Seventy years after John Pull’s excavations at Cissbury Ring transformed our understanding of Neolithic flint-mining, an innovative new interpretive trail has been launched at the West Sussex landmark. Carly Hilts visited the site with James Brown and James Sainsbury to find out more.
Not so long ago, the word ‘hillfort’ was habitually preceded by the words ‘Iron Age’, but now we know plenty of older examples. Not all of them are built on hills, and as for the word ‘fort’ there is little evidence for a defensive or offensive function. So what on earth are they? Having read the new Atlas of the Hillforts of Britain and Ireland, Chris Catling explores decades of research into these puzzling prehistoric monuments.
A community excavation led by DigVentures has unearthed post-holes and artefacts thought to date from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Roman periods.
The excavations featured in a recent episode of The Great British Dig.
Once the capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles, which busy Suffolk port was carried away by coastal erosion?
Boris Johnson is not, of course, the first political leader to take a dim view of the free movement of people and goods between Britain and the Continent. More than 2,000 years earlier, Julius Caesar ordered the destruction of ships…
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.
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.
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.
This July, the Festival of Archaeology returns with an exciting mixture of digital and on-the-ground events, as well resources and activities, all centred around ‘Exploring Local Places’. Here is a taste of just some of the options.
Straddling the border between Herefordshire and Monmouthshire in the lee of the Black Mountains, the parish of Longtown has the remains of two castles. One is a popular visitor attraction in the care of English Heritage, with a stout-walled round keep. Half a mile away is another, in the form of a large earthen mound. When the members of the Longtown & District Historical Society decided to investigate, they realised that little was known about either castle, so they set out to find out when they were built, by whom, and why there were two in such close proximity. Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reports.
Flimston is a baseline study site for the EU-funded Ireland–Wales CHERISH project (2017-2023), which is studying climate change and eroding coastal heritage in Ireland and Wales.
The archaeological societies founded in the 19th century embraced all aspects of the discipline, and from about the beginning of the 20th century societies came to be formed. In recent years, they have been joined by more-specialist societies and journals.…
There is no email I await with greater anticipation and, indeed, trepidation, than one captioned ‘Your radiocarbon results’.
Archaeological investigations at Shrewsbury Castle have provided surprising insights into the make-up of some of its defences. The castle was founded by the Normans and reworked in the 13th century, and the imposing ramparts, crowned with curtain walls, that surround…
In his final column, Mick leaves us with some tips on how to unpick the evolution of a local parish on the ground. What could you discover in your neighbourhood?
What is archaeology alongside a film crew like? Matthew Symonds found out.