Description
In this issue:
– Binchester after Rome
– Bronze Age boats: Must Farm
– Ireland: escaping the Vikings
– Surveying St Kilda
Plus: News, Reviews, Comment, Sherds, Odd Socs, and more!
From the Editor:
In December I was fortunate enough to stand on the Nene riverbank in 1300 BC. Beside me were the stumps of prehistoric willow trees. Beneath me was a channel choked with the detritus of Bronze Age river life. Perfectly preserved eel traps, fish weirs and boats ‚ six of them ‚ still lay where they had been abandoned in the eddying waters. I have been lucky enough to visit many excavations over the years, but rarely has the past felt closer than that morning in Must Farm quarry. A powerful demonstration of what developer-driven archaeology delivers, I hope that our lead feature does justice to this fascinating site.
Secret passages are the stuff of childhood adventure stories, but all too rare in real life. Now excavations in Ireland’s County Louthare unearthing the elaborate precautions that those threatened by Viking raids took to protect their families.
Britain in the dying days of Roman control is a captivating though elusive subject. Excavations at Binchester are revealing how an industrial revolution swept through the fort, as the former garrison became ever more dependent on local produce to keep them in food and leather. Was this pocket of Empire the genesis of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom?
Finally, we travel to the remote St Kilda archipelago, to see how hardy 19th-century islanders won a living from this windswept world, and examine tantalising traces of their prehistoric forbears.
Cover Date: Feb-2012, Volume 22 Issue 11