Excavations in the winter of 2021 at Framlingham Road in Laxfield, Suffolk, have revealed a palimpsest of prehistoric settlement activity, including an enigmatic Bronze Age burnt mound. Bronze Age burnt mounds have long been puzzling archaeological features. As they are…
Excavations on a farm in Talsarn, Ceredigion, have found evidence for late Mesolithic and late Neolithic activity, helping illuminate a period that has been little explored in this region of Wales. The project at Talsarn began in 2019, when a…
A large piece of oak, found in Boxford, Berkshire in 2019 and dated to the late Mesolithic period, has been identified as the oldest decoratively carved wood currently known from Britain. The wood was discovered in a layer of peat…
The bacteria that caused the Justinian Plague in the 6th century AD and the Black Death in the 14th century AD – Yersinia pestis – has recently been identified in three individuals from two Bronze Age sites in Britain. While…
In June 2017, contractors digging an electricity service trench, just inland from Longis Bay in Alderney, began to find human bones. Archaeologists from Guernsey quickly flew up to investigate, and so began six (COVID-19-interrupted) years of research into the biggest, and best-preserved, Iron Age and Gallo-Roman site in the Channel Islands. With another excavation just concluded, this seemed a good opportunity to summarise the results so far, as Philip de Jersey reports.
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…
Review by CH This beautifully presented book (illustrated in colour throughout) showcases the results of an archaeological initiative that set out to engage the Tarradale community with their local heritage, and, through six excavations between 2017 and 2019 (see CA…
Investigations by Cotswold Archaeology revealed finds spanning the Mesolithic through to the modern period, with the majority of the remains relating to a medieval farmstead with associated enclosures and trackways
One of the interments contained a lead coffin with a female occupant; such coffins are relatively uncommon in Britain, and would probably have been expensive.
Radiocarbon dating revealed that the fabric dated to AD 1500-1655, with a 95.4% probability that it came from 1500-1600, confirming it as the oldest-known piece of tartan.
Radiocarbon dating found that a date of c.1500-1600 was probable
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the UK.
‘It looks like cattle, goats, and gazelles were brought to the site, potentially slaughtered there and then presented to what is probably a stone representation of an unknown deity.'
Review by James Gerrard This is a handsomely produced and richly illustrated volume detailing the results of the University of Reading’s research excavations at Little London, just to the south-west of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester; see CA…
The artefact was found at Bar Hill, approximately four miles north-west of Cambridge, and is believed to date to the Iron Age (c.750 BC-AD 43).
The settlement was discovered by a team of researchers at the site of Le Peu in the Charente department, a landscape scattered with Middle Neolithic (c.3700-4700 BC) dolmens and long barrows.
The cave was first excavated in 1958, when a Bronze Age urn and some human skeletons were discovered, but more recent work has shed vivid light on its contents.
This evidence adds to recent research focused on Iona suggesting that multiple monasteries across Britain may have been able to continue or re-establish themselves after initial Viking raids at the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th centuries.
The axle has been radiocarbon dated to the middle Iron Age, c.400-100 BC.
When an unusual female burial was discovered in the apse of All Saints Church, York, it was interpreted as possibly representing the remains of a religious recluse. Since then, archaeological science and historical research have given new perspectives on the woman’s life, as Carly Hilts reports.
Last September, an excavation at Arminghall Henge in Norfolk reopened a trench first dug by Grahame Clark almost a century earlier – revealing a glimpse of a large timber monument that may have met a fiery end. Andy Hutcheson, Matt Brudenell, and Mark Knight report.
Between 2015 and 2020, Oxford Archaeology and MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) investigated, prior to development, parts of a Civil War rampart buried below an access yard to Savile House at New College School in Oxford. The city’s defences were…
Among the stone tools recovered from the site were 14 complete and fragmentary stemmed projectile points, dated to around 16,000 years ago.
Archaeologist working in Egedal, Denmark, have uncovered a set of partial human remains that may represent an ancient bog sacrifice.
To many, this part of the country is the ‘definitive’ Scottish landscape of their dreams, the stuff of countless movies and TV shows. To less romantically inclined archaeologists, it is a place forged by the environmental extremes experienced there.
Review by Stephen Rippon Silbury Hill in Wiltshire is one of our best-known prehistoric monuments, but was it unique? It seems not, as a similar – if somewhat smaller – mound appears to have lain ‘hidden in plain sight’ just…
A specialist grant that helps volunteer and community groups date their finds has opened applications for its 2022 funding cycle. Maryne Baylet and Roger Doonan discuss some of the key findings from the nine projects supported in the last round – and how to apply this year.
In the middle of Louisiana State University’s campus stand two earthen mounds, each c.5.5m tall. The LSU Campus Mounds have long been known to be among the c.800 mounds created by ancient indigenous communities in this region, but archaeological investigations…
The tracks of 593 individual animals were identified, representing 401 large animals and 192 humans – making this one of the largest-known concentrations of predominately prehistoric faunal tracks in the world.
In the middle-to-late Neolithic in southern and eastern Britain a number of important monumental landscapes were host to a series of cremation cemeteries, the deposition of the dead in some cases being a catalyst and inspiration for the elaborate monument-building and…
Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that two of the individuals, though not genetically related, could have shared a kinship through marriage.
Analysis of cereal grains recovered from Neolithic sites in Scotland have revealed that the first farmers adapted their methods based on individual soil conditions.
The footprint beds reveal that the intertidal landscapes of Mesolithic Britain were hubs of human and animal activity for the first few thousand years after the last glacial period.
Was the arrival of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ in England a limited elite takeover, an invasion force, or a mass movement of migrants? Perceptions of the immediate post-Roman period have shifted and evolved over the centuries. John Hines places the new genetic data explored in this issue in the context of research history.
The remains of at least 17 individuals found in a medieval well in central Norwich most likely represent a group of Ashkenazi Jews who fell victim to anti-Semitic violence in the 12th or early 13th century, a new study suggests.…
The team has unearthed evidence of settlements ranging in date from the Neolithic to the medieval period, though most features relate to the Bronze and Iron Age (c.1500 BC-AD 100).