Beneath Grønhaug In 1902, investigations of the Grønhaug burial mound on Karmøy, western Norway, revealed the poorly preserved remains of a Viking Age ship dating to the mid-9th century. Now archaeologists have returned to the site. They have determined that…
Examination of surgical tools from a Ming Dynasty tomb reveals evidence of early anaesthetic use in 14th-century China.
Excavations on the Île de la Cité are uncovering thousands of years of Parisian history. Amy Brunskill spoke to Julien Avinain and Lucie Altenburg to find out more.
The National Army Museum has obtained three important archival collections containing soldiers’ first-hand accounts of the Napoleonic Wars. The first is an account of the Waterloo campaign by Lieutenant and Captain Henry Weyland Powell. In it, he details events from…
Researchers from the Warsaw University of Technology and the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology have located a military cemetery containing the remains of soldiers killed during battles in the Carpathian Mountains between 1914 and 1915. The discovery began when the…
The Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on 17 June 1775, was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the American Revolutionary War. On the night of 16 June, around 1,200 colonial militiamen built an earthen fort,…
A Roman marching camp covering c.7.4ha has been found near the town of Šurany, in south-western Slovakia. The discovery – which came about through an extensive ongoing archaeological project carried out by the Archaeological Institute of Slovak Academy of Sciences,…
A new museum, Trent Park House of Secrets, opened in north London this summer. The former stately home in Enfield witnessed some of the most important events of the 20th century. In the 1920s, Trent Park was the home of…
We often write in ‘Science Notes’ about how technology is revolutionising many aspects of archaeology, but this column rarely touches on conservation. This is one of the areas, however, where technological advances are having some of the biggest impacts, with…
The hotel suite in which Oscar Wilde stayed shortly before his arrest for gross indecency has been rediscovered during recent archaeological work at the Royal Albion Hotel in Brighton. The room was identified by Dr Michael Shapland from UCL Archaeology…
While research is increasingly looking at the experience of children in the past, this is still an under-researched area, and in terms of children’s exposure to violence, while cases of exceptional mass events can be recognised in archaeology, subtler, systematic…
The first excavations at Wall Camp in more than 40 years have revealed new evidence for how Iron Age communities built and used one of Britain’s most unusual wetland enclosures. Archaeologists and students from the University of Birmingham have completed…
Bronze Age sword discovered by divers at Salcombe A rare Bronze Age sword has been discovered by divers Becky Gill and Catherine Gill from the South West Maritime Archaeological Group (SWMAG) while investigating the Salcombe Cannon and Moor Sand protected…
Archaeology is often confused with palaeontology – with most archaeologists having been asked at least once in their career about the most interesting fossil they have found. Now archaeologists from Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT), at least, can provide an answer…
Earliest evidence of Yersinia pestis? As DNA analysis of human remains continues to expand, evidence is mounting that Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, has been ravaging human populations for millennia. Now a new study has identified the…
The latest season of digging at Magna Roman Fort is currently uncovering further details of how the site was used both during and after the Roman period. One of the star finds for 2026 so far is a die which…
A metal-detectorist has discovered a hoard of Roman bronze objects in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire, including a rare rattle that may have been used in religious ceremonies (below centre). Adam McClelland was detecting with the permission of the landowner when he…
Recently published research suggests that the bones found around Brading Roman Villa could reflect violent events linked to 4th-century political upheaval. Kathryn Krakowka reports.
Three rock-cut tombs belonging to high officials of the early New Kingdom have been discovered by an Egyptian team in the Bubasteion necropolis at Saqqara. The tombs are inscribed with their biographies, and provide important evidence of Egypt’s foreign relations…
Archaeologists working at ancient Heliopolis (Matariya, Cairo) have uncovered an almost complete funerary assemblage beneath a mud-brick burial structure. The discovery includes a collection of personal and ritual objects, including a copper mirror, alabaster kohl vessels containing traces of cosmetics,…
An Egyptian mission has documented an unusual funerary practice in a newly discovered tomb at the Tell Quesna necropolis (Menoufia Governorate), in the central Delta. The team discovered several burials with pottery dishes placed beneath the arms and between the…
An Egyptian team excavating the multi-period cemetery at Tell Kom Aziza (Beheira) in the Delta has uncovered a section dating to the Graeco-Roman Period with diverse human funerary practices. Burials ranged from simple pits and mud-brick-lined tombs, to decorated gypsum…
A Dutch team from Leiden University has discovered a previously unknown Ramesside tomb in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. Wall inscriptions name the owner as an official called Paser. The tomb has a typical Theban layout, with an open courtyard containing a…
An Egyptian mission at Marina el-Alamein (the site of the Graeco-Roman city of Leukaspis) has discovered 11 deep rock-cut tombs and 7 limestone surface tombs, many of which are still sealed and well preserved. One of the burials was originally…
An Egyptian mission excavating the Byzantine-era city at Ain el-Sabil in the Dakhla Oasis has uncovered the overall plan of the settlement and several new mud-brick structures. The city was built on a grid pattern with two main streets running…
• At Ihnasya (ancient Herakleopolis Magna), an Egyptian team has uncovered the remains of a Roman basilica and a large marble head of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, along with terracotta coin moulds and an inscription of Senusret III (Twelfth Dynasty)…
A large multi-functional complex dating to the Fifteenth Dynasty (the Hyksos era) has been uncovered by an Egyptian mission at Tell el-Ku’a in Wadi Tumilat (Ismailia Governorate) in the eastern Nile Delta. The team discovered a walled residential compound, measuring…
New insights into the Plain of Jars in Laos Xieng Khouang Plateau in northern Laos is dotted with hundreds of ancient stone jars. While they have been the subject of archaeological investigations for over a century, their full use and…
Another prehistoric circle was recently uncovered during a community archaeology project, this time near the Giant’s Ring, just outside Belfast. The investigation, led by archaeologists from Queen’s University Belfast, was sparked by a re-examination of aerial photographs taken in the…
A small glass bottle excavated at Tanner Row in York 40 years ago has been identified as a kohl bottle – a type of eye make-up container that was very common in Roman Egypt, but is extremely rare outside this…
A geophysical survey on Machrie Moor, on the western side of the Isle of Arran (a small island off the west coast of Scotland), has revealed the outline of what may be a previously unknown, near-circular prehistoric monument, adding to…
The mechanisms by which bone degrades in the burial environment are poorly understood, with large amounts of variation seen even within the same cemetery containing the same environmental and soil conditions. While it has been hypothesised since the 19th century…
A Roman relief of a Genius – a protective guardian spirit – has recently been found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, hidden underneath the floor of a barracks. While inscriptions dedicated to genii have been found across Roman Britain,…
The discovery of a 1,400-year-old die-stamp in Kent, bearing imagery strikingly similar to one of the motifs on the Sutton Hoo helmet, raises intriguing questions about whether elite armour like this – often interpreted as a Scandinavian import – could have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Carly Hilts reports.
Recent archaeological investigations at the Bronze Age site of Haughey’s Fort – next to the famous Navan Fort, an Iron Age monument in County Armagh, Northern Ireland (see CA 406) – have revealed new details about the complex, demonstrating that…
A Roman mosaic thought to be the most westerly example of the polychrome style yet found in Britain is among the discoveries emerging from a large Roman villa complex near Halberton in Devon. Excavations by the SHARE project (Saving Halberton’s…