Review by Eugenia Ellanskaya. When it comes to interpreting archaeological sites, invisible ink comes to mind as a common medium that has been used to paint the elusive picture of our past. Eye-opening discoveries often come from those slight variations…
One discovery in Essex above all others has regularly hit the archaeological headlines since the early 2000s – the spectacular Saxon princely burial from Prittlewell, near Southend-on-Sea. This was... one of the most exciting finds made in Britain in this period.
Neil went on to propose using what R G Collingwood called ‘the historical imagination’ by blending data and interpretation to ‘tell the story’. He was convinced that this ‘must be done if archaeology is to be interesting and worthwhile’.
The site began life as a simple farmstead in the 1st century AD and transformed over the centuries into quite a grandiose stone structure, with a swimming pool and bath complex, by the mid-2nd century AD.
“The Dieulafoys were unconventional to the point of scorn: Jeanne routinely wore male clothes…”
One of Berkshire’s oddities is that it is often forgotten that perhaps its most famous historic site is in the county at all – that of Windsor Castle. Such is the nature of this historic royal fortress, palace, and showpiece that the county fades away around it.
Which Anglo-Saxon king's stronghold in Athelney, Somerset, was investigated in Time Team's first ever episode?
Last year, we could barely contain our excitement at news that Time Team, the much-loved archaeology series that became a long-running Sunday-afternoon TV favourite, was planning to pick up its trowel again after a near-decade-long hiatus.
The programme kicks off this weekend with an extended three-part extravaganza covering Time Team’s excavation of an Iron Age settlement in Cornwall.
There are many wonderful archaeological, historical, and heritage-related events on offer over the coming months, whether you’re looking for exhibitions and conferences or an opportunity to get your hands dirty at a real excavation. Or if you’d prefer to get your archaeology fix at home, there are still plenty of ways to experience the past from your sofa, ranging from virtual tours of museums and heritage sites to online learning resources and educational games. Amy Brunskill has put together a selection of some of the best options available.
Neil was an interesting person, as he lived two lives. One was as an archaeologist, as a tour guide, excavator, and valued contributor to our magazines. But he also had another life, as a revolutionary Marxist...
Dramatic evidence was found here for Iron Age ritual practices: parts of at least five human bodies were discovered, arranged round the western edge of a shallow hollow filled full of articulated animal bones.
Very often, the stories we tell about archaeology are of objects being dug up, excavated, or otherwise unearthed. Sometimes, however, little actual digging is required, because the object being searched for has been there all along – right in front of the eye, hiding in plain sight, just waiting to be discovered.
It is almost time for Current Archaeology Live! 2022, which will run from 25 to 27 February. We have an excellent line-up of leading archaeological experts ready to share their latest thinking on all aspects of the past, and, like…
Over the last decade, 64 glaciers and ice patches in the Innlandet region have produced over 3,500 archaeological finds, from hunting tools and textiles to zoological material...
Professor Charles Higham will be a familiar figure to CWA readers. Not only does he write a regular column for the magazine, but he is also a world authority on the archaeology of Southeast Asia. When COVID shut down international…
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…
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.
The passage of time reveals two things – the forgetfulness of human memory, and the clarity of hindsight – neither of which of course is a law. For the archaeology of modern conflict, in this case the First World War,…
Self-taught archaeologist John Pull made discoveries of national significance in the South Downs around Worthing, but his humble origins saw him sidelined by more privileged professional peers. With a recently extended exhibition at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery bringing his story back into the spotlight almost 100 years after his investigations began, Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Delving into ancient sites to illuminate the past is generally seen as a Western innovation. But just how novel is this approach? Excavating in Papua New Guinea has prompted Chris Urwin to make the case for many different archaeologies.
This publication features, among other highlights, the extraordinary, emotive survival of a series of footprints made by a Mesolithic child.
Of all the many side-effects of the coronavirus, perhaps the least expected (though most welcome) was a sudden revival of interest in a plucky little archaeology-based television series which last graced our screens way back in 2013. During the lockdown, however, it was reported that millions of people in more than 40 countries had been whiling away their newly enforced leisure hours by tuning in to classic episodes of Time Team on YouTube.
For 20 years, Time Team was an archaeological household name – and, while the show came to an end in 2013, its popularity has soared once again during lockdown. In the last two months alone, over two million people in more than 40 countries have tuned into the Time Team Classics YouTube channel. Now the show is set to return with a pair of new digs to explore the secrets beneath our feet, as Felix Rowe reports.
The very first episode of Time Team was recorded in Athelney, the Somerset village often associated with which historical figure?
It is almost time for Current Archaeology Live! 2021, which will run from 26 to 28 February. While this year’s event will be entirely online, and things will look a bit different to what you are used to, we still…
How do archaeologists know where to dig? How do they find out how old things are? And who gets to keep the objects they find? It is questions like these, often asked by curious members of the public, that Eric…
City walls are the largest structures associated with cities in the Roman Empire, but they seem still to be far from understood – maybe simply because they are such large structures and dating is a topic open to discussion and…
My excavations, including Khok Phanom Di, have yielded well over 1,000 human graves, and often the dead were interred with multiple mortuary offerings from fine pottery vessels to thousands of ornaments in gold, silver, bronze, iron, carnelian, glass, shell, and agate.
Think of the archaeology of Oxford and thoughts will inevitably turn to the historic city centre. In the suburbs, however, there is a heritage every bit as rich and distinct. The Archeox project was set up to investigate the archaeology…
Hillforts of the Tay: community archaeology at Moncreiffe Hill and Castle Law, Abernethy AOC Archaeology Group Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, £5 ISBN 978-527264052 Review Miles Russell
Peak prehistory and Britain's first cave art: Joe Flatman explores half a century of reports from Derbyshire
Even today, getting to the Channel Island of Sark is an adventure, involving a 55-minute journey by sea from Guernsey, and then a climb from the quay through a tunnel in the rock to reach the top of the sheer cliffs that surround the island on all sides. Given the challenges of getting to Sark, the island provides the perfect opportunity to study connectivity and isolation down the ages – one of Sir Barry Cunliffe’s perennial preoccupations, sparking his excavations there. Who came here, when, and why? And what does it tell us about the mobility of past visitors? Chris Catling reports.
Five years after he first explored the prospects of Archaeology as an academic discipline in these pages, John Schofield revisits this topic and reveals what has changed.
That's why skeletal remains and mummies are so popular in museum exhibitions - people can relate to them in a way that not everyone can relate to other archaeological finds such as pottery.
When I have gone into schools to speak to children about our digs they are normally convinced that when they get on site they will be like Indiana Jones and uncover lots of treasure.