These monumental structures, termed 'kites', consist of low stone walls that stretch hundreds of metres and lead to an enclosure, in which gazelles and other game could have been trapped.
An elevated medieval chapel may be the most noticeable thing in this picture of the beautiful La Hougue Bie near Grouville in Jersey, but the vast mound that this stone structure crowns has much older origins.
Your views on the latest issues raised in Current Archaeology.
The quartz was brought to Dorstone Hill as whole crystals, which were then worked into smaller flakes, blades, and cores.
Review by Susan Greaney. This elegant new volume is the first book for over 60 years to focus specifically on how the world-famous Neolithic monument of Stonehenge was constructed. The narrative progresses through the step-by-step process of the extraction, transport,…
The word ‘dolmen’ – derived from the Breton taol maen (‘stone table’) – is regarded as a folk term for Neolithic monuments that consist of a massive capstone supported by three or more upright stones, or orthostats. Archaeologists have sought to subdivide these monuments into more precise typological categories, but Vicki Cummings and Colin Richards, the authors of Monuments in the Making, politely suggest that they are wrong to do so. Is it time to reclaim the word? Chris Catling reports.
• HMS Invincible: excavating a Georgian time capsule
• 50 years at Butser Ancient Farm
• Indigenous life on the Roman frontier
• Cissbury Ring: Neolithic flint mines in the digital age
• Canterbury: new approaches to saving heritage
• The collections of the Society of Antiquaries of London
This represents a rare find for the area: the only other known Cornish henge monument with a stone circle is Stripple Stones on Bodmin Moor.
Seventy years after John Pull’s excavations at Cissbury Ring transformed our understanding of Neolithic flint-mining, an innovative new interpretive trail has been launched at the West Sussex landmark. Carly Hilts visited the site with James Brown and James Sainsbury to find out more.
A round-up of the latest archaeological news from around the UK.
Analysis of the remains of an elderly woman buried at the Dolmen of El Pendón, in northern Spain, has identified the earliest known evidence of successful ear surgery, 5,300 years ago. The skull was discovered by researchers from the University…
Hundreds of stone artefacts, including finely worked arrowheads likely used for hunting, were also unearthed.
Two stelae are examples of some of the oldest artistic expressions in the Middle East.
Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed a 5,300-year-old Neolithic skull bearing the earliest known evidence of ear surgery ‘in the history of humankind’. Since 2016, excavations at the Dolmen of El Pendón in Burgos, Spain, have shed light on a megalithic…
Your views on the latest issues in Current Archaeology.
Review by HB. This accessible and richly informative book, produced to accompany the World of Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum (CA 384), treats Stonehenge as a ‘gateway’ into the interconnected worlds of British, Irish, and European prehistory. Wooden poles…
Recent geochemical research has found that most of the sarsen stones come from the same geographical area
New studies are revealing the impact environmental changes have had on ancient societies around the world.
Radiocarbon dating of a bone from the Burton Agnes burial suggests that all of these objects were created approximately 500 years earlier, c.3000 BC.
The ‘hippy generation’ prefers to tell archaeological narratives that paint our ancestors as egalitarian, caring for weaker members of society and welcoming migrants for the new skills and ideas.
The fact that Britain and Brittany have similar names is more than coincidental. The two places have enmeshed histories, as Barry Cunliffe discusses in his latest book, Bretons and Britons. Chris Catling reports on the periods in prehistory when the people of the two cultures facing each other across the Channel were particularly close.
• Exploring the world of Stonehenge
• Symbolism in Shakespeare’s schoolroom
• Quarrying clues: Neolithic stone extraction
• Britain’s most elusive Roman sculptures (out 9 February)
• Deciphering the DNA of the Amesbury Archer and the Companion
The sculpture had been placed in a Neolithic grave containing the remains of three children.
The people of Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe explored their connection to the sun in a range of ways, from monumental stone circles to small gold discs. As a new exhibition opens at the British Museum, Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Wexler to find out more about the ideas that linked them.
A new exhibition at the British Museum explores the landscape that Stonehenge emerged from, and the social, cultural, and technological transformations it witnessed. Neil Wilkin and Jennifer Wexler told CA more.
As the UK's most famous ancient monument, it is a sight familiar to millions around the world. But despite its popularity both as a tourist attraction and as an icon of Britishness, there is a sense in which Stonehenge has always felt strangely isolated.
Genetic analysis of 35 individuals buried in a Gloucestershire long cairn has reconstructed a 5,700-year-old family tree spanning five generations, shedding unprecedented light on Neolithic social structures and how people of this period related to each other. Carly Hilts reports.
The bluestone circles at Stonehenge represent one of the best-known examples of Neolithic skill in the extraction and long-distance transport of stone, but archaeologists have recorded thousands of equally awe-inspiring feats of lithic working from this period and earlier in Britain and Europe. Chris Catling reports on the Prehistoric Society’s newly published research paper Neolithic Stone Extraction, in which Peter Topping turns to ethnographic evidence to argue that stone objects did not only acquire symbolic status once they had been extracted and worked, but that quarry sites and the extraction practices themselves had important symbolic dimensions.
Which 12th-century chronicler suggested that Stonehenge had originally been transported from Ireland to Salisbury Plain with help from the wizard Merlin?
This solid 459-page work by John Chapman summarises his life-long work in the Balkans and, as he states in the preface, was first conceived as a synthesis of Balkan prehistory but subsequently developed along a specific research path focusing on…
A brief look at some of the latest stories within the realm of UK archaeology, including evidence of crucifixion from Roman Cambridgeshire, the discovery of Tudor wall paintings at Old Hall in Yorkshire, and the creation of a 3D model of Neolithic Orkney's Skara Brae settlement.
Your views on the latest issues of CA.
Over the past 50 years or so, archaeologists have managed to hone their focus on several areas of Europe that show clear advances in social and ritual development: areas such as the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany, the Newgrange complex…
Both fingerprints were male and had been left by individuals around 13 and 14 years old.
Your views on previous issues of Current Archaeology.
• Conserving Stonehenge
• An Anglo-Saxon community at Cookham
• Hyde Abbey: a royal monastery in Winchester
• Enigmatic Roman structure at Caistor St Edmund
• Trellyffaint: Neolithic dairy farming in Wales
• Lakes as ornaments in the landscape