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.
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.
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The first Hampden stadium, complete with enclosed pitch and turnstiles, was built in 1873.
The earliest recorded find from Piercebridge, the Roman crossing over the River Tees, was a stash of silver coins found in 1792. It was a hint of what would subsequently emerge when two divers, Rolfe Mitchinson and Bob Middlemass, began…
Most of the hoard was discovered between 2014 and 2020 by a single anonymous metal-detectorist.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.
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…
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.
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.
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 industry. It is worth remembering that the eponymous…
Both fingerprints were male and had been left by individuals around 13 and 14 years old.
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.
The geochemical compositions of ‘the John Dee mirror’ were found to match obsidian from Pachuca
The distinctive lozenge-shaped ramparts of Whitley Castle Roman Fort, situated north-west of Alston in Cumbria, survive as earthworks that are clearly visible in aerial photographs like this one.
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological stories in the UK.
Quarreling was commonplace, especially over who was entitled to sit in ‘the best’ pews. Clergy complained about being assaulted: one Kentish aristocrat took his hawk to church in 1514 and punched the vicar in the face when chastised for doing so.
It is always stimulating to be reminded how much more remains to be said about Hadrian’s Wall, a Roman frontier system that is often believed – from an archaeological perspective – to have been ‘done’. Despite centuries of scholarly scrutiny,…
The busts appear to have been intentionally discarded: the adult ones were broken between the head and torso, perhaps before deposition, and only the head of the child survives.
Carrying on the ornithological theme from last issue’s ‘Finds Tray’, which profiled an early medieval brooch featuring a bird, this Roman lock component was cheerfully cast in the shape of a duck. The copper-alloy object was found last autumn near…
Ireland has been very well served in recent years by modern scholarship on her medieval castellated landscape. This book by O’Keeffe takes this research much further, especially in the way he rightly sets the castles within their greater European context.…
Animal hides, treated in tanneries, were used to produce essential materials like vellum for religious texts and leather for book bindings
The ship is best known as Admiral Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar
Suppressed in 1537, the abbey was plundered for its stone and five out of the 14 delicately carved 13th-century arcades ended up beautifying the church at Llanidloes, some ten miles distant.
‘Helicopters flew in, and prices flew up.’ James Miller’s summary of the Chatsworth attic sale of 2010 sets the tone for much of Country House Collections, a fascinating series of meditations on the fate of the art-objects and artefacts that…
Planners predict that our historic town and city centres will be transformed over the next decade as online shops take over from bricks-and-mortar retail outlets. But change in the High Street is nothing new. Chris Catling is reminded how we used to shop by Lynn Pearson’s recently published book on the architecture of England’s co-operative movement, winner of the Association for Industrial Archaeology’s Peter Neaverson Award for Outstanding Scholarship 2021.
English Heritage and Historic England archaeologists have been investigating the remains of Richborough’s Roman amphitheatre – uncovering rare traces of painted decorations, as well as insights into the later years of the associated town. Carly Hilts visited the excavation to find out more.
Cutting-edge photographic techniques have shed illuminating light on a series of carved chalk plaques excavated close to Stonehenge. What have they revealed about artistic endeavour in Neolithic Britain? CA explores a new study by Bob Davis, Phil Harding, and Matt Leivers.