radiocarbon dating

Below Overlooking the excavation at Craig Rhos y Felin, where archaeologists have found evidence for Neolithic quarrying and a source for some of the Stonehenge bluestones.

Secondhand Stonehenge? Welsh origins of a Wiltshire monument

It has long been understood that the Stonehenge ‘bluestones’ – a catch-all term used to describe any of the monument’s uprights that are not thought to have been sourced locally – represent a variety of different types of rock, but their origins have been a subject for heated debate. Now archaeological and geological research have combined to pin down some of their sources, and to shed new light on how – and why – the stones were brought to Salisbury Plain. Mike Parker Pearson explains.

Above A double Beaker grave from Trumpington Meadows in Cambridgeshire, excavated by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. It contained two individuals in their late teens, one male and one female, as well as two distinctive Beaker vessels. Such pots are commonly found next to crouched human burials, giving these graves their name.

Prehistoric pop culture: deciphering the DNA of the Bell Beaker Complex

More than 4,500 years ago, a hugely popular cultural phenomenon – today known as the Bell Beaker Complex – captured the prehistoric imagination, flourishing across much of Europe. Archaeologists are still deliberating over how this Complex, first identified in the 19th century, developed so quickly and effectively. Now the largest ancient DNA study to-date has shed revolutionary new light on the question, with surprising implications for our understanding of ancient populations – particularly that of Britain, which seems to have undergone an almost complete genetic turnover in just a few centuries. Kathryn Krakowka reports.

Neolithic food miles: feeding the ‘builders of Stonehenge’

A newly opened exhibition at Stonehenge documents the diet of the community thought to have been responsible for erecting the main phase of the monument – including the surprisingly far-flung origins of some of their food. Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts spoke to Susan Greaney, Richard Madgwick, and Mike Parker Pearson at the exhibition launch to find out more.

Left Analysis of early Neolithic houses such as the structures at the Knap of Howar has shed vivid new light on Orkney’s Neolithic period.

A tale of two Neolithics? Investigating the evolution of house societies in Orkney

For decades, the accepted view of the Orcadian Neolithic was one of two cultural packages with a sharp break in the middle. New research has revealed a much more complex and nuanced picture, however. Carly Hilts spoke to Colin Richards to find out more.

Britain’s Bronze Age mummies

These remains come from sites scattered from the Scottish Highlands to Dorset, and range in date from c.2200-750 BC

Hoppenwood Bank: exploring a burnt-mound landscape

Burnt mounds are an archaeological enigma: recent discoveries at Hoppenwood Bank, a bog near Bamburgh in Northumberland, call into question even the little we thought we knew. They show that some of these mainly Bronze Age features date back to the Early Neolithic, and are associated here with a series of substantial timber platforms. Graeme Young, of the Bamburgh Research Project, explains.

ABOVE Overlooking Dorstone Hill’s short lived Neolithic halls. They were burnt down and converted into burial mounds. LEFT Whereas the early stages of the Neolithic are built on plant and grain husbandry, the later stages are based on the ownership of large cattle herds. This striking image of a prehistoric farmer in Neolithic Central Europe imagines that the patterns found on the Early Neolithic Linear Pottery (Bandkeramik) might also have been used as a form of body decoration.

Invasion, colonisation or imitation? Debating how and why Britain joined ‘The Neolithic Club’

The Neolithic was a period of momentous change in which can be seen the birth of our modern world. It marks the moment when humans took control of the planet (not necessarily for the good), rather than simply existing upon it. Chris Catling reports on a recent debate hosted by the Royal Archaeological Institute focusing on why Britain and Ireland finally became Neolithic almost 1,000 years after farming had become the predominant lifestyle on the Continent.

Above Excavations under way on Carn Menyn. Outcropping high on the Preseli Ridge, the bluestones used in the construction of Stonehenge were quarried from this region. A decade of survey in the area has identified a range of tantalising parallels between the Stonehenge and Preseli landscapes.

Stonehenge and Preseli: exploring the meaning of the bluestones

Why were the bluestones used in Stonehenge transported more than 200km from Preseli in Wales? The survey of the eastern Preseli Hills and investigation of selected sites by Timothy Darvill and Geoff Wainwright have exposed some uncanny parallels with the Stonehenge landscape. Could these help explain the meaning of the famous stone circle?

Above Side by side in a pit, these skeletons were originally assumed to be Black Death victims, but radiocarbon dates have provided an unexpected explanation for the high fatality rate. Could they have died as a result of the last millennium’s largest volcanic eruption? This mass burial clips the edge of an earlier pit that may date to a 1252 famine, while the bodies in the later pit are believed to be victims of the climatic fluctuation brought on by the 1258 eruption.

London’s volcanic winter: Spitalfields cemetery and the famine of 1258

Mass graves were needed all too often in the Medieval world, but establishing the specific tragedy behind any given set is difficult. Now Don Walker believes that a group in Spitalfields cemetery can be linked to a massive volcanic eruption, as he told Matthew Symonds.

Above Overlooking the subterranean ‘Grobust house’, Noltland’s best preserved structure, and (inset) the ‘Westray Wife’ figurine, one of the most celebrated finds from the site.

Sands of Time: domestic rituals at the Links of Noltland

Rapid erosion has revealed spectacular Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology on the coast of Westray, Orkney. Contemporary with the Ness of Brodgar’s religious monuments but with a domestic focus, what can this settlement tell us about daily life in prehistoric Orkney? Hazel Moore and Graeme Wilson explain.

Surviving the tsunami: archaeological sites of northeastern Japan

The deadly wave that engulfed the northeastern coastline of Japan devastated many archaeological sites and museums. Prehistoric settlers along the coast chose higher ground for their sites, perhaps passing on knowledge of the danger from earlier tsunamis from generation to generation. CWA looks at a handful of these ancient sites.