Bronze Age sailors, metal prospectors, and traders regularly travelled between northern and southern Europe – a distance of more than 2,000 miles – according to new research looking at similarities in the depiction of boats in rock carvings in Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal.
For the first time in human experience, a substance could be melted and converted into something new. If you set off by car from the Volga River to Hungary, you will have to drive for 32 hours and cover a…
Colin Reader shows how ancient Egypt’s geology led to wealth, power, and influence.
This volume examines the later phases of the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age in the central Balkans, offering a comprehensive review of the archaeological evidence from the region. The book is organised into five chapters: an introductory…
Prehistoric cultural exchange in Germany Excavations at Eilsleben in northern Germany have revealed a fortified settlement site, dating to c.5375 BC, that may have been founded by some of the first farmers to arrive in this part of Europe. The…
A joint British-Austrian team has identified Egypt’s oldest known rotary tool. The small metal drill was found at Badari more than 100 years ago, and had attracted little attention until now. The tool, measuring 63mm (2.5in) in length and weighing…
Excavations at the former Hafod–Morfa Copperworks have revealed rare evidence of copper-processing techniques used in the Lower Swansea Valley during the 19th century which, at its peak, accounted for an extraordinary amount of the world’s copper production. The Hafod Copperworks…
Hilary Wilson looks at the development of axes, from Palaeolithic flint to ceremonial gold in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
A routine excavation on the site of a west Norfolk housing development has uncovered a metalwork hoard including two extremely rare Iron Age artefacts: a near-complete carnyx and a boar standard. Conservation and analysis of these fragile objects is ongoing; Carly Hilts reports on the preliminary findings.
Archaeologists are exploring a unique Bronze Age settlement in the heart of Kazakhstan’s grasslands.
Archaeologists are increasingly revisiting long-held theories about the past and highlighting how these ideas need to be updated in light of evolving evidence. This is especially the case with many artefact types that were first described by antiquarians or early…
Excavations just north of Perth have revealed the remains of an Iron Age hillfort that appears to have been inhabited for close to 600 years before it was finally abandoned around the time that the first Roman armies appeared in…
REVIEW BY PAUL T CRADDOCK This is a very thorough description of every aspect of the prehistoric copper mines on the Great Orme at Llandudno. It is also an attempt to recreate and describe an ancient community/activity not just from…
An extraordinary survival plucked from a Danish bog sheds light on the technical virtuosity available in the Roman Iron Age. Olympia Bobou, Ilaria Bucci, and Rubina Raja examine the significance of a remarkable piece of armour.
Ongoing conservation efforts on the Peebles Hoard – a collection of rare Bronze Age artefacts dating to c.1000-800 BC (see CA 417 and CA 418) – have revealed new details about its composition. The hoard was discovered by a metal-detectorist…
An Egyptian team excavating the Wadi el-Nasab site in south Sinai has discovered a copper-smelting and -casting workshop with administrative buildings at what was one of the most important ancient mining centres. Copper ingots of different sizes and shapes were…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH Across Europe, during the Late Bronze Age, societies witnessed a dramatic change in economy, politics, and social behaviour. This change also had an effect on the way communities expressed themselves through burial-ritual practices and the production and…
In CA 426’s exploration of the impact of the Viking Great Army on the north of England, we mentioned research that had shed light on the make-up of a Viking hoard discovered at Bedale, 56km (35 miles) from York. Here,…
Recent research carried out by Project Ancient Tin, an initiative led by Benjamin Roberts and R Alan Williams from the University of Durham (published in Antiquity: ), has found that a large proportion of sampled tin ingots on Mediterranean shipwrecks…
New research is exploring the sophisticated metalworking involved in the creation of the famous Nebra Sky Disc.
Iron Age cemetery in UAE An Iron Age necropolis recently discovered in Al Ain is the first to be found in the United Arab Emirates. The burial ground, which was unearthed as part of the Funerary Landscapes of Al Ain…
The team from the French-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Temples of Karnak (CFEETK) has uncovered a large collection of gold jewellery and amulets, which was in a broken pot. The treasure, found during recent excavations at Karnak, is…
An Egyptian team has completed a two-year project to excavate a 3,000 year-old gold-processing centre found on the site of the modern Sukari gold mine, near Marsa Alam on the Red Sea coast. The complex consisted of grinding and pulverising…
A major exhibition at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden explores a period of massive transformation in the Netherlands and beyond. Amy Brunskill spoke to curator Luc Amkreutz to find out more.
A specialised analytical approach has identified the first archaeological evidence for silk at the Bronze Age site of Sanxingdui. The settlement, which lies in the Sichuan Basin in south-western China, is believed to have been the capital of the ancient…
In CA 411, we carried a news story about the exciting implications of recent research into early medieval silver coinage; for this month’s column, we delve deeper into the science behind the study to reveal how these conclusions were reached.…
Sanxingdui has produced a wealth of startling Bronze Age artefacts. Many of these treasures were deliberately smashed or burnt before being buried, raising questions about what they were used for and how they met their end, as Tianlong Jiao and Shengyu Wang told Matthew Symonds.
Iron Age child’s shoe Excavations in a prehistoric salt mine in Dürrnberg, Austria, have uncovered a well-preserved shoe – roughly a UK child’s size 12.5 – dated to the 2nd century BC. The discovery was made by the German Mining…
Analysis of the silver bracelets belonging to the Fourth Dynasty queen Hetepheres I has revealed the origins of the silver ore used in Egypt, and the extent of Egypt’s trading networks. A team led by researchers from Macquarie University in…
A recent study has used geochemical analysis to compare brass manillas traded with West Africa in the 16th-19th centuries with the materials used to make the famous Benin Bronzes, in order to find out more about their possible origins.
REVIEW BY SIMON TIMBERLAKE This is a landmark study concerning the origins of mining and metallurgy in Britain. Alan Williams has turned his PhD thesis into a scholarly publication that provides the reader with a compelling narrative based upon thorough…
The members of the Wealden Iron Research Group (WIRG) are dedicated to recovering the evidence for an industry that began in the Iron Age and blossomed under Roman imperial management, producing materials for the building of towns, villas, and farms,…
Traces of gold residue have been identified on five stone grave goods from a Bronze Age burial in Wiltshire.
Researchers have successfully traced the origin of tin ingots found aboard the shipwreck to ore deposits in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the world, including: evidence of an ear infection identified in 100,000-year-old remains; analysis of ancient Chinese bronze formulae; and a rethinking of how Cahokia's North Plaza was used.