A once-thriving Bronze Age settlement has been revealed during excavations in Erksine, Renfrewshire. The discovery was made by a team from GUARD Archaeology, who excavated two large fields in Northbar, on the south-east outskirts of Erskine, between 2018 and 2019.…
A geophysical survey carried out in the grounds of Crookston Castle, with the aim of learning more about the Glasgow site’s medieval and post medieval history, has unexpectedly revealed the remains of a late prehistoric settlement, including the footprints of…
Recent excavations at Brusselstown Ring, a prehistoric hillfort in County Wicklow, Ireland, have confirmed that many of the anomalies found in previous surveys of the site are roundhouse structures. With more than 600 possible examples identified across the hilltop, the…
What was life like in Britain 3,000 years ago? How did people live together, find their food and materials, and organise their domestic rituals and day-to-day activities? The Bronze Age to Early Iron Age settlement of Cladh Hallan in the Outer Hebrides has provided answers, as well as new questions, as Mike Parker Pearson, Jacqui Mulville, Helen Smith, and Peter Marshall explain.
Excavations in Guardbridge, along the Eden Estuary in Fife, have revealed a rich landscape of archaeological features spanning the late Upper Palaeolithic through to the modern day. Conducted between 2019 and 2021 – and recently published on Archaeology Reports Online…
Excavations at Fordingbridge, Hampshire, just outside the New Forest National Park, have revealed an important rural settlement that was occupied from the Iron Age into the Roman period. Traces of much earlier Neolithic activity were also found, with rare 5,000-year-old…
Recent research has shed new light on a rare group of Iron Age cauldrons, culminating in the construction of a full-sized replica. What did this process reveal about how such objects were made, maintained, and used? John Thomas, Liz Barham, and Hector Cole explain more.
REVIEW BY RP Cotswold Archaeology’s latest monograph (free to download at ) covers excavations that took place ahead of the construction of the Collection Management Facility, Science, and Innovation Park at the former site of RAF Wroughton between 2018 and…
The newest archaeological reconstruction to be unveiled at Butser Ancient Farm is a late Neolithic house, based on a structure whose 5,000-year-old footprint was excavated in Dorset. CA visited the launch event to learn more.
Rare Roman coin on display at Trimontium Museum An aureus – a Roman gold coin – has recently been put on display in the Trimontium Museum. Discovered at Newstead, in the Scottish Borders, the coin is on loan from National…
Pendinas hillfort is a well-situated pre-Roman defended village, commanding a prominent hill on the west coast of Cardigan Bay. The Iron Age hillfort developed over several centuries, eventually encompassing both the steeper south summit and the lower north summit. Everything…
Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) have discovered archaeological material ranging from the prehistoric to the medieval period during work on the new Springstead Village development in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge. The extensive findings of the excavations, which started in 2022 and will…
Pioneering excavations in Winchester in the 1960s and 1970s made a major contribution to the development of modern archaeological practice and trained many of those who subsequently became the leading professional and academic archaeologists of our day. So the publication of the latest Winchester Studies volume – a concise synthesis of the city’s prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman development – is a landmark event, as Chris Catling reports.
The Caithness Broch Project (CBP), a charity aiming to build a replica of an Iron Age broch, has finally found – after an extensive search – the perfect location for their ‘Big Broch Build’ in an area north of Latheron,…
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.
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.
Based on three years of excavations at Dinas Dinlle – carried out by archaeologists from Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, CHERISH, the National Trust, and Cadw (see CA 356 and 394) – new reconstruction drawings by Wessex Archaeology are bringing the site…
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…
Review by Trevor Creighton This book is, in part, an update of D W Harding’s 2009 publication, The Iron Age Roundhouse. Significant new insights from the author justify the updated title, however. The chronology now extends from the later Neolithic…
Fragments of Trevisker ware pottery, with slightly different styles perhaps reflecting the different phases of the site, were found throughout each of the four roundhouses.
Review by Mark Knight There is something of a contradiction between the main title of this publication and the archaeology presented within its pages. The book details and interprets an impressively large-scale, decade-long excavation of a low-lying Bronze Age site…
In 2020, we reported on intriguing discoveries emerging from a Roman villa site near Corby, Northamptonshire. Now further excavations have been carried out at Priors Hall, illuminating the area’s industrial heritage, its interconnectivity with other villa sites, and its Iron Age origins. Paddy Lambert reports.
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).
The newly uncovered banjo enclosure, which contains at least three roundhouses and 65 deep, cylindrical storage pits dating from c.300-100 BC, was discovered during a geophysical survey.
Previous investigations have uncovered traces of human activity spanning the Neolithic to Roman periods.
CAER Heritage is a model of genuine partnership between heritage professionals and community interest groups.
Six Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age timer-posted roundhouses and an array of animal bone and pottery fragments were also uncovered.
Review by Miranda Aldhouse-Green. Ray Howell’s new book focuses on the Iron Age and the transition to the Roman period as experienced by one particular tribe (or polity), zooming in on the Silures of south-east Wales. In 11 succinct chapters,…
Review by AB. Archaeological investigations have been taking place in Merseyside, in north-west England, since the 19th century, shedding light on the many communities who have inhabited the area over the last 10,500 years. In this brief but engaging publication,…
Hadrian’s Wall is often blamed for splitting ancient Britain in two, but a new look at the archaeological evidence suggests that the peoples of what would become Scotland and England were already culturally divergent long before the Romans arrived in Britain – as Ronan Toolis explains.
The earliest evidence of settlement at the site consisted of postholes marking out the footprints of two large roundhouses
Excavations in advance of HS2 construction in Northamptonshire have uncovered the remains of a previously unknown Iron Age village that grew into a flourishing Roman trading settlement. Carly Hilts spoke to James West to find out more.
The rapid suburban expansion of Inverness in recent decades has led to a patchwork of prehistoric sites being discovered through developer-funded excavations. In 2005, however, Headland Archaeology hit the motherlode at Culduthel. They had discovered a multi-period prehistoric site whose…
Located in the Outer Hebrides, the prehistoric settlement of Cladh Hallan is best known for the Bronze Age mummies found buried beneath its roundhouses. As well as these insights into how the dead were treated, though, the dwellings have yielded illuminating insights into the world of the living, as Mike Parker Pearson, Jacqui Mulville, Helen Smith, and Peter Marshall explain.
A recently revealed Iron Age settlement in Cressing, near Braintree in Essex, appears to have been almost completely destroyed during the second half of the 1st century AD. Dating to around the time of the Boudican uprising of AD 60/61,…
In 2018, Highways England opened an upgraded section of motorway on the A1 in North Yorkshire. Construction of the new road prompted a series of large-scale excavations, with illuminating results. Stuart Ross and Cath Ross present some of the preliminary findings.