New research into a man buried at St Peter’s in Barton-upon-Humber almost 1,000 years ago has shed new light on the complexity of society in Britain during the Norman Conquest. The unusual burial was first excavated almost 50 years ago,…
Sculpting southern Scotland A new project, coordinated by Dr Christina Cowart-Smith and funded by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is set to start this autumn with the aim of documenting around 200 fragments of sculpture south of the Forth–Clyde…
with Marc DeSantis
In my previous two columns I explored some of the great religious buildings of Britain; these are primarily known for their medieval and later histories, and for their towering urban architecture. This month, I will move back in time to explore some of the great sites associated with the early church that have been visited by Current Archaeology over the decades.
The Cerne Abbas Giant has just undergone its once-in-a-decade rechalking, restoring the famous foothill figure to its striking white appearance. With the Giant standing at an impressive 55m (180ft) tall, the task required some 20 tonnes (3,150 stone) of fresh…
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.
Aberdeenshire is known for its Pictish symbol stones, but until recently evidence for Pictish settlements in the region was sparse and our understanding of Pictish sites even more tenuous. This has now changed dramatically, in large part due to a…
Fifty years ago, one of the most daring expeditions in modern times left Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. Tim Severin set out with a crew of three in a curragh – a skin-boat shaped like a banana – from Brandon Creek to…
As the Bayeux Tapestry returns to England for a major new exhibition, Edmund West assesses the latest thinking about 1066 and all that.
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…
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted, producing one of the largest volcanic eruptions in modern history, and causing extreme weather events for several years. Violent storms in winter 1816-1817 eroded a series of stone lined graves in the sand south of…
Excavations beneath the floor of St Cuthbert’s Church in Darlington, Co. Durham, have revealed the foundations of an 11th-century predecessor. The work, part of the ‘Opening Doors’ project, was recently carried out by the Archaeological Practice of Newcastle in order…
Members of Go Detecting (Midlands) Ltd, carrying out a routine metal detecting survey in the parish of Bickmarsh in Worcestershire, have helped to uncover a coin hoard dating to the 9th century. Coins from this period are rare in Worcestershire…
One of the most important surviving Anglo-Saxon royal seals, belonging to Edward the Confessor, was thought to be lost after it went missing 40 years ago. CA reports on newly published research which describes the circumstances of the object’s rediscovery and offers illuminating insights into its innovative imagery.
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…
Study of ivory use in the early medieval world is revealing fresh insights into how this material was viewed. The results have important implications for our understanding of the scale of the trade, and its impact on the elephants it exploited, as Rowan S English and Julia Steding explain.
Study of the monuments at Jelling has revealed much about an extraordinary royal complex in 10th-century Denmark. Olympia Bobou, Ilaria Bucci, Rowan S English, and Rubina Raja explore the evolution of the site.
Firsts. I first went to Inis Cealtra – Holy Island in County Clare – with my first girlfriend, Leigh, in 1973. From County Antrim, a northerner, she had an esprit de vie that I always associate, like the constant drizzle,…
A study of human remains from two cemeteries in Bulgaria, all buried with distinctively ‘Gothic’ jewellery, brooches, and belt buckles, suggests that the ancient Goths were ethnically diverse and not a single homogeneous community.
Ninth-century Carolingian coins from the reigns of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald are not the sort of objects you would expect to find on a remote farm on the Isle of Anglesey, so, when metal-detectorists began reporting these and other exceptional artefacts from the early medieval period, the National Museum of Wales (now Amgueddfa Cymru) sent Mark Redknap, then Curator of Medieval and Later Archaeology, to investigate. Between 1994 and 2012, Mark led ten seasons of fieldwork on the site, revealing the remains of a trading settlement with a form unparalleled in Wales. With the full report recently published, Chris Catling describes its key findings.
The news that the Bayeux Tapestry will be making a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Britain from September 2026 until July 2027 made me think about sites associated with the Norman Conquest that might be of interest to the readers of Current Archaeology
Recent analysis of the remains of two children who were buried in the same grave in 7th-century Gloucestershire has revealed them to be brother and sister. CA reports.
A new exhibition at Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury draws together antiquarian excavations and very recent finds to illuminate life and death at different levels of early medieval society. Carly Hilts visited the displays and spoke to their curator Brett Thorn.
The elaborately decorated Book of Kells takes its name from the eponymous abbey in Co. Meath where it was kept for centuries, but it has been previously suggested that the early medieval manuscript was created on Iona. Now, thanks to…
Richard Hodges’ most recent book takes us back to his original area of study: the economic and political conditions leading to the rebirth of towns in early medieval Britain. He starts by reminding the reader of his 1982 book Dark…
This early medieval finger-ring was found by a metal-detectorist near Quadring in Lincolnshire, south-west of Boston, in May 2024, and has more recently been declared Treasure. It is made of silver and dates to c.AD 700-1000. The middle of the…
Food plays an important role in cultural identity, and can be used in archaeology to identify patterns of migration and assimilation. The early medieval inhabitants of Scandinavia are known to have had a marine-focused diet, but the extent to which…
• Charlemagne at war: the battle for Europe
• Revolution in America: how independence was finally won
• Judgement at Nuremberg: the Nazis on trial
• The Tsar’s last victory: the Brusilov offensive
• The bridge that saved a city: the Berlin airlift
Newly opened exhibitions at Dock X, London, and Leeds Castle, Kent,
include AI technology that brings the past to life in a startlingly personal way,
offering interactive audiences with medieval queens: one from Viking Age Scandinavia and the other from 13th-century England. Carly Hilts reports.
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…
Anglo-Saxon beads are important as, along with cruciform brooches, they are among the most studied and datable of all the objects found in Anglo-Saxon graves, made useful by their long date-range and by them being the most numerous objects found…
This Viking Age figurine depicts… a man with a shrewd expression. What is it? This Viking Age figurine, which is just c.40mm tall, depicts the head and torso of a man with a shrewd expression and a distinctive hairstyle featuring…
The diverse grave goods excavated at a 6th-century cemetery in Nottinghamshire testify to a wealthy community with wide-ranging trade links – but, as well as new objects and materials, did these networks help to spread deadly diseases, and might this explain the unusually high number of multiple burials identified at Broughton Lodge? Carly Hilts visited a new exhibition about the site and spoke to Ann Inscker, Professor Chris Loveluck, and Dr Clare Pickersgill to learn more.
Over the last 15 years, international research focused on a series of silver hoards and other finds from the late Roman and early medieval periods has shed new light
on how this metal was used and viewed during a period of great cultural change.
Dr Alice Blackwell, Dr Fraser Hunter, Dr Andreas Rau, and Dr Martin Goldberg report.
Few people have made such a profound impact on the understanding of Scotland’s prehistoric and early medieval past as Anna Ritchie. In 2022, the Scottish Society for Northern Studies and the Pictish Arts Society jointly hosted a conference to celebrate…
First excavated in the 1970s and now mostly eroded into the sea, the settlement of Buckquoy in Orkney has frequently been used as an example of how the Pictish-Viking transition occurred in the Northern Isles. New radio-carbon dating of artefacts…