Sherds CA 406
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
environmental archaeology
Excavating the CA archive
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.
Extreme cold drove early humans out of Europe
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…
Significant Mesolithic site excavated in Bedfordshire
Aseries of 25 Mesolithic pits have been discovered in Linmere, near Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire. This is the highest number of pits from this period ever found at a single site in England, making this one of the largest Mesolithic…
Bronze Age burnt mound brought to light in Suffolk
Excavations in the winter of 2021 at Framlingham Road in Laxfield, Suffolk, have revealed a palimpsest of prehistoric settlement activity, including an enigmatic Bronze Age burnt mound. Bronze Age burnt mounds have long been puzzling archaeological features. As they are…
Science Notes: Sifting through the soil: surveying the future of DNA
For this month’s ‘Science Notes’, I started off writing about ‘sedaDNA’, a catch-all term for any ancient DNA – including from flora, fauna, fungi, and other microorganisms – which is extracted from archaeological sediments. It is a technique that is…
The Viking Age in Scotland: Studies in Scottish Scandinavian Archaeology
REVIEW SHANE MCLEOD This handsomely produced book acts as a 20-year celebration of the earlier Vikings in Scotland: an archaeological study by James Graham-Campbell and Colleen Batey, and as a continuation of that still indispensable work. Both of those authors contribute…
An archaeology of thought
I doubted if Daeng would find anything of interest within. An hour later, she was revealing the smallest skeleton I have ever seen.
Doggerland: lost world under the North Sea
Review by Bryony Coles The blurb on the back of this book gives an uncommonly accurate description of its contents: ‘a popular science book that tells the story of one of the most important, but least known major archaeological sites…
The Rise and Decline of Druce Farm Roman Villa (60-650 CE): excavations 2012-2018
Review by Simon Esmonde Cleary The excavations at Druce Farm in Dorset were carried out by local volunteers between 2012 and 2018, along with geophysical, drone, and laser surveys of the environs. The full publication of the results only four…
Mesolithic site found in the Vale of Pickering
In total, the trench yielded over 1,000 stone tools and more than 200 animal bones.
Feathers and fur in Stone Age Finland
Analysis of animal hairs and plant fibres from a Late Mesolithic grave have shed new light on prehistoric clothing and burial practices in Finland.
Footprints on Merseyside beach shine light on biodiversity in Ancient Britain
The footprint beds reveal that the intertidal landscapes of Mesolithic Britain were hubs of human and animal activity for the first few thousand years after the last glacial period.
Research sheds new light on Cahokia’s North Plaza
The study found that the plaza would have been underwater for most if not all of the year at the time of the site’s creation.
Fen and Sea: the landscapes of south-east Lincolnshire AD 500-1700
Review by Duncan W Wright. The fens of eastern England are usually characterised as unremittingly flat, with big skies but little topographical variation. This (frankly lazy) assumption fails to account for the subtle differences in geology and height above sea…
The Cairns and the Newark Project, Orkney
This summer, CA Editor Carly Hilts travelled to Orkney to catch up on recent archaeological research in the islands (watch this space for future features). While there, she also visited exhibitions showcasing discoveries from two more excavations, at Stromness Museum, and the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.
Using peat to explore the impact of climate change
The abandonment of environmentally fragile Irish uplands like Slieveanorra – a remote site with a small raised bog – has previously been linked to socio-economic problems driven by climate change.
Life before Stonehenge: exploring environmental evidence from Blick Mead
Scientific analysis of sediments, pollen, and ancient DNA preserved at Blick Mead in Wiltshire has revealed a detailed picture of the Mesolithic landscape close to Stonehenge. David Jacques and Sam Hudson report.
Seasonal Settlement in the Medieval and Early Modern Countryside
Review by Stephen Mileson. This latest, well-produced, and richly illustrated contribution to the Ruralia series tells us much about medieval and early modern use of the mountains, moorlands, forests, and remote coastlines that lay beyond Europe’s more populous lowland valleys…
Thousands of amphibian bones discovered at Late Iron Age site in Cambridgeshire
Excavations at Bar Hill in Cambridgeshire yielded almost 700kg of animal bone – including over 8,000 amphibian bones.
The archaeology of Black Cat Quarry: farming, flooding, and fighting in the Great Ouse valley
Recent excavations at Black Cat Quarry in Bedfordshire have revealed a story of farming communities spanning the Neolithic to the early medieval period, as well as the possible remains of an important Viking encampment described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Ben Dyson, who supervised the majority of excavations and undertook the post-excavation analysis for Archaeological Research Services Ltd, explains more.
New analysis of Blick Mead’s Mesolithic landscape
Excavations at the site have revealed traces of a significant Mesolithic ‘home base’, including evidence of extensive flint-tool manufacturing and major feasting events.
For peat’s sake: peatlands, climate change, and the future of archaeology
How can understanding the archaeology of peatlands help to ameliorate the current climate crisis? Rosie Everett and Gillian Taylor share the latest research.
News in brief: Prehistoric Heathlands and Holcombe Moor
Prehistoric heathlands Plans to expand fragments of Neolithic heathland on Brownsea Island in Dorset (below) have been announced by the National Trust and Dorset Wildlife Trust as part of a project to restore the island’s habitat. England’s south coast was…
Climatic change and ancient civilisations
New studies are revealing the impact environmental changes have had on ancient societies around the world.
Representing regions in dendrochronological data
An international team of 58 archaeologists, historians, geographers, and environmental scientists has used felling-date data to conduct a larger-scale investigation into medieval and early modern building activity rates as indicators of social, demographic, and economic change.
The Society for Landscape Studies
When The Making of the English Landscape by W G Hoskins was published in 1954, its author claimed that ‘no book exists to describe the manner in which the various landscapes of this country came to assume the shape and…
Rethinking the jungle: the forgotten story of humanity and tropical forests
Humans and jungles are often seen as a poor combination. It is easy to write off the environment as challenging at best and a ‘green hell’ at worst. But could it be that tropical forests have repeatedly helped rather than hindered humanity’s progress? Patrick Roberts told Matthew Symonds why it is time to rethink the archaeology of the jungle.
This week: jungle
According to the dictionary, it means simply 'land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation'. But in the context of our human story, the word 'jungle' – which derives from the Hindi 'jangal' – has often taken on unfairly negative connotations.
This week: climate change
Archaeologists have been among those paying close attention this week as delegates have gathered in Glasgow for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. Few would now disagree that man-made global warming is having a devastating effect around the world.
CITiZAN’S Climate Emergency: protecting the future by understanding the past
Can studying past coastal change help us to ameliorate the climate crisis facing us today? A project focused on Mersea Island in Essex has illuminated invaluable information, report Oliver Hutchinson, Danielle Newman, and Lawrence Northall.
Mammoths and Neanderthals in the Thames Valley: excavations at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire
This book presents the results of excavations at the Dix Pit quarry near the village of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, which revealed one of the largest and most-remarkable Pleistocene assemblages yet to be found in Britain, with finds spanning over c.200,0000…
Silchester Revealed: the Iron Age and Roman town of Calleva
Writing a book about the history of a Roman town in Britain is not an easy task. To create a readable and balanced account, an author has to contend with various levels of knowledge, inevitably glossing over or filling in…
A Biography of Power: research and excavations at the Iron Age oppidum of Bagendon, Gloucestershire (1979-2017)
Bagendon has long been the poor relation of British late Iron Age oppida, lurking on the distribution’s western fringe. Its extensive, intermittent ramparts have long been known, but only in the 1950s did limited excavations reveal its character. Tom Moore’s…
Pre-Hispanic flood-management in the Pampa de Mocan
For thousands of years, areas along the north coast of Peru have been subject to huge flooding as a result of El Niño, a periodic warming in the atmosphere of the Pacific Ocean, which causes torrential rainfall in the eastern…
Sifting through the remains of Scotland’s kelping industry
For a brief period, from around 1750 to 1820, the west coast and islands of Scotland experienced a boom in demand for kelp, a seaweed-derived substance used in the soap and glass-making industries. Kevin Grant – formerly St Kilda Archaeologist with the National Trust for Scotland, now Archaeology Manager at Historic Environment Scotland – has been studying the fragile and elusive remains of this once-thriving industry, as Chris Catling reports.