REVIEW BY CH Located more than 100 miles from the Scottish mainland, the cluster of islands collectively known as St Kilda have variously been mythologised as a romantically remote place whose hardy inhabitants were torn from their traditional way of…
REVIEW BY JAMES O’DRISCOLL The passage-tomb complex of Knowth is often relegated to the status of smaller sibling to the better known Newgrange, despite it being of international importance in its own right. This book summarises over 60 years of…
Excavations at Arthur’s Stone, a Neolithic burial chamber overlooking the Golden Valley in Herefordshire, have revealed evidence of a second megalithic monument on the site: a possible stone circle some 65.5ft (20m) in diameter. Dating back 5,500 years, Arthur’s Stone…
Archaeological work around the ring sanctuary of Pömmelte in Saxony-Anhalt has uncovered a landscape rich in ancient monuments and settlements. Franziska Knoll tells us more about the discoveries.
REVIEW BY PAUL NEWSON This lavishly produced A4 book is one outcome of a recent major exhibition jointly organised by the Netherlands and Lebanese antiquities services, and held in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden during the winter of 2022…
New research suggests that one of Stonehenge’s famous megaliths may have come from the very north of the UK. The Altar Stone is a six-tonne sandstone slab that currently lies in the middle of the famous stone circle. It was…
I concluded last month’s column just east of Avebury at the Sanctuary, a Neolithic and Bronze Age site that is also the start and end point of the Ridgeway, an 87-mile route rich in archaeology that runs between there and Ivinghoe Beacon across Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire
REVIEW BY GERALD PONTING The subtitle of this book is ‘A Guide to the Standing Stones’, but it is not a conventional guide-book. A detailed and considered tour of each part of Calanais – centre stone; circle; chambered cairn; east,…
As the Ness of Brodgar excavations enter their final season of fieldwork, Dr Colleen Batey reviews a new exhibition exploring the Orkney site’s unique Neolithic archaeology.
After last month’s scramble through Stonehenge, this month I turn north to amble around Avebury. I know I am not the only one to hold this site in high affection.
Maidstone Museum’s impressively eclectic collection of British archaeology has been redisplayed in an absorbing new gallery. Carly Hilts attended its official launch in June.
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions
Radiocarbon dating at Woodhenge has revealed that it was built at almost exactly the same time as the circle at neighbouring Stonehenge. This exciting new data shows that Stonehenge was not a one-off in its original landscape. Woodhenge lies just…
The Dolmen of Guadalperal is a megalithic tomb located in the Spanish province of Cáceres, some two hours south-west of Madrid. The site is believed to be a Neolithic funerary monument, probably constructed between the 5th and 4th millennium BC.…
For two centuries, European scholars have explored prehistoric settlements preserved in Alpine lakes and bogs. The discovery of ancient pile-dwelling sites in the Mediterranean region of southern Europe makes it evident that this phenomenon did not stop at the Alps. Albert Hafner reveals the intriguing findings emerging from ongoing investigations in Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia.
Early piercings A study recently published in Antiquity () has identified more than 100 ornaments used in body perforation as early as 11,000 years ago. The artefacts come from burials at the Neolithic site of Boncuklu Tarla, in Turkey, and…
Excavations at Crowland, in Lincolnshire, have revealed new evidence of how this landscape was used over the millennia – from the Neolithic to the post-medieval period – and in particular how it continued to be seen as a sacred place…
Over the last three decades, archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts alike have been greatly expanding our understanding of how the upland areas of Glamorgan were used in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. George Nash, Kim Allen, and Dewi Bowen are our guides to a series of recent discoveries hinting at a significant and complex symbolic landscape almost 100km wide.
Recently published research by GUARD Archaeology reports on the discovery of a pair of Bronze Age burnt mounds at Hallmeadow in Annan, 24km south-east of Dumfries. They were first identified in 2020, during archaeological works ahead of the construction of…
Your thoughts on issues raised by CA.
Across 5 Egyptian falcon-headed god also known as Horus (8)8 Roman goddess of the dawn (6)9 English river taking its name from the Old English for ‘winding’ (6)10 Spanish cave system containing Palaeolithic art (8)11 Building in Oxford housing varied…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK What fields are left for Barry Cunliffe to conquer? After the Celts and the Bretons, Europe between the oceans, the Atlantic Ocean, the Scythians, and the Steppe, he has now turned his attention to Africa, and…
Although cattle were introduced to Ireland during the Neolithic period (specifically, by at least 3800-3700 BC), archaeological and documentary evidence indicate that early medieval communities in Ireland put increased value on cattle husbandry, so much so that it became the…
REVIEW BY PETER HALKON This book aims to provide a guide to the main sites of prehistoric Yorkshire that remain above ground and are possible to either visit or to view from a distance. It begins with an introduction to…
Three years of excavations centred on a c.6,000-year-old burial monument in Herefordshire have revealed that its story is much longer and more complex than was previously thought. Carly Hilts visited Keith Ray, Win Scutt, and Julian Thomas on site to learn more.
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.
A recent publication in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society () has brought to light a major archaeological complex – spanning in date from the Neolithic to the Iron Age – on Faughan Hill in County Meath, placing it within…
REVIEW BY KATE WADDINGTON This very readable book discusses the archaeology from a beautiful stretch of coastal north-west Wales: the Llŷn peninsula. As this volume demonstrates, it has produced a diverse range of well-preserved monuments that are of national importance.…
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…
Excavations in China have uncovered a set of ceramic pipes that represent the oldest water-drainage system ever found in the country, and appear to have been the product of impressive community efforts. Pingliangtai is a Late Neolithic site in what…
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
A recent survey project has analysed almost 10,000 aerial photographs as well as LiDAR imagery to explore archaeological features preserved within a large swathe of the South Downs National Park. From monuments to military remains, both well-known sites and new discoveries have been brought to light, as Carly Hilts reports.
Ballynahatty, in County Down, Northern Ireland, is an astonishing site that deserves to be far better known for what it tells us about Neolithic timber monuments. At the core of the site is a series of deep post pits that once held 471 tree-sized wooden posts. The newly published excavation report seeks to reconstruct the original appearance of the monument and tell the story of its creation, use, and deliberate destruction, as Chris Catling reports.
A stone used by Neolithic people to sharpen stone axes, known as a ‘polissoir’, has been discovered in the Valley of Stones near Portesham in Dorset. Previously, most polissoirs in England had only been discovered buried in chambered tombs, placed…
Bayesian statistical modelling of a series of radiocarbon dates from the Neolithic site of Dorstone Hill, in south- west Herefordshire (recently published in Antiquity: ), suggests that it may represent some of the earliest Neolithic activity in the West Midlands,…
REVIEW BY CH The Ness of Brodgar in Orkney is home to a remarkable range of Neolithic buildings, uncovered over the last 20 years. We reviewed the excavation team’s guidebook in 2018 (CA 338) but since then the story has…