isotope analysis

ABOVE A Roman wooden figure, measuring 67cm in height, was recently discovered in Buckinghamshire.

Rare Romano-British carving revealed

The substantial figure, measuring 67cm in height, was discovered in July 2021 in Buckinghamshire, southern England

LEFT Excavations at Sidon Castle, Lebanon revealed two mass grave deposits containing partially articulated and disarticulated human skeletal remains.

Mass graves of Crusader soldiers identified in Lebanon

Each of the bodies showed signs of serious injury and were buried with swords, maces, and arrows.

The Past

Mass graves of Crusader soldiers identified in Lebanon

Each of the bodies showed signs of serious injury and were buried with swords, maces, and arrows.

The Past

Males and females at Herculaneum had different diets, research suggests

‘Males had greater access to marine fish at Herculaneum and more broadly in Roman Italy.’

Cornish connections in Bronze Age Germany

This identification of Cornish gold in Central Europe indicates that there was probably contact between these two regions during the Bronze Age, and perhaps even a well-established trade route.

Above Dr Julia Beaumont at work in her lab examining tooth samples.

Connecting the dots: analysing skeletal remains with limited context

Overall, these results seem to be consistent with lay individuals who may have entered into a monastic life as children and subsequently gained access to a higher-status diet.

RIGHT Burial B10 is one of 14 people buried at Knowth between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Isotope analysis has established that some members of the group came from northern Britain. The choice of this Neolithic monument for their burial was perhaps intended to create a link between the newly arrived people and the indigenous ancestors.

Mounds and monasteries: burials in late Iron Age and early medieval Ireland

The Irish archaeologist Barry Raftery (1944-2010) wrote: ‘Death represents the ultimate confrontation between the human and the supernatural worlds. The surviving burial remains and the associated funerary monuments thus provide us with the clearest and most tangible surviving evidence of religious beliefs and practices’. With this as her theme, Elizabeth O’Brien has studied every excavated Irish burial dating from the period c.200 BC to c.AD 800. She found great diversity and one common strand – burial in close proximity to ancestors or to people regarded as saints, as Chris Catling reports.

LEFT This Iron Age man’s spine showed signs of advanced tuberculosis.

Migration and disease in the Iron Age

Scientific analysis of a human skeleton discovered at Tarrant Hinton in Dorset has shed new light on life – and the transmission of infectious disease – in Iron Age Britain. The remains were originally found during excavations at a small…