Go digging!
Following on from CA 410, this selection of summer digging opportunities includes projects in North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Dorset, and Aberdeenshire.
CA410
Current Archaeology Live! 2024
This year’s CA Live! conference was our biggest yet, with more than 500 people coming together at UCL’s Institute of Education in London to share the latest news about the past. Here is a round-up of what went on.
Smallhythe Place: Romans, royal ships, and a rural retreat
Smallhythe Place, a National Trust property in Kent, is home to a picturesque timber-framed house with enigmatic origins, while the surrounding landscape preserves unique traces of a medieval shipbuilding centre that served several kings. Over the last three years, a team of more than 100 archaeologists have excavated 21 trenches to help bring the site’s story to light once more.
Current Archaeology’s April Listings: exhibitions, events, and heritage from home
There are many great archaeological events coming up over the next few months, from conferences and lectures to exhibitions and festivals. If you would prefer to enjoy history and heritage at home, though, there are lots of exciting offerings and resources to choose from, including digitised museum collections, virtual site tours, new documentaries, and educational activities. Amy Brunskill has put together a summary of some of the options available.
Documenting a sacred landscape: Rock art and monuments of the South Wales uplands
Over the last three decades, archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts alike have been greatly expanding our understanding of how the upland areas of Glamorgan were used in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. George Nash, Kim Allen, and Dewi Bowen are our guides to a series of recent discoveries hinting at a significant and complex symbolic landscape almost 100km wide.
Between the salt water and the sea strand: Excavating the Hornsea Project One Cable Route in Lincolnshire
A 40km trench dug to accommodate cables linking an offshore windfarm to the National Grid sparked eight years of archaeological excavations along its route. With the results of Wessex Archaeology’s wide-ranging work now published in a new monograph, Ashley Tuck summarises key findings from the heavy clay marshes of northern Lincolnshire.
CA 410 Letters – April
Your thoughts on issues raised by CA.
Visualising Venta Belgarum: Touring prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman Winchester
Pioneering excavations in Winchester in the 1960s and 1970s made a major contribution to the development of modern archaeological practice and trained many of those who subsequently became the leading professional and academic archaeologists of our day. So the publication of the latest Winchester Studies volume – a concise synthesis of the city’s prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman development – is a landmark event, as Chris Catling reports.
Secret Tunnels
Secret tunnels are a trope of local folklore – many a town in the UK has its story about long-lost underground passages, doubtless providing the inhabitants of a monastery or castle an escape route from their confinement.
Excavating Wiltshire
I have now examined the archaeology of every county in Britain bar one – Wiltshire. This was no accident, for I have a confession to make: Wiltshire’s archaeology terrifies me.
Finds Tray – Bridle boss
This is a bridle boss made of copper-alloy and dating to c.1620-1680. It was recently found by a metal-detectorist near Ringmer in Lewes, East Sussex. While heavily corroded, it is unusual in two respects. First, it is still attached to…
World news: From ritual practices in Poland to Rapa Nui’s writing system
Ritual practices in prehistoric Poland A considerable number of large Bronze Age and early Iron Age artefacts have been unearthed by archaeologists in a dried-up lakebed at the site of Papowo Biskupie in north-central Poland. It is believed that members…
Preserving a Palmerston Fort
The Historic Buildings Team from Cotswold Archaeology has recently carried out a detailed recording of Fort Gilkicker in Gosport. This fort is part of the Victorian defences around the town’s harbour. It is one of a number of structures known…
Confirming a 5th-century mosaic at Chedworth Roman Villa
The traditional portrayal of post-Roman Britain as a landscape in decline, devoid of the cultural richness that had been infused into it by the presence of the Empire, was turned on its head in 2020, when a mosaic at Chedworth…
Excavation reveals Larkhall’s prehistoric past
Recently published research has revealed that the location of a new housing development in Larkhall in South Lanarkshire was already popular in prehistory. The discoveries were made during archaeological excavations undertaken by GUARD Archaeology prior to the construction of new…
UK news in brief
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the UK.
More exciting clues uncovered at early medieval site in the Coquet Valley
In 2021 and 2022, archaeological work along a headland near Felton in the Coquet Valley of Northumberland revealed evidence of early medieval activity, including a late 6th-/early 7th-century sunken-featured building (SFB), as well as evidence for the presence of the…
National Gallery excavations uncover more of Anglo-Saxon London
Archaeologists from Archaeology South-East, part of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, have uncovered remains from early medieval London during excavations in advance of the National Gallery’s redevelopment project. The investigations were carried out along Jubilee Walk, the north of Trafalgar…
Analysis of Aylesbury’s Roman egg reveals possible contents
The first intact bird egg ever recovered from a Romano-British context has recently revealed its possible contents, cementing it as a unique archaeological discovery in Britain, and perhaps in the world. The egg was discovered during excavations in 2010 by…
Science Notes – Hunting for hazelnuts: how these nuts can be used to help recreate past environments
Being able to determine changes in the environment, and how humans may have adapted to those changes, is an increasingly important aspect of archaeological study. In this month’s ‘Science Notes’, we explore a recent project, led by Dr Amy Styring…
A tale of three giants? New evidence for the evolution of Cerne Abbas’ chalk colossus
The 55m-tall hill-figure that towers above the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset has long been the subject of debate, in terms of both its date and whom it represents. Mike Allen reports on fieldwork undertaken in 2020-2024 which revealed new clues – and surprises – about the Giant.
Museum news
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Introducing Must Farm, a Bronze Age Settlement at Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery
A new exhibition set to open later this month, and two newly published monographs, tell the story of Must Farm, an extraordinary Bronze Age site in Cambridgeshire that has shed vivid light on everyday life 3,000 years ago. Carly Hilts reports.
Go digging!
With the summer digging season rapidly approaching, we are planning a series of spreads highlighting archaeological opportunities across Britain and Ireland. This month features projects ranging across East Anglia and East Sussex, Yorkshire and Northumberland, the Midlands, the Cotswolds, and London – please do get in touch if you would like to highlight your excavation to our readers in a future issue.
Historic Buildings & Places
Historic Buildings & Places (HBAP) is the working name of the Ancient Monuments Society (AMS), founded in 1924 and thus celebrating its centenary this year. Giles Quarme, Chair of HBAP, explains in the spring edition of Heritage Now, the society’s…
Excavations at Redhouse, Adwick Le Street, Doncaster: Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman occupation
REVIEW BY PATRICK DANIEL This book summarises 17 years of work by MOLA Northampton/Northamptonshire Archaeology at a 70ha development by the Roman road north of Doncaster. The earliest remains comprised a ring ditch with early Bronze Age cremation burials, an…
The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 years of history at Hampton Court
REVIEW BY DANIEL JACKSON Hampton Court Palace, nestled within a bend of the Thames 13 miles from the centre of London, has a fascinating history, during which it grew from a medieval agricultural estate to one of the greatest palaces…
The Archaeology of Worcester in 20 Digs
REVIEW BY AB The archaeological exploration of Worcester began with antiquarian works several hundred years ago, but the bulk of the research has been carried out since the mid-20th century. These excavations have revealed a wealth of information about Worcester’s…
Derrycarhoon: A later Bronze Age copper mine in south-west Ireland
REVIEW BY ROB IXER Over the decades, O’Brien has recorded, in intense detail, the earliest prehistoric copper mining in south-west Ireland, namely Beaker People’s Chalcolithic to early Bronze Age exploitation at Ross Island (now known for its massive contribution to…
The Archaeology of the Hornsea Project One Offshore Windfarm Cable Route
REVIEW BY CH Infrastructure projects often offer exciting archaeological opportunities to explore an area’s past on a large scale. The construction of a windfarm off the Yorkshire coast was one such case: the cables connecting it to the National Grid…
Crypt: life, death, and disease in the Middle Ages and beyond
REVIEW BY KK This is the third book in Alice Roberts’ recent series, which began with Ancestors (highlighting seven famous burials from prehistoric Britain; see CA 380), followed by Buried, which covered the quickly evolving funerary traditions from late Iron…
A spring filled with votive offerings?
Llanfair-Mathafarn-Eithaf Community, Anglesey