Current Archaeology 435
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An enduring landscape: Uncovering 8,000 years of life and death on the Cotswold Edge
Recent excavations at Milestone Ground on the eastern edge of Broadway have revealed one of the most intriguing archaeological landscapes yet found in Worcestershire. Beneath quiet pasture lay evidence of human activity stretching back 8,000 years, including Mesolithic flint tools, Bronze Age burials, hundreds of Iron Age storage pits, a Roman farmstead, and the largest late Roman cemetery known in the county. Constance Mitchell reports.
Llanbedrgoch: Exploring a unique early medieval trading centre on Anglesey
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.
An experiment in earthen walls: Operation Nightingale, Butser Ancient Farm, and the Dunch Hill roundhouse
The excavation of a Bronze Age roundhouse on Salisbury Plain has fed into a new reconstruction at Butser Ancient Farm, using experimental archaeology to interpret its ephemeral outline. Trevor Creighton, Richard Osgood, and Rachel Pope explain.
Unlocking the archaeology of Speyside malt whisky
The star find was a brass keyhole cover, which would have been used to lock the ‘spirit safe’, where whisky is traditionally collected after distillation.
Europe’s earliest infant female burial sheds light on Mesolithic funerary practices
Radiocarbon dating revealed the child, nicknamed ‘Neve’, lived around 10,000 years ago
Ostrich eggshell beads reveal ancient social network across Africa
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute collected data from more than 1500 ostrich eggshell beads recovered from 31 sites
Evidence for Roman crucifixion unearthed in Cambridgeshire
The man’s bones have been radiocarbon dated to between AD 130 and 360.
Molecular analysis identifies earliest known Denisovan fossils
Discovered at Denisova Cave in Siberia, the bones have been dated to 200,000 years ago
The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, ideas
The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas is an ambitious scholarly volume tracing the origins of the European identity in the Eurasian steppe, the vast expanse of land that stretches from Hungary through
Cladh Hallan: exploring the roundhouse way of life in South Uist
Located in the Outer Hebrides, the prehistoric settlement of Cladh Hallan is best known for the Bronze Age mummies found buried beneath its roundhouses. As well as these insights into how the dead were treated, though, the dwellings have yielded illuminating insights into the world of the living, as Mike Parker Pearson, Jacqui Mulville, Helen Smith, and Peter Marshall explain.
Rediscovered document reveals how Henry VIII dissolved one of England’s richest monasteries
A document detailing the process by which Henry VIII dissolved one of England’s wealthiest monasteries has been rediscovered. The Reformation-era blueprint, which discusses the suppression of Furness Abbey, was found recently by
Syon Abbey revisited: reconstructing late medieval England’s wealthiest nunnery
Founded by Henry V and built by Henry VI, Syon Abbey was one of 16th-century England’s richest religious houses. A previous Time Team investigation into its remains provided an invaluable springboard for further research, but their three-day dig could only reveal so much. Now Robert Cowie explores how the story has evolved in light of more recent discoveries.
First ‘Hampden Park’ football stadium unearthed in Glasgow
The first Hampden stadium, complete with enclosed pitch and turnstiles, was built in 1873.
England’s largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard found in Norfolk
Most of the hoard was discovered between 2014 and 2020 by a single anonymous metal-detectorist.
World News in brief: Viking colonies, a Bronze Age hillfort, and Byzantine medicine
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.
Landscapes Revealed: geophysical survey in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Area 2002-2011
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
Museums, exhibitions, and events in December 2021
There is a great selection of new exhibitions and events taking place at museums and heritage sites around the UK in the coming months, whether you’re interested in how the Romans exercised or the history of Rapa Nui. There are also plenty of ways to enjoy history, archaeology, and heritage at home as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder. Here, Amy Brunskill has put together some of the highlights on offer.
Excavating Lincolnshire
The concentration of artefacts was so rich that it led prehistorian Mike Parker Pearson to compare Fiskerton to La Tène, the 19th-century Swiss lakeside excavation that had a profound influence on our understanding of Iron Age Europe.
Bath Quays Waterside: the archaeology of industry, commerce and the lives of the poor in Bath’s lost quayside district
To any well-read person, mention of Bath conjures up a Regency vision of elite spa bathing which makes it hard to think of the place as the abode of poverty or of
Orkney fingerprints belonged to Neolithic teenager
Both fingerprints were male and had been left by individuals around 13 and 14 years old.
Digging up memories
An immersive online exhibition hosted by the Vindolanda Trust uses the extraordinary range of wooden artefacts excavated at the Roman fort to evoke memories and forge connections with communities who lived 2,000 years ago. CA reports.