The existence of Rongorongo, the complex writing system used by the historic inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), was first documented by Europeans in 1864, but by the end of the 19th century the script had fallen out of use,…
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…
A large cemetery dating to the 6th-7th centuries has been discovered on the Fonmon Castle estate – a fortified castle just to the north-west of Cardiff Airport. The project, led by Dr Andy Seaman, began in 2021 when the team…
The hillfort of Dinas Powys, located about 9km south-west of Cardiff, was first excavated by Leslie Alcock in the 1950s. While the excavation and its subsequent report were pioneering for their time and led to Dinas Powys being widely considered…
After almost 15 years of searching, the lost monastery of Deer may have finally been found, only 80m from the ruins of Deer Abbey in Aberdeenshire. The search began in 2009 with a series of evaluations and small-scale excavations in…
A research team from the University of Reading, led by Professor Martin Bell, has been working for the last 33 years to record eroding Mesolithic archaeology from the seabed of the Severn Estuary at Goldcliff, near Newport (see CA 331…
Archaeological survey of ice patches in the Mount Edziza Provincial Park, Tahltan Territory, British Columbia, Canada, has identified an array of perishable artefacts associated with ancient obsidian mining dating back thousands of years. Exploitation and trade of Mount Edziza obsidian…
Two burials were discovered this past December along the coastline in front of the Wemyss Caves in Fife. While investigations are ongoing, it is thought – based on the date of other burials that have previously been found nearby –…
Archaeological investigations ahead of a road improvement scheme near Roscommon town have uncovered traces of more than 1,000 years of medieval life, as well as a major multi-generation cemetery. Carly Hilts spoke to Shane Delaney, Eileen Murphy, and Martin Jones to find out more.
New evidence found at Umm el Qa‘ab (‘Mother of Pots’) in Abydos has shed light on the importance of the First Dynasty queen Meretneith (or Merneith), and casts doubt on the theory of ritual human sacrifice as part of royal…
Ancient Alaskan house uncovered Excavations on the shore of Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island in Alaska have revealed a 3,000-year-old ancestral Alutiiq house, so well preserved that woven grass mats were still present on the floor. The house was found…
We all enjoy stories about new discoveries, and it is these that tend to grab the news headlines, but there is another kind of story that gets far less coverage: those that contradict an earlier claim. In that category is…
Excavations at a site in Alaska have uncovered an ancestral Alutiiq house frozen in time by a fire 3,000 years ago, complete with rarely preserved woven grass mats on the floor. The Nunallerpiaq site sits on the shore of Karluk…
Recent research at two mustatils (prehistoric rectangular open-air structures found across northern Arabia) is uncovering new information about the ritual practices that may have been taking place in the region in the late 6th millennium BC. First identified in the…
Archaeologists have uncovered a rare example of a religious tattoo in a burial near the medieval monastic site of Ghazali, in northern Sudan. The tattooed individual, whose skin was unusually well preserved, was discovered in 2016 during excavations of the…
A specialist grant that helps volunteer and community groups to date their finds has opened applications for its 2023 funding cycle. Robin Holgate discusses some of the key findings from the projects supported by the CARD Fund in 2022 – and how to apply this year.
REVIEW BY CH In the 4th century AD, a modest defended farmstead was established close to what is now Roscommon, in the Irish county of the same name, and over the next 1,000 years it evolved into a much more…
Staff and students from Bournemouth University, together with local volunteers, have been excavating Iron Age settlements around Winterborne Kingston in Dorset as part of the Durotriges Project since 2009. This past excavation season, however, while investigating an enclosed Iron Age…
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…
An Ice Age mystery In 1999, archaeologists working in Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany discovered the head of a 35,000-year-old ivory figurine, believed to depict a horse. Recent excavations have now produced part of the figurine’s missing body, which…
Archaeologists have found what may be Europe’s oldest pile-dwelling site, dating to almost 8,000 years ago, preserved by the waters of Lake Ohrid, which straddles the border between Albania and North Macedonia. The discovery comes as part of the EXPLO…
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.
How did the construction of Hadrian’s Wall affect the communities living in its shadow? In CA 277, we reported on the apparent depopulation of Iron Age settlements in lowland Northumberland and Tyne & Wear after the Roman frontier was fortified c.AD 122. Now, Philippa Hunter, Rupert Lotherington, Clive Waddington, and Nick Hodgson describe how recent research and two developer-funded excavations in County Durham and Northumberland add to our understanding of the Wall’s social and economic impact.
Excavations at Conington, Cambridgeshire, uncovered the remains of a young woman who, unusually, had been laid face-down in her early medieval grave. What can this burial tell us about her life and death, and how she may have been perceived by her community? Carly Hilts reports.
Aseries of 25 Mesolithic pits have been discovered in Linmere, near Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire. This is the highest number of pits from this period ever found at a single site in England, making this one of the largest Mesolithic…
The recent re-analysis of an unusual Iron Age burial from the Isles of Scilly – which contained grave goods typical of both men and women from this period – has shown that its occupant was biologically female. Discovered on the…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER After a slight temporal dip, we are back riding up on to a crest of the sine curve called ‘popular Stonehenge book publication’ (sadly, for a sun-orientated temple, this appears out of phase with the solar…
Pre-Hispanic landscape of Bolivia illuminated A large archaeological survey across the Carangas region of highland Bolivia has identified 135 hilltop sites, each with a number of circular walls built on terraces, ranging between two and nine per location. Ceramics discovered…
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,…
Recent excavations by Cotswold Archaeology in Harnham, along Netherhampton Road on the western edge of Salisbury, have uncovered a large barrow cemetery, consisting of at least 20 burial mounds. While several Bronze Age barrow cemeteries have been identified in the…
This is a unique early Bronze Age pin, made from the first phalanx (or toe-bone) of a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). It is the only example ever found in a Bronze Age funerary context in England, with only one other…
In 1950, Peter Williams-Hunt published a paper in Antiquity entitled ‘Irregular earthworks in eastern Siam: a review’. A former RAF pilot, he had pored over wartime aerial photos taken of the extensive Khorat Plateau in North-east Thailand. He was intrigued…
A recent study has determined that a leather saddle found in north-western China may be the oldest surviving example currently known. Exactly when horse-riding and the use of saddles began is still a subject of some debate, but the latest…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH The two Cotswold-Severn Neolithic burial-ritual monuments of Penywyrlod and Gwernvale occupy the western hinterlands of the Black Mountains in Breconshire, Wales. Both monuments are only part of a handful of Neolithic burial-ritual monuments in Wales to…
REVIEW BY ANGELA BOYLE This monograph presents the results of excavations at Burnby Lane and The Mile in Pocklington, East Yorkshire, which were carried out in several phases between 2014 and 2017 by MAP Archaeological Practice Ltd and commercially funded.…
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