This unusual burial was recently found by archaeologists from Highland Archaeology Services, working in advance of the expansion of a quarry at Evelix, near Dornoch, in Sutherland. Before it was used for burial, however, the pit is believed to have…
Recently published research suggests that the bones found around Brading Roman Villa could reflect violent events linked to 4th-century political upheaval. Kathryn Krakowka reports.
Recent analysis of a mandible (lower jawbone) from an individual buried inside the East Kirk of St Nicholas in Aberdeen has identified a rare example of late medieval/early post-medieval dentistry: the earliest evidence of dental interventions yet found in Scotland.…
Recent excavations at Milestone Ground on the eastern edge of Broadway have revealed one of the most intriguing archaeological landscapes yet found in Worcestershire. Beneath quiet pasture lay evidence of human activity stretching back 8,000 years, including Mesolithic flint tools, Bronze Age burials, hundreds of Iron Age storage pits, a Roman farmstead, and the largest late Roman cemetery known in the county. Constance Mitchell reports.
Newly published analysis of 11,000-year-old fragments of human bone and teeth
from Heaning Wood Bone Cave in Cumbria has revealed that they belonged to
an early Mesolithic child. Carly Hilts reports.
Gerrit zur Hausen explains the difficulties of studying cancer in ancient populations, and how such research may help in our fight against the disease today.
National Museums Scotland holds one of the largest collections of archaeological human remains from Scotland. Following the creation of cutting-edge facilities to care for and study these remains, as well as the recruitment of Scotland’s first Curator of Osteoarchaeology, Jess Thompson, Matthew Knight, Kirsty Owen, Adrián Maldonado, Bethany Simpson, and Vesna Podržaj explore what excavated individuals can tell us about past populations, and consider the ethical issues surrounding such research.
When excavating human remains, archaeologists are sometimes able to identify a pregnant woman if the bones of her unborn child are still present in her pelvic area. There are many reasons why this might be missed, however, such as if…
We have covered the growing area of palaeoproteomics – the study of proteins in archaeological remains – a few times in ‘Science Notes’ (see, in particular, CA 338 and 353). The research up to this point has been largely focused…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT This important new collection of essays explores what disability meant to the people living in the Nile Valley thousands of years ago, and the lived experience and reception of disability within the field of Egyptology over…
An ‘unprecedented’ mass grave of Roman soldiers has been uncovered in Vienna. The find was made last autumn by construction workers who were renovating a football pitch in the Simmering district of the city. In April, experts at the Vienna…
As we move into warmer months, the words ‘I’m going to go out for some Vitamin D’ are beginning to make their appearance in conversation. Vitamin D is essential for bone growth, and plays an important role in immunity and…
Rachel Cotton investigates why some early Egyptologists collected skulls, and shows how the analysis of one particular skull can reveal much about the deceased person’s life.
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Human remains that were discovered in peatland at Ballymacombs More in Northern Ireland have been reidentified as belonging to an Iron Age woman who was possibly the victim of a sacrificial rite. When a bog body was discovered by machine…
New project to investigate Roman gypsum burials A three-year, £1 million project, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is set to explore the Roman practice of coating bodies within coffins in liquid gypsum before burial. (A burial of…
Why were the remains of dozens of men, women, and children thrown into a deep shaft in Bronze Age Somerset? They had suffered violent deaths, after which their bodies were butchered and probably partly consumed in an act unprecedented in British prehistory. Carly Hilts describes recently published research into possible motivations behind these events.
A rare stone sarcophagus is among more than 20 Roman burials that have been uncovered by archaeologists working on a road improvement project between Wansford and Sutton. The investigation, undertaken by Headland Archaeology, revealed 15 burials within an enclosed cemetery,…
Many studies have been carried out into the impact of smoking on the human body, and one need only to glance at a pack of cigarettes to be confronted with imagery detailing some of the consequences in gory detail. In…
Archaeological work on the site of a Victorian workhouse and hospital has revealed the remains of almost 4,500 individuals, offering a rare opportunity to study the lives and deaths of the institution’s residents. Blackberry Hill Hospital was originally founded as…
New research into the burial sites of 17th- and 18th-century whalers on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is providing rare insight into the lives of these individuals and the impact of climate change on Arctic archaeology. Project leader Lise Loktu tells us more.
Analysis of arrowheads from Bronze Age Europe is uncovering new details about an ancient battle that took place in the Tollense Valley.
This image shows the remains of a horse excavated recently from a trench at Mont-Saint-Jean Farm in Waterloo, Belgium. The farm was the site of a field hospital for the Duke of Wellington’s troops in the aftermath of the battle…
Human remains discovered on Lindisfarne in 2022 have been identified as disturbed burials that were potentially associated with an early medieval chapel and cemetery at the island’s famous medieval monastery. The bones were initially discovered during a watching brief undertaken by AOC…
The mummy of a woman with a screaming facial expression (below) has attracted a great deal of press attention recently, with headlines suggesting she died in agony. However, in spite of a recent examination using advanced scanning techniques, the cause…
Jessica Coughtrey asks what ancient skeletons can tell us about the role of women in the ancient Egyptian workforce.
A skull dating to the Old Kingdom bears evidence that might indicate an attempt to treat cancer, according to new research published by Tatiana Tondini, Albert Isidro, and Edgard Camarós in Frontiers in Medicine. Analysis of the skull, from the…
The text known as The Satire of the Trades extols the virtues of being a scribe compared to other jobs but, although not physically demanding, the positions and repetitive tasks involved could still take their toll on the body according…
Medieval cemeteries often contain individuals whose names have been lost to history, buried in strikingly uniform ways. How can we understand their experiences as individual people? Craig Cessford and John Robb describe analysis of hundreds of skeletons from Cambridge that has helped to reconstruct the lives of those who were laid to rest at the Hospital of St John.
Recent excavations by Gahan and Long Archaeological Services in advance of the construction of a new retail store in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, have unearthed a previously unknown medieval cemetery. As work began on the site in December of last year,…
REVIEW BY KK This is the third book in Alice Roberts’ recent series, which began with Ancestors (highlighting seven famous burials from prehistoric Britain; see CA 380), followed by Buried, which covered the quickly evolving funerary traditions from late Iron…
In this month’s ‘Science Notes’, we examine a recent paper that has developed a new method to identify ‘aneuploidies’ – conditions characterised by an atypical number of chromosomes – among a large array of individuals from Europe, spanning the Iron…
REVIEW BY AB In the 1990s, archaeologists excavating in West Sussex made a remarkable discovery: human remains belonging to ancient humans who lived around half a million years ago. These discoveries from Boxgrove continue to represent the oldest human remains…
Grafton Elliot Smith’s lost recording cards detailing his excavations near Aswan in 1907-1912 have been discovered in an archive at the University of Cambridge, and published as part of a ten-year research project by Dr Jenny Metcalfe of the University…
CT-scans of a female mummy from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have revealed the teenaged girl was pregnant with twins, and she may have died in childbirth. One foetus had been wrapped and placed between the mother’s legs…
Two burials were discovered this past December along the coastline in front of the Wemyss Caves in Fife. While investigations are ongoing, it is thought – based on the date of other burials that have previously been found nearby –…