This latest volume in the Cambridge Elements series offers a snapshot of what we understand about connections between Egypt and the Levant in the early to mid-Bronze Age, a period that covers the Levantine Early Bronze Age (Egypt’s Predynastic and…
Mining is rooted in Cornish heritage and woven into the fabric of Cornwall’s historic landscape, and so it seems fitting, as we mark the 20th anniversary year of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape becoming a UNESCO World Heritage…
A study of human remains from two cemeteries in Bulgaria, all buried with distinctively ‘Gothic’ jewellery, brooches, and belt buckles, suggests that the ancient Goths were ethnically diverse and not a single homogeneous community.
Food plays an important role in cultural identity, and can be used in archaeology to identify patterns of migration and assimilation. The early medieval inhabitants of Scandinavia are known to have had a marine-focused diet, but the extent to which…
REVIEW BY CH Nicholas Higham’s comprehensive exploration of how ‘Roman Britain’ transitioned into ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ brings with it a wealth of topics that still resonate today – discussions of migration, integration, and cultural influences; Britain’s relationship with continental Europe; and…
Over the past few years there have been several research papers that have made headlines because of their insights into major genetic shifts in the population of Britain throughout time (see CA 338 regarding the Bronze Age Beaker migration, CA…
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.
Mass graves and migration in Neolithic France Recent isotopic analysis of human remains from Neolithic mass graves found at Bergheim and Achenheim in Alsace, France, have shed new light on the life histories of these individuals. Each pit was found…
A recent study has successfully carried out full genome sequencing of a person from ancient Egypt for the first time.
Recent analysis has shed new light on the circumstances surrounding a pair of unusual Neolithic mass graves in north-east France. Around a decade ago, two late Middle Neolithic burial pits were discovered at the sites of Bergheim and Achenheim in…
Newly published research has added more evidence to our growing understanding of kinship and migration in Anglo-Saxon England, revealing that two 7th-century individuals, buried over 250km (153 miles) apart, each had a grandparent with West African ancestry. One of these…
A new, more precise way of analysing historic ancestries has revealed previously unknown waves of human movement during the 1st millennium AD. Carly Hilts and Rebecca Preedy report.
For this month’s ‘Odd Socs’, we cross the Atlantic to look at the work of Partners for Sacred Places (PSP), an organisation dedicated to finding creative ways to maintain America’s historic places of worship as civic spaces. These buildings face…
Marwan Kilani reconsiders our ideas about collective identities in New Kingdom sources.
REVIEW BY MS Migrations are back. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale population movements were frequently the go-to explanation for the appearance in the archaeological record of new ways of doing things – be it novel building styles,…
Roman histories attest that thousands of Sarmatian warriors – renowned horse-riders from the Caucasus – were resettled in Britain after their defeat by Marcus Aurelius in AD 175, but vanishingly few archaeological traces of their presence here have been found. Now scientific analysis of a skeleton found during the excavation of a Roman farmstead in Cambridgeshire has produced what is thought to be the first genetic evidence of an individual from that region. Carly Hilts reports.
It is less than a decade since scientists developed swift and efficient methods of extracting and analysing ancient DNA from human remains (for which Svante Pääbo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2022) and yet scarcely…
REVIEW BY RICHARD BRUNNING Footmarks is a long and pleasant walk through the mind palace of prehistorian Jim Leary. Along the way, Leary’s delight in the mysteries of past human behaviour gushes forth in an engaging torrent of information, loosely…
Strontium isotope analysis has become a standard in mobility research, featuring in many post-excavation analyses of human and animal remains. While ‘typical’ strontium analysis is able to tell us much about movement in the past, new techniques are being applied…
During the medieval period, it was speculated that the Picts had migrated from isles north of Britain, or even further-afield places such as Thrace or Scythia. A recent genetic study (published in PLOS Genetics: ), however, suggests that they in…
'Indo + Caribbean: The creation of a culture' is free and will run until 19 November as part of the museum’s 'London, Sugar, and Slavery' gallery.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the UK.
Previously it had been thought that Vikings probably pillaged such animals from British populations on their arrival.
The title of The First Stones, a newly published book edited by William Britnell and Alasdair Whittle, proclaims a bold new thesis: that the Neolithic long cairn at Penywyrlod, in the Black Mountains of south-east Wales, is one of the earliest of its kind. With the benefit of 50 new radiocarbon dates, and new ways of modelling those dates using Bayesian analysis, its authors revisit excavations that first took place in the 1970s – and argue that this distinctive monument represents the birth of a new tomb-building tradition, as Chris Catling discovers.
Your views on some of the latest issues raised in CA.
I have a personal dislike of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to describe the people and culture of southern and eastern Britain from the 4th to the 8th centuries because it is anachronistic – it implies homogeneity where I see much more interesting diversity
In the decades since the cracking of the human genome, the study of ancient DNA – known as archaeogenetics – has had a dramatic effect on our understanding of the distant past. The analysis of genetic material preserved in archaeological…
Ancient human DNA is revolutionising our ability to detect human migration that occurred hundreds of years ago. Joscha Gretzinger and Stephan Schiffels explain how these advances have transformed our understanding of the past.
Newly published research centred on ancient DNA, which is revolutionising our understanding of early medieval mobility and the genetic changes it brought in its wake, forms the focus of this special issue of Current Archaeology. Duncan Sayer discusses some of the key themes that we will cover this month, and how the project came together.
By combining excavated evidence from early medieval burials with genetic information, we can gain powerful insights into patterns of population movement, and ideas of identity and integration. Duncan Sayer explains more.
The previous articles in this issue have focused primarily on ancient DNA – but what can isotopic analysis add to this picture? Sam Leggett explores how this technique can complement genetic analysis, and how it illuminates the experiences of people living centuries earlier.
One common motif is that of a knight in armour engaging in combat with a snail. Another is that of the killer rabbit, shown wielding sword, axe, or bow and arrow as it fights against those hunting it.
Information about the health of early migrants to South Australia was obtained through analysis such as micro-CT scanning of their teeth.
What name is given to the chalk ridge that once provided a land connection between England and France?
While the subject of immigration remains perennially high up the modern political agenda, there is a tendency still in Britain to view the movement of people to these shores as a relatively recent phenomenon – as if it only began in the post-war period, with the arrival of the 'Windrush generation' and other migrants from countries that once were part of the British Empire. But multiculturalism has been a fact of life for much longer than that, of course.
Analysis of human remains from the Links of Noltland, Westray, has revealed the first concrete evidence of a major influx of non-local people into Orkney during the Bronze Age – and, uniquely for the period, it appears that this movement of migrants was dominated by women. Carly Hilts reports.