It’s a rip-roaring start, with three deaths in five pages as Harald Hardrada (or Haraldr Sigurdarson as he’s termed here), Tostig (wayward brother of Harold Godwinson), and an unnamed farmer all get decapitated. We start on a battlefield, yet not…
Researchers from the Warsaw University of Technology and the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology have located a military cemetery containing the remains of soldiers killed during battles in the Carpathian Mountains between 1914 and 1915. The discovery began when the…
The Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on 17 June 1775, was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the American Revolutionary War. On the night of 16 June, around 1,200 colonial militiamen built an earthen fort,…
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In his new book, Iain MacGregor examines some of the most significant battles of the past 3,000 years. Here, he reveals the five key factors that shaped victory, from Marathon to Midway.
Last autumn’s excavations at Culloden Battlefield, near Inverness, had already rewritten our knowledge of how the engagement unfolded (see CA 430), but further insights continue to emerge, including the discovery of an unexploded mortar shell, which further highlights the conflict’s…
One of the most talked-about battles in US history took place 150 years ago this summer. Here, Fred Chiaventone identifies some common misunderstandings about Custer’s Last Stand.
With the Old Breed is a harrowing, visceral account of a US Marine’s combat experience fighting the Japanese in Peleliu and Okinawa in 1945. Together with Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow, it provided the material for HBO’s acclaimed 2010 television series The Pacific. Excellent though the latter was, the book offers much more.
It is something of a cliché in the history of the Second World War to claim that Stalingrad, the graveyard of Germany’s Sixth Army in Russia, was the decisive turning point of the conflict: the moment when Hitler’s hopes of…
Archaeological research at the site of the Battle of Culloden, near Inverness, has uncovered new material from the conflict. The discoveries were made by a team led by Derek Alexander from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) and Professor Tony…
Excavations on Culloden Battlefield, near Inverness, this past October have recovered more than 100 projectiles in an area of the site that had not previously yielded any archaeological discoveries. The battle – the last to take place on British soil…
A mass grave recently unearthed in Austria is believed to be associated with a Roman battlefield. In autumn 2024, construction workers carrying out renovations of a playing field in Simmering, a district of Vienna, had unexpectedly come across a large…
An ‘unprecedented’ mass grave of Roman soldiers has been uncovered in Vienna. The find was made last autumn by construction workers who were renovating a football pitch in the Simmering district of the city. In April, experts at the Vienna…
The location of a significant battle in the history of the Middle East has been pinpointed by archaeologists. Researchers have identified what they believe to be the location of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, which took place in AD 637 The…
This image shows the remains of a horse excavated recently from a trench at Mont-Saint-Jean Farm in Waterloo, Belgium. The farm was the site of a field hospital for the Duke of Wellington’s troops in the aftermath of the battle…
It is one of the oldest and most mysterious battlefields in Europe. But new research into arrowheads dating from the 13th century BC has revealed more about who was involved. The Tollense Valley in the northern German state of Mecklenburg…
What is it? This almond-shaped lead object is a type of Roman projectile known as a glans inscripta (‘inscribed bullet’). Measuring 4.5cm by 2cm by 1.7cm and weighing 71g, it has a dent at one end, probably the result of…
Stephen Roberts analyses the crucial battle that cost the life of the Swedish king.
REVIEW BY IAIN BANKS This is a landmark publication, summarising as it does the 12 years (and counting) that Operation Nightingale has been in existence. During this period, some excellent archaeology has been carried out and some excellent therapeutic work…
Researchers have uncovered new information about one of the largest and bloodiest engagements of World War II. The Battle of the Bulge was fought between the Allies and Nazi Germany in the Ardennes region between December 1944 and January 1945,…
In 2018, a rusty lump of more than 400 fragments of iron was discovered in Germany at Kalkriese, the site of the Varus Battle, where a catastrophic defeat was inflicted on Rome in AD 9 (see CWA 104). In the…
This year is the 380th anniversary of the Siege of King’s Lynn, an important but often overlooked engagement during the Civil War. David Flintham presents the latest findings of a community archaeology project exploring the town’s fortifications.
Archaeologists excavating the site at Coleshill Manor, east of Birmingham, found evidence that a newly discovered fortified gatehouse there had at one point come under intense fire.
On 4 May 1917, the entrance to the tunnel on the Chemin des Dames collapsed following French shelling.
![TOP Human remains discovered at the Mont Saint Jean farm complex. Team members, including military veterans [above], excavated the site at Waterloo this summer.](https://i0.wp.com/the-past.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/post-1_image0.jpg?fit=768%2C537&ssl=1)
The latest discoveries – including parts of at least three horses, one of which looks nearly complete, and the skull and arm of a soldier – are incredibly rare finds.
‘This clear evidence for the survival of Culloden Parks shows us that the story of the Battle of Culloden is still unfolding'
A round-up of some of the latest news from the realm of archaeology in the UK.
There are many brilliant opportunities to get involved in archaeology, history, and heritage around the UK over the coming months, ranging from new exhibitions and lectures to returning festivals and excavations. There are also still plenty of ways to get your heritage fix at home, with online exhibitions and virtual tours, podcasts and online talks, and TV shows and games for the whole family. Amy Brunskill has put together a selection of some of the options available.
The discovery was announced by Waterloo Uncovered, the archaeological charity which has returned to the battlefield site in Belgium for its first excavations there since 2019.
Phil Harding and Emily Glass describe recent excavations by the charity Waterloo Uncovered, which has made exciting new discoveries on the eponymous Belgian battlefield.
It is regarded as one of history's greatest battles, the moment that brought the Napoleonic era to its end, and a triumph that ushered in four decades of peace in Europe. But Waterloo was no easy victory. Instead, as the Duke of Wellington wrote to his brother William, "It was the most desperate business I ever was in."
Inlaid with silver and brass and buried under 20 inches of soil, it was possibly placed as an offering to the gods.
Each of the bodies showed signs of serious injury and were buried with swords, maces, and arrows.
What can archaeological surveys of battlefields add to historical accounts of the fighting? Road improvements at Killiecrankie provided an opportunity to see how traces of fighting tallied with a commanding officer’s account of the clash, as Maureen Kilpatrick and Warren Bailie report.
Overshadowed by Culloden the following year – the battle that finally terminated the century-old Jacobite cause – Prestonpans is little known. Chris Bambery researches the story.
A round-up of some of the latest stories in Archaeology around the world, including a previously unknown city uncovered in Luxor, a tree from the Battle of Waterloo, and research into how Neanderthals spoke and heard.