This book brings together papers from MetalAges2024 – Chronological Methods and their Correlation in the Metal Ages, which was held in Florence in 2024, co-organised by the UISPP Scientific Commission ‘Metal Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean’ and the Istituto…
Excavations south of Gloucester have uncovered a remarkably well preserved Bronze Age watering hole, with many of its wooden structures surviving in situ. The discovery was made last year during investigations by Cotswold Archaeology. When they first stripped back the…
A narrow wadi in Algeria contains a remarkable concentration of rock art. Christoph Baumer reveals how these images offer a glimpse of a changing world, as a land of lakes and grasslands transformed into the Sahara Desert.
Analysis of a sediment core from Doggerland – the prehistoric landscape that once connected Britain to mainland Europe – has provided the clearest chronology yet for when this area became submerged beneath the North Sea, showing that the process of…
Professor Brian M Fagan, who has died aged 88, was a New York Times best-selling author and Current World Archaeology columnist, whose work brought the past to life for generations of readers. Nadia Durrani reflects.
Recent research suggests that engraved stones discovered on the Danish island of Bornholm may have been ritual offerings in response to climatic change caused by a huge volcanic eruption almost 5,000 years ago. Over the past few decades, hundreds of…
AlUla is an oasis town in north- western Saudi Arabia with a deep historic past as a major stepping stone for the traders who brought frankincense and myrrh north into Egypt and the Levant.
REVIEW BY JAMES SAINSBURY The Rother Valley comprises a series of papers, compiled and edited by John Boardman and Ian Foster. The book covers the prehistoric archaeology and palaeoecology of the Rother in great detail, with a masterful contribution from…
REVIEW BY SOPHIA CHAPPLE In Where Men No More May Reap or Sow, Richard Oram analyses five centuries of Scottish environmental history across 13 chapters. This project initially sought to cover the early medieval period up until COP26, recently held…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Every year Professor Quinn has the task of sorting out applications from those wishing to study classics. Many of them say that they wish to study classics because Greece and Rome are ‘the roots of Western…
The CHERISH Project resulted from a joint Welsh and Irish application to the European Union’s Interreg fund, the purpose of which is to bring member nations together to share innovative and sustainable solutions to regional development challenges. In this case, the challenge was climate change and its impact on the heritage sites and landscapes along the Irish Sea coast and beneath its waters. The project was conceived and led by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, and Chris Catling, the Commission’s Secretary, now reports on its methods and outcomes.
New research published in Nature Geoscience suggests that a sudden major shift in the course of the Nile, 4,000 years ago, created a greatly enlarged area of fertile land. The team from Sweden’s Uppsala University and the University of Southampton…
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY DARVILL Archaeology is not just concerned with learning about the past – it is also about using our hard-won understandings to help inform the present and shape the future. Nowhere is this more urgent than with reference…
I was delighted to be invited to the fifth Shanghai Archaeology Forum last December, happily revived after the COVID closedowns. This meeting is becoming a major fixture in the archaeological calendar, for every two years the advisory committee is asked to adjudicate all the nominations for field discovery and research awards.
New interdisciplinary research from the University of Aberdeen has suggested that Holme I – a Bronze Age timber circle in north Norfolk that is also known as ‘Seahenge’ – was created as a response to a period of climatic deterioration.…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS In his 2014 book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (reviewed in AE 85) Eric Cline charted the ‘perfect storm of calamities’ that led to the sudden collapse of the thriving interconnected Bronze Age civilisations. In…
The Dolmen of Guadalperal is a megalithic tomb located in the Spanish province of Cáceres, some two hours south-west of Madrid. The site is believed to be a Neolithic funerary monument, probably constructed between the 5th and 4th millennium BC.…
Recent archaeological investigations at the Castle Rock settlement complex, in the Mesa Verde region, have revealed new information about the Ancestral Pueblo community who lived here. Radosław Palonka, who led the research, tells us more.
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
Archaeological survey of ice patches in the Mount Edziza Provincial Park, Tahltan Territory, British Columbia, Canada, has identified an array of perishable artefacts associated with ancient obsidian mining dating back thousands of years. Exploitation and trade of Mount Edziza obsidian…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK What fields are left for Barry Cunliffe to conquer? After the Celts and the Bretons, Europe between the oceans, the Atlantic Ocean, the Scythians, and the Steppe, he has now turned his attention to Africa, and…
Archaeologists and historians tend to approach the early medieval period through the lens of what was lost after the collapse of Roman rule. In her new book on life in Wales between c.AD 300 and 1050, Nancy Edwards shows us what survived from the centuries of Roman control – in particular Christianity and Latin literacy – and the ways in which these were used to create new identities in a formative period in the development of Wales, as Chris Catling discovers.
We all enjoy stories about new discoveries, and it is these that tend to grab the news headlines, but there is another kind of story that gets far less coverage: those that contradict an earlier claim. In that category is…
New research is changing our understanding of the climate of Early Pleistocene Europe and what it meant for our early relatives. Hominin fossils and stone tools indicate that archaic humans had reached Europe by around 1.4 million years ago. Surviving…
REVIEW BY NATALIE BUTLER John Davies and David Waterhouse take the reader on an absorbing journey into Norfolk’s past. Exploring Norfolk’s Deep History Coast is carefully researched and beautifully presented. It offers a whole and knowledgeable guide to the rich…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH Due to current climate change, the coastline of north-western Europe is in a state of flux, resulting in the slow but inevitable inundation of the sea. This change in coastline is clearly witnessed by the ongoing disappearance…
The study suggests that the archaeological sites of Apollonia, Ptolemais, and Tocra are at risk of extensive erosion.
Review by Eric Singleton It is a welcome departure to see a scholar stepping outside their regionalised field of study to offer an interconnected view of North American history that is not often discussed. This is what Timothy Pauketat, an…
The glass roof of the Orangery was installed in 1861, following a fire in an adjacent bakery which damaged the original structure
Following his exploration of rock art in the Western Desert in AE 127, Julian Heath continues his occasional series exploring Egypt’s prehistoric past, looking for evidence for the earliest settlements in the Western Desert.
Scientists identified ancient DNA belonging to the relatives of present-day reindeer, hares, and lemmings.
In this slim and accessible volume, Palaeolithic archaeologist Paul Pettitt writes with confidence about the recent history of history, or, rather, prehistory. A prologue introduces us to the immersive world of Palaeolithic archaeology, introduces its intent, and from there we…
Following this issue’s explorations of genetic data, cemetery and skeletal evidence, and isotope analysis, Joanna Story reflects on the significance of the research, and its place within the bigger picture of understanding the early Middle Ages.
I was reminded of his contempt for journalism during the summer, when the BBC and scores of newspapers that consider themselves serious reported that the drought was so severe that the source of the River Thames had dried up.
The plan now is to fully preserve the roundhouse and leave it open so that people may appreciate the scale of erosion that is occurring at this site.
Review by George Nash. When looking at the prehistory of Ireland, we are instantly drawn to the complex societies that were involved in the construction and use of burial monuments of the Neolithic, some five to six millennia ago. The…