Routes to the past: ancient finds at construction sites
Among the many discoveries are the oldest known pistachio nut in Britain, found at the bottom of a well and dated to AD 24-128.
Iron Age
Dating the Plain of Jars
It is evident that the sites were reused over time, well into the historic period, and had retained some kind of ritual significance when the later burials took place in the 9th-13th century AD.
HS2 unearths Iron Age coin hoard in Hillingdon
'It takes us back to the tumultuous time of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul.'
Reimagining the past: experiments in construction at Butser Ancient Farm
Butser Ancient Farm is an experimental archaeology centre nestled in the Hampshire South Downs. Its staff specialise in exploring the past by engaging with ancient tools and building techniques, and we reported on the unveiling of their latest creation, a reconstructed Neolithic house, in CA 375. Now Butser archaeologist Claire Walton takes us behind the scenes to describe the research that went into its design – and the ups and downs of the construction process.
Picasso: echoes of Iberia
From myths of the Minotaur to Cycladic sculpture, the influence of the ancient world on Picasso is well known. But a less familiar part of the artist’s relationship with the distant past is his fruitful engagement with the art of ancient Iberia, as Cécile Godefroy and Hélène Le Meaux explain.
Arts and Crafts in Iron Age East Yorkshire: A holistic approach to pattern and purpose, c.400 BC-AD 100
This new book explores the purpose of decorative practices in Middle and Late Iron Age Britain, moving beyond traditional approaches to Early Celtic Art to consider what these decorative objects did. To investigate what pattern does, fundamentally means viewing it…
Letters from CA – June 2021
Your views on past issues of Current Archaeology.
Darkness dispelled: exploring 1,500 years of life and death at the Sculptor’s Cave
The Sculptor’s Cave, on Scotland’s north-east coast, is best known for the Pictish carvings that give the site its name. Recent research by Ian Armit and Lindsey Büster, however, has drawn together evidence of enigmatic prehistoric funerary practices that were carried out at this remote spot for hundreds of years. Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts reports.
Touching the past: encountering Iron Age bog bodies
Bog bodies are particularly potent archaeological discoveries, representing the recognisable faces of people from the past. Why were so many of these figures consigned to watery graves during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and what are scientific advances adding to our understanding of these enigmatic individuals? Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts explores thought-provoking recent research by Melanie Giles.
Illuminating St Kilda’s Iron Age inhabitants
A newly published report from GUARD Archaeology has revealed evidence for the Iron Age inhabitation of St Kilda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and isolated archipelago located 64km west of the Outer Hebrides.
Darkness Visible: the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, from the Bronze Age to the Picts
Caves can be portals to otherworlds, and Covesea Cave on Scotland’s Moray Firth is no exception. Armit and Büster’s handsomely produced volume transports us back in time to both the late Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age, revealing exciting new…
Landscape and Settlement in the Vale of York: archaeological excavations at Heslington East, York, 2003-2013
York is well-known for the archaeology of its Roman, Anglian, Viking, and medieval periods of occupation, but the prehistoric and Roman archaeology of its rural hinterland is much less visible, despite an increasing number of development-led excavations. The projected expansion…
Finds Tray – Iron Age terminal mount
This is an Iron Age terminal mount in the shape of a bull’s head. It was found by a metal-detectorist near Scarning, Norfolk, back in 2015, but recent research has suggested it may represent a rare example of the plastic…
Le Câtillon II: conserving Britain’s biggest Iron Age hoard
How do you begin to analyse a corroded mass of almost 70,000 Celtic coins? Neil Mahrer guides us through the painstaking process of conserving the largest coin hoard yet found in the British Isles, and what has been discovered so far.
Finds tray – Iron Age swan neck pin
This is a complete copper-alloy ‘swan’s neck’ pin, a kind of artefact generally dated to the Iron Age. It comprises a circular flathead, which appears sub-rectangular in cross-section with rounded edges. Each flat side of the pinhead is decorated with…
Reviving Ousdale Broch
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…
Evidence of Roman reprisals in Essex?
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,…
Ship shape: Viking burial found
Boat burials emerged in northern Europe in the 1st century AD and disappeared with the introduction of Christianity in the 10th and 11th century. The ship burial reflects the ultimate display of status, wealth, and connection.
Europe without borders
The exhibition Iron Age – Europe without Borders is divided into cultural-historical, chronological, and geographical sections. In addition to relics of largely unknown cultures, the exhibition focuses on the legacies of peoples such as the Celts, Etruscans, Scythians, and Sarmatians.
Mapping the coast edge: Flimston Bay, Pembrokeshire
Flimston is a baseline study site for the EU-funded Ireland–Wales CHERISH project (2017-2023), which is studying climate change and eroding coastal heritage in Ireland and Wales.
A Biography of Power: research and excavations at the Iron Age oppidum of Bagendon, Gloucestershire (1979-2017)
Bagendon has long been the poor relation of British late Iron Age oppida, lurking on the distribution’s western fringe. Its extensive, intermittent ramparts have long been known, but only in the 1950s did limited excavations reveal its character. Tom Moore’s…
A new chronology for Glastonbury Lake Village
A new robust set of radiocarbon dates from the Glastonbury Lake Village in Somerset has allowed researchers to establish a more-precise chronology for how the site was used during the Iron Age. As the settlement contains so many well-preserved finds…
Iron Age massacre in Iberia
Post-excavation analysis is now shedding more light on the final days of La Hoya and the devastating attack on the settlement.
Secret Britain: unearthing our mysterious past
From a small spindle whorl to an expanse of moorland, there are many objects, individual sites, and entire landscapes in Britain that offer a portal to the past. In her engaging new book, Mary-Ann Ochota is our guide to the…
Migration and disease in the Iron Age
Scientific analysis of a human skeleton discovered at Tarrant Hinton in Dorset has shed new light on life – and the transmission of infectious disease – in Iron Age Britain. The remains were originally found during excavations at a small…
World News
Iberian Iron Age massacre The Iron Age settlement of La Hoya in the Ebro River Valley in Spain was discovered in 1935 and excavated between 1973 and 1990. It was known then that a violent attack must have taken place,…
Hillforts of the Tay: community archaeology at Moncreiffe Hill and Castle Law, Abernethy
Hillforts of the Tay: community archaeology at Moncreiffe Hill and Castle Law, Abernethy AOC Archaeology Group Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, £5 ISBN 978-527264052 Review Miles Russell
Old Oswestry Hillfort and its Landscape: ancient past, uncertain future
Sharing elements with a standard regional study of a hillfort in geographical context, this series of papers is distinctly wider in scope. It is neither underpinned by recent excavation, nor by reassessment in detail of the 1930s interventions. Instead, ten…
Bring me my chariot: investigating burial practices in Iron Age Yorkshire
What sparked the unusual chariot burials associated with the Arras Culture in East Yorkshire? Migration has been proposed as an explanation, but a new book asks whether there are other ways by which chariot-making knowledge and burial practices could have been transferred. The reality is perhaps more mundane but, at the same time, highly informative about the diversity of lifestyles and burial practices in the British Iron Age and the ways in which people expressed their regional identity. Chris Catling reports.
DNA analysis sheds light on whalebone use in Iron Age Orkney
Recent DNA analysis of whalebone artefacts found at The Cairns, Orkney, has shed light on the relationship between these marine mammals and the site’s Iron Age community, as well as hinting why the large local broch may have been demolished…
Scotland’s Early Silver
For centuries Scotland’s finely crafted silver brooches, neck chains, vessels, and more were made from a supply of Roman hacksilver. Lucia Marchini learns more about the medieval afterlife of this metal at the National Museum of Scotland’s new exhibition.
The riddle of the lake: Llyn Cerrig Bach and Iron Age Anglesey
Found over a number of weeks in 1942 and1943, the treasure that was dredged from Llyn Cerrig Bach, a small peat-filled lake on the Isle of Anglesey, is still revealing new information 70 years after it was found, as Chris Catling reports.
The bare bones: ritual violence in Denmark’s Holy Valley
Are the macabre remains at an Iron Age sanctuary evidence of sacrificed enemy warriors? CWA talks to Mads Kähler Holst, who made the grim finds.
Zagreb and beyond: exploring Iron Age burial mounds on the Trail of Princes
Patrick Skinner sets out from the country's capital on a voyage of archaeological discovery.