This example was found by Cotswold Archaeology during an excavation in the market town of Halesworth in Suffolk in 2024, with recent conservation revealing its lovely…
In 2021, an archaeological household name returned to our (computer) screens, as Time Team relaunched on YouTube. Carly Hilts visited the team at their first dig of 2026 and spoke to the show’s creator and Executive Producer Tim Taylor about how technology gave the show new life – and could transform the future of how archaeological stories are told.
We are what we eat, they say, and a new study by the University of Cambridge has found that this was as true in the medieval period as it is today, with diet being highly dependent on social status. The…
• Sizewell C: tracing 6,000 years of history in Suffolk
• Buildings of the Temperance movement
• Unusual ditch burials at Venta Icenorum
• Woodworking tools of Late Bronze Age Britain
• Pointing to the past: arrowheads, experimental archaeology and CA awards
Oxford Cotswold Archaeology’s ongoing excavations on the site of the planned Sizewell C power station in Suffolk have uncovered a vast array of features and finds spanning 6,000 years of history. Project Manager Richard Mortimer guides us through some of the most significant discoveries to-date.
The latest excavation by the long-running Caistor Roman Project has uncovered a series of unusual deposits within the monumental triple ditches that encircled Venta Icenorum, capital of the Iceni. At the same time, recent GPR surveys have shed new light on aspects of the settlement that these once-imposing earthworks surrounded. Giles Emery and Will Bowden report.
Excavations at Wandlebury Country Park, just south of Cambridge, have uncovered a large burial pit containing the remains of at least ten individuals who died violently in the 8th- to 9th-century AD (below). The Department of Archaeology at the University…
The Saxon Shore (litus Saxonicum) was a military command consisting of fortifications built on both sides of the English Channel, which were established in the late 3rd century AD to defend Britain against the incursion of Saxon raiders. Its nine English forts are mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum, a document that details the administrative organisation of the late Roman Empire.
The discovery of an extensive and long-lived late Roman agricultural landscape near Cambridge has added illuminating details to our understanding of a region that appears to have been home to numerous villa estates. With the project now published in full, Francis M Morris, who recently completed the post-excavation analysis for Archaeological Research Services Ltd, is our guide to the key findings.
There are lots of great ways to get involved with history and archaeology over the next few months, including exhibitions, lectures, and conferences exploring a wide range of subjects. If you would prefer to get your heritage fix from the comfort of your sofa, though, there is a variety of resources on offer online, too, from virtual site tours and digital offerings by museums to podcasts, TV shows, and more. Kathryn Krakowka has put together a selection of some of the options available.
A routine excavation on the site of a west Norfolk housing development has uncovered a metalwork hoard including two extremely rare Iron Age artefacts: a near-complete carnyx and a boar standard. Conservation and analysis of these fragile objects is ongoing; Carly Hilts reports on the preliminary findings.
REVIEW BY PADDY LAMBERT This report details the results of a large (3.56ha) excavation undertaken by Archaeological Research Services prior to the construction of the new Cambridgeshire South Police Station. The result of the analysis suggests the site formed a…
Ongoing excavations on the site of the planned Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk have uncovered an early medieval barrow cemetery with evidence of high-status activity, including a double burial accompanied by elite grave goods, as well as the…
This unusual silver seal matrix dates to the medieval period, but has reused a Roman intaglio as part of its design. It was discovered by a metal-detectorist in September 2024 at Gosfield, north of Braintree in Essex. Oval in plan,…
Archaeologists have revealed that humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier than previously known. Opportunistic use of wildfire, usually created by lightning strikes, is likely to have developed over a million years ago, but – until now – the earliest…
A major excavation, undertaken in advance of the East Anglia TWO and ONE North developments by ScottishPower Renewables, has uncovered 6,000 years of human activity within an East Anglian landscape, including a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon settlement. The initiative represents the…
This copper-alloy mount or strap link was discovered by a metal- detectorist in June 2025, near Snape in Suffolk. It has few parallels, and most other similar items come from antiquarian stray finds. Based on its design, however, and comparisons…
• Rendlesham rediscovered: landscapes of power in early medieval East Anglia
• People of the past: Scotland’s archaeological human remains
• Rediscovering the many lives of the Woolwich Rotunda
• Exploring intertidal and inland sites with the Nautical Archaeology Society
• Must Farm Bronze Age boats at Flag Fen Archaeology Park
Excavations at East Farm, Barnham, have uncovered the oldest-known traces of deliberate fire-making – a game-changing step in the human story that we now know took place 350,000 years earlier than was previously thought. Carly Hilts reports.
Over the last two decades, evidence of a high-status early medieval settlement has been emerging just four miles from Sutton Hoo. What can Rendlesham tell us about the evolution and exercise of royal power in early medieval England? Carly Hilts spoke to Christopher Scull, Faye Minter, Stuart Brookes, and Tom Williamson to learn more.
A new exhibition at Flag Fen Archaeology Park, near Peterborough, brings the area’s prehistoric past to life – including a trio of Bronze Age and Iron Age log boats. Carly Hilts visited to learn more.
Nick Spenceley reconsiders The Right of the Line by John Terraine
To enter Cressing Temple is to step back from the hurly-burly of modern Essex into a remarkable haven of timeless tranquillity in the form of a former manor that was granted to the Knights Templar in 1136 and has remained…