A small team of archaeologists has been undertaking research into the island of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides. Camping for a few days at a time over a number of years, they have carried out both survey and excavation work. Derek Alexander, Daniel Rhodes, Stuart Jeffrey, Tessa Poller, and Siân Jones describe the results of these efforts to date.
Colin Reader shows how ancient Egypt’s geology led to wealth, power, and influence.
Colin Reader is a geologist by profession, but became fascinated by ancient Egypt, particularly the earliest phases of the civilisation. He has studied the Great Sphinx of Giza for nearly 30 years, applying his professional expertise to all the available…
Oxford Cotswold Archaeology’s ongoing excavations on the site of the planned Sizewell C power station in Suffolk have uncovered a vast array of features and finds spanning 6,000 years of history. Project Manager Richard Mortimer guides us through some of the most significant discoveries to-date.
Archaeologists have long sought to understand how the Romans made use of natural resources on their northern frontier, both in constructing its famous fortifications and supporting the lives of those who garrisoned them. Ian Jackson offers a thought-provoking insight into what geology can add to this picture – and what it cannot.
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is the second landscape book by Jackson to be published this year and is in many respects a prequel to his earlier Rocks on the Edge of Empire, which is itself a splendid, sometimes stunning,…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is a peculiar hybrid of a book. It is a pretty good generalised account of British ‘historical geology’, namely a description of the occurrence of all the rocks given in stratigraphical order from the earliest…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER ‘No provenance is better than wrong provenance’ should be tattooed on the forehead of anyone embarking on a career in lithic studies. Forgoing that, buying this book would be a useful long-term alternative. This quintessential reference/lab…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER Many recent popular archaeology books are text-heavy, with indifferently reproduced black-and-white illustrations printed on poor-quality paper, and with a few token colour plates. This wonderful paperback, a landscape book in both senses of the word, is…
Some 12 miles east of Norwich, Reedham’s church of St John the Baptist has a distinctive appearance, dominated by reused Roman stone, brick, and tile. Mike Fulford describes how archaeological research has identified a potential source for this material: a possibly military predecessor preserved beneath the existing medieval structure.
New research suggests that one of Stonehenge’s famous megaliths may have come from the very north of the UK. The Altar Stone is a six-tonne sandstone slab that currently lies in the middle of the famous stone circle. It was…
Cutting-edge scientific research indicates that a stone at the centre of Stonehenge may have travelled hundreds of miles from north-east Scotland to Salisbury Plain. Carly Hilts reports.
REVIEW BY MATTHEW CHAMPION It is no surprise that any study of early English stone churches should focus on the county of Norfolk. With in excess of 650 medieval churches surviving to this day, the county is a microcosm of…
New research is calling into question the origin and function of the Altar Stone at Stonehenge. A century ago, Herbert Thomas announced that the non-sarsens, dolerites, and volcanic tuffs making up the Stonehenge bluestones had been transported to Wiltshire from…
Egyptian researchers have used three spectroscopic techniques for rapid analysis of gemstones from Egypt, revealing their origins and providing a window into historical trade routes. Gemstones peridot (olivine) and emerald, and semi-gemstones beryl, amazonite, and amethyst, from mines in the…
REVIEW BY ANTONY LEE This volume, an output of the WallCAP project (2018-2022), directly and successfully addresses historic disconnects between archaeological and geological studies of Hadrian’s Wall. It presents a thoughtful and accessible study into how consideration of the Wall’s…
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 CERI PENNINGTON This engaging read explores the archaeology, geology, and history of millstones in North-West England and the Pennines. Initially focusing on the background of the study, the volume then moves into examining case studies of specific sites,…
REVIEW BY JPP Colin Reader is a geologist who has combined his professional knowledge with his passion for Egyptology to produce a fascinating geological history of the country. The title of his book derives from Herodotus’ assertion that the ancient…
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
The Cornish Buildings Group recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Dedicated to preserving and improving Cornwall’s built heritage, the Group has marked its half-century by publishing a short history of its achievements and a volume of conference proceedings that address the question: what defines Cornish buildings? Among the factors that contribute to Cornwall’s architectural distinctiveness are the county’s geology and building stones, as well as particular building types and the designs of architects who devoted much of their career to the county, as Chris Catling reports.
New research seems to suggest that two ‘lost’ islands depicted on a medieval map of the Welsh coastline did once exist.
Strontium (Sr) isotope analysis has been used in archaeology for several decades now to assess movement and migration at both the individual and population level. To be as accurate as possible, however, it requires a strong baseline knowledge of the biologically available strontium in the regions from which the samples are likely to have originated.
The recent rediscovery of a series of rock samples collected during the Victorian period has allowed new analysis of some of the stones of Stonehenge. Rob Ixer, Richard Bevins, Nick Pearce, and David Dawson explain more.
In which year did the eruption of Mount Vesuvius bury Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and mud?
London Clay is an impressionistic survey of London and its history, filtered through the prism of the underlying geological strata. It is at once personal and overarching, meandering from pre-Roman to Victorian, south London to north, via what Chivers (a…
A study of stone tools from the Roman site of Volubilis in central Morocco has revealed that the material used to make them was specifically selected to improve the function of each object.
It is always interesting to find a new book about bricks. Often ignored, these little marvels need to be celebrated, and, for this reviewer at least, there can never be too many opportunities to do so. The ability to manufacture…
One of the essentials of building a megalithic chambered burial monument is the choice of materials used to construct it. It is now considered that stone (boulders, stone erratics and fragments, and quarried stone) used in the construction of megaliths was…
'In 1638, Kircher was lowered into an awakening Vesuvius to advance his geological knowledge.'
A few days ago I saw a notice that said ‘BeGambleAware’. It warned of the dangers of addiction, but it could have referred to the author of this book. Readers of Current Archaeology will already be aware that Clive Gamble,…
As a first-year undergraduate at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in London, I spent seven weeks during the summer of 1991 at Boxgrove, enjoying stints working at several sites there, including GTP17, Q2/D, and Q1/A (as well as a week as…
How is cutting-edge chemical analysis helping to pinpoint the source of some of Stonehenge’s standing stones – 140 miles from Wiltshire in the Preseli hills? Geologists Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins explain.
The hills around Bath look solid enough but below the surface they are riddled with tunnels and stone quarries. When some of these began to collapse, putting the village of Combe Down at risk, Oxford Archaeology was called in to record this vast labyrinth before it was filled with concrete. Chris Catling reports on the record they made of an industry that helped create the beautiful buildings of Georgian Bath’s ‘Golden Age’.
Crete lies in an earthquake zone. This has affected the island over the centuries, but how? Although never fully recognised, in the 1850s Captain Spratt, of the Royal Navy, worked it out. Dudley Moore explains.
Around 8000 years ago a huge underwater landslide off Norway triggered a tsunami (‘tidal wave’) that wreaked destruction along the coasts of Norway, Iceland and eastern Scotland. An archaeologist considers the contemporary (Mesolithic) Scottish scene in the next article. Here geographer David E Smith describes what Quaternary scientists know as the Storegga tsunami.