This latest volume in the Cambridge Elements series offers a snapshot of what we understand about connections between Egypt and the Levant in the early to mid-Bronze Age, a period that covers the Levantine Early Bronze Age (Egypt’s Predynastic and…
‘There’s no time like the present’, as the adage goes – and those who specialise in Contemporary Archaeology certainly agree. John Schofield explores how applying archaeological techniques to the material remains of our own times can illuminate current issues, as well as improving our understanding of the past.
This is the third edition of a book which first appeared in 1999 and was first revised ten years later. Much has happened since then, and even the editors have changed. The new book is a collaboration between a prehistorian…
Medical memories The article on Temperance (CA 434) was very interesting, but one important establishment was missed: the National Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road, purpose-built in the late 19th century. When I was nursing there in the early 1970s, we…
This year marks a century since the birth of the pioneering prehistorian Aubrey Burl, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of his landmark study The Stone Circles of the British Isles, which is often considered the foundational work on the subject. To reflect these milestones, Neil Mortimer offers an overview of how the book came into being – and the occasionally unconventional approach of its author.
Colin Reader is a geologist by profession, but became fascinated by ancient Egypt, particularly the earliest phases of the civilisation. He has studied the Great Sphinx of Giza for nearly 30 years, applying his professional expertise to all the available…
The narrative about the rise and fall of civilisations and their infrastructures is still omnipresent in scholarship about past cities. It is a story that sells well.
This new publication brings a welcome focus to the creative individuals behind the artistic achievements of the New Kingdom. Building on a 2022 conference in Madrid, the collection’s 12 papers examine a broad range of interconnected themes: the role and…
In partnership with: Current Archaeology Live! 2026 is coming up quickly, and tickets are selling fast. The conference, held in partnership with University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, will be on Saturday 28 February, at the UCL Institute of Education,…
Saving literary homes and cooling towers Chris Catling’s piece about threats to literary homes (CA 431) is nothing new to those of us in Derby. In 1906, we lost the birthplace of Joseph Wright ARA (1734-1797) – replaced by a…
Roman Morris Having just received the latest issue of Current Archaeology, I placed it on our recently purchased tablecloth, the pattern of which is based on the ‘Blackthorn’ design by William Morris. As can be seen in the photo (above),…
Increasingly, archaeologists are concerned with the here and now. This is evident in a new study, led by researchers from the University of York, which has examined how our discipline can deal with modern materials. In particular, they consider the…
REVIEW BY JODY JOY Many books have been written about the ancient Celts, whether from the standpoint of a shared identity across a connected Europe, or a more sceptical perspective, arguing for regional diversity and more complicated histories. This book…
REVIEW BY J PETER PHILLIPS This extremely detailed and complex work is exactly what it says on the cover, and supplements the author’s previous books, published by BAR in 2012 and 2022, which categorise watercraft of the Old, Middle, and…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT The histories, cultures, and archaeologies of ancient Nubia remain a source of much scholarly debate, and centring our research on the people of the ancient Nile Valley is especially important at this time of political turmoil…
Celebrating the work of the British pioneer of Egyptian prehistory.
I would like to dedicate these pages to my PhD supervisor, Eric Higgs. After studying at the London School of Economics, he bought a hill farm in Shropshire at the outset of the Second World War, and spent the following decade rearing sheep and cattle, with the objective, he once told me, of breeding miniature versions of the former.
Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on the complexities of communal living.
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY TAYLOR Christopher Beckwith’s The Scythian Empire represents a major challenge for archaeological understandings of what many pre- and proto-historians have been inclined to see as a merely ‘tribal’ phenomenon. His book is magisterial, presenting a wealth of crucial new…
REVIEW BY ROLAND ENNOS Given the preponderance of stone, bronze, and iron artefacts found at archaeological sites, and their usefulness in enabling archaeologists to date their finds, it has perhaps been inevitable that so much research has concentrated on these…
REVIEW BY ALLISON FOX Tim Clarkson’s aim, to ‘present a narrative political history of the Isle of Man’, is achieved in this book, which covers the pre-Viking era through to the end of Scandinavian influence on the island, and the…
What Lehner’s team found was a far-flung complex of houses, storage galleries, kitchens, dormitories, and offices. The ‘Lost City of the Pyramid Builders’ saw light.
Archaeology is not immune to wider social changes... the #BlackLivesMatter movement focused attention on the colonial pasts of many nations and on the challenges of the post-colonial present.
Neil went on to propose using what R G Collingwood called ‘the historical imagination’ by blending data and interpretation to ‘tell the story’. He was convinced that this ‘must be done if archaeology is to be interesting and worthwhile’.
Showcasing 12 articles in four parts, Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy emerged from a 2017 interdisciplinary conference, and the editors aimed to represent the diversity of topics that arise when archaeology and philosophy meet. This target is emphatically achieved. Part…
Every paper has to say something new. In the mass production of vehicle components, difference is defect. In the mass production of academic papers, difference is a requirement.
The wealth produced by Egyptian peasants was spent on warfare, monuments, and luxury. Egyptian artisans were despised as manual labourers. So Egyptian civilisation looked essentially the same in 30 BC as it had done in 3000 BC.
The astonishing thing about Paul is his photographic memory. I recall he once joined a Roman sherd from Butrint with a piece from the maritime villa at Diaporit, three miles away.
Central to Childe’s conception of history was the creative potential of hunters, farmers, craftworkers, engineers, and scientists, and the way in which elites wasted surpluses on wars, monuments, and luxuries
Famously (or infamously), the Roman Ninth Legion is believed to have disappeared around the end of the 1st century AD, a view made popular by Rosemary Sutcliff in her fictionalised account of the story in The Eagle of the Ninth.…
A paper is not necessarily of value because it is heretical, of course; it may just be wrong.