Iron Age

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.

Left Craig yr Aderyn (‘Bird’s Rock’) is a hill rising 258m above sea level near Llanfihangel y Pennant in Gwynedd. It is home to an Iron Age promontory fort.

What are hillforts? Investigating one of the most misunderstood monuments in Britain and Ireland

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.

Silures: resistance, resilience, revival

Review by Miranda Aldhouse-Green. Ray Howell’s new book focuses on the Iron Age and the transition to the Roman period as experienced by one particular tribe (or polity), zooming in on the Silures of south-east Wales. In 11 succinct chapters,…

World news in brief – giant jars found in India, discoveries at Notre-Dame

A round-up of some of the latest discoveries from across the globe.

The Past

More than 100 Iron Age settlements identified north of Hadrian’s Wall

The new discoveries include a number of small farmsteads and Iron Age enclosures.

The Past

Viking Age boat grave found in Norway

It appears the grave was cut, and the boat – which may have accommodated one or more deceased – placed within before being covered with a burial mound.

Iron Age coin database launched online

The Celtic Coin Index is more technologically advanced than its predecessors.

LEFT & ABOVE Prehistoric sites at Kingsmead Quarry and Datchet, in CA 292 and CA 351, revealed traces of Neolithic life.

Excavating Berkshire

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.

UK museum news: Roman helmet goes on display and exhibition explores Tutankhamun’s childhood

The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.

Metal detecting in progress on a Time Team dig

The Past

This week: Time Team

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.

Opposite Time Team stalwarts Carenza Lewis and John Gater examine a trench at Boden in Cornwall, where the Team have been investigating an Iron Age fogou.

Back to the future: visiting Time Team’s first new digs in a decade

The popular archaeology series Time Team has returned with its first new episodes in a decade. Felix Rowe took Current Archaeology behind the scenes at two very different excavations, investigating Iron Age Cornwall and Roman Oxfordshire.

Industrial-scale Roman silver extraction in Kent

The team also found the remains of a high-status, middle-aged woman who had been laid to rest in a lead-lined coffin.

The Past

Time Team: the love affair continues

So, what’s different about this incarnation of Team Time? Besides the charm and expertise of several new cast members, these episodes wholly embrace the countless scientific advances in dating and scanning that have occurred over the last decade.

Scythian plate

The plate was found in 2021 at the Devitsa V cemetery in the Ostrogozhsky District of the Voronezh region, Russia.

The Romans in the Nene Valley

Review by CH. This engaging overview of archaeological evidence in the Nene Valley spans the Iron Age to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. Although relatively slim at 72 pages, it is packed with information and richly illustrated, drawing on the…

The Past

This week: Britain and Brittany

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…

BELOW Overlooking the early stages of the 2021 main trench excavation at Brough on Humber. The remains of a substantial wall core can be seen emerging in the foreground.

Petuaria revisited: searching for Brough-on-Humber’s lost Roman theatre

Eighty-five years ago, an inscription was discovered at Brough-on-Humber hinting that the town was once home to a Roman theatre. Peter Halkon and James Lyall report on more recent excavations seeking to relocate its remains.

Left The nucleated fort of Trusty’s Hill in Galloway. Unlike earlier Iron Age forts, which are normally enclosed by concentric ramparts and ditches, the layout of this early medieval fort comprised a fortified summit accessed via a delineated and often symbolically charged entranceway and with non concentric outer enclosures along lower lying terraces of the hill.

Beyond the Wall: exploring the prehistoric origins of Scotland

Hadrian’s Wall is often blamed for splitting ancient Britain in two, but a new look at the archaeological evidence suggests that the peoples of what would become Scotland and England were already culturally divergent long before the Romans arrived in Britain – as Ronan Toolis explains.

Iron Age Chariot Burials in Britain and the Near Continent

Review by Peter Halkon. Chariot burials are icons of Iron Age Britain. Apart from those found near Edinburgh and in Pembroke, they are clustered in eastern Yorkshire, with an outlier at Ferry Fryston in West Yorkshire. The most spectacular were…

Iron Age and Roman Settlement at Highflyer Farm, Ely, Cambridgeshire

This well-produced collaborative volume (with 12 subsidiary authors and two illustrators) presents – very timeously – the results of the 2018 excavation of c.4.5ha of development land on the outskirts of Ely. While intermittent use is attested from the late…

The Past

Rare 4,000-year-old board game found in Oman

The game's discovery proves that such entertainment was available for lower social classes as well as rulers.

The Past

DNA analysis sheds light on Iron Age salt miners’ diets

This is the first molecular evidence of beer production in Iron Age Europe.

Digging Deep: a journey into Southeast Asia’s past

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…

Rebuilt Romano-Celtic temple unveiled in Kent

It is 70m from where archaeological remains thought to represent a 1st-century AD temple were discovered

Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in north-east Scotland

The rapid suburban expansion of Inverness in recent decades has led to a patchwork of prehistoric sites being discovered through developer-funded excavations. In 2005, however, Headland Archaeology hit the motherlode at Culduthel. They had discovered a multi-period prehistoric site whose…

New discoveries at Pen Dinas Iron Age hillfort

Geophysical survey revealed previously unrecorded outer defences at the site

The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, ideas

The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas is an ambitious scholarly volume tracing the origins of the European identity in the Eurasian steppe, the vast expanse of land that stretches from Hungary through to the Ural Mountains and China. Covering a…

Aerial archaeology

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.

The Past

Silver plate depicting Scythian gods found in Russia

Archaeologists excavating a Middle Don burial ground in the Ostrogozhsky District of the Voronezh region, Russia, have discovered a unique silver plate depicting winged Scythian gods and griffins.

LEFT The intricately detailed recumbent stag depicted on this gold plaque with turquoise and lapis lazuli inlays was found with seven others representing female deer in Eleke Sazy Kurgan 4.

Gold of the Great Steppe

A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge presents an array of artefacts from the Iron Age Saka culture of East Kazakhstan. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.

History of the Caucasus

For thousands of years, people have lived on the 1,000-mile span of mountains stretching, high and low, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, or in the numerous mountain valleys that delineate the Caucasus – an area where Asia…

The Past

CARD Fund applications are open

The CARD fund provides funding for ten radiocarbon dates from British archaeological sites which are organised by community archaeology groups.

Exhibitions, Events, and Visits

With even more heritage sites and museums around the UK opening up and in-person events being held again, we have put together a list of some of the exhibitions, lectures, and events coming up soon. However, there are also still plenty of ways to get involved in archaeology, history, and heritage from home, and Amy Brunskill has gathered a selection of the online resources, virtual tours, and other activities available now.

Iron Age shrine unearthed in the Yorkshire Wolds

Excavations on a hill in the Yorkshire Wolds have uncovered the remains of a 24m2 Iron Age shrine packed with cow skulls, deer antler, and other animal bones. The site appeared as crop marks in aerial photographs taken over 20…

Treasures of the Scythian Kings

Barry Cunliffe, among the most distinguished of world archaeologists, has recently drawn together the evidence for the Scythians in a comprehensive new book, The Scythians: nomad warriors of the steppe. Neil Faulkner asked him what we know of this most mysterious of ancient peoples.

The Past

Iron Age ‘shrine’ discovered in Yorkshire Wolds

The most intriguing aspect of the shrine was the discovery of the skulls of over 40 cattle which had been placed in groups or pairs