Museum news and exhibitions
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
UK
Stonehenge: a brief history
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…
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Carly Hilts reviews the latest outing of cinema’s most celebrated archaeologist.
Wroxeter Roman City
A new site museum tells the story of what was the fourth-largest town in Roman Britain. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Prehistoric continuity in the Cambridgeshire landscape: Exploring recent excavations at Needingworth Quarry
For almost 30 years, the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) has been uncovering diverse archaeological features and finds at one of the UK’s largest sand- and gravel-extraction sites. Excavations have illuminated a landscape of prehistoric settlements, field systems, and monuments, located just three miles east of St Ives in Cambridgeshire. Matthew Brudenell, Charles Barker, Jonathan Tabor, and Chris Wakefield report on the latest discoveries.
Saving Spilsby sandstone structures
Christopher Catling, Contributing Editor for CA, delves into the eccentricities of the heritage world.
Lancashire Parish Register Society
We are grateful to LPRS Council member Simon Oliver for contributing this month’s ‘Odd Socs’ column.
Face-to-face with the Trumpington bed burial teenager
A facial reconstruction of the early medieval teenager who was laid to rest in a bed burial in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, has been carried out by forensic artist Hew Morrison for a new exhibition, ‘Beneath Our Feet: archaeology of the Cambridge…
Villas, Sanctuaries, and Settlement in the Romano-British Countryside
REVIEW BY NEIL HOLBROOK Did all the buildings in the Roman countryside that we call ‘villas’ perform the same function? Were they mostly nicely appointed homes of people who had done well at farming, or country residences of the well-to-do…
The Eagle and the Bear: a new history of Roman Scotland
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS Roman Scotland has long been a battleground. The remarkable remains of military works testify to the manpower that Rome committed to northern Britain, while the ancient literature reports fighting of varying intensity. An absence of any…
The Drowning of a Cornish Prehistoric Landscape: Tradition, deposition, and social responses to sea level rise
REVIEW BY JACQUELINE A NOWAKOWSKI Mount’s Bay, west Cornwall, hosts a major drowned landscape. This attractive and well-produced monograph successfully integrates results of the excavation of a Bronze Age enclosure barrow, east of Penzance in the littoral zone, with excellent…
Roman Frontier Archaeology in Britain and Beyond: Papers in honour of Paul Bidwell presented on the occasion of the 30th annual conference of the Arbeia Society
REVIEW BY ANDREW TIBBS The study of Roman frontiers goes from strength to strength, as demonstrated in this volume, which marked the 30th annual conference of the Arbeia Society, the organisation that manages the Roman fort and recreated buildings at…
Burton Dassett, Southend, Warwickshire: a medieval market village
REVIEW BY JOHN HUNT Burton Dassett, in the Warwickshire Feldon, has previously attracted attention as representing rural settlements in the area that suffered depopulation in the late medieval period. This long-awaited publication of the excavations undertaken at Southend between 1986…
Bayesian analysis provides new chronology for Dorstone Hill
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,…
3D scan sheds light on unusual Roman gypsum burials
Researchers from the University of York, York Museums Trust, and Heritage360 have recently carried out a 3D scan of a Roman gypsum burial – a practice in which liquid gypsum was poured over the body before interment. This project, the…
Bronze Age barrow cemetery discovered in Salisbury
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…
UK news in brief: From Euston cemetery to Dryburgh Abbey
Euston cemetery burials reinterred in Surrey At the end of June, more than 14,000 burials that had been excavated from St James’s Gardens in Euston in advance of HS2 (see CA 398) were reburied at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Prayers…
Finds tray: Early Bronze Age pin
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…
‘Giant’ handaxes found in Frindsbury, Kent
Excavations at Manor Farm in Frindsbury, Kent – in advance of the construction of a Maritime Academy – have revealed more than 800 stone artefacts found within sediments thought to relate to a Middle Pleistocene tributary of the River Medway.…
Science Notes: Using incremental strontium isotope analysis to recreate subsistence ranges
Strontium isotope analysis has become a standard in mobility research, featuring in many post-excavation analyses of human and animal remains. While ‘typical’ strontium analysis is able to tell us much about movement in the past, new techniques are being applied…
Rare Roman mausoleum unearthed in Southwark
A large Roman mausoleum, used to bury high-status individuals, was recently discovered by MOLA during excavations in advance of the redevelopment of a site near Borough Market in Southwark, by Landsec and Transport for London (TfL). The foundations, which measured…
The First Stones: Penywyrlod, Gwernvale, and the Black Mountains Neolithic long cairns of south-east Wales
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…
Chariots, Swords, and Spears: Iron Age burials at the foot of the East Yorkshire Wolds
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.…
A Mighty Fleet and the King’s Power: the Isle of Man, AD 400 to 1265
REVIEW BY ALLISON FOX Tim Clarkson’s aim, to ‘present a narrative political history of the Isle of Man’, is achieved in this book, which covers the pre-Viking era through to the end of Scandinavian influence on the island, and the…
An Archaeological History of Hermitages and Eremitic Communities in Medieval Britain and Beyond
REVIEW BY DUNCAN W WRIGHT In An Archaeological History of Hermitages, Simon Roffey directly addresses a hitherto neglected area of scholarship by providing a wide-ranging survey of the material evidence for hermitages and eremitic practice. His work is not restricted…
Death in the Iron Age of Eastern England: an interdisciplinary analysis of human remains from 800 BC to AD 60
REVIEW BY JENNIFER FOSTER This most useful, extensive analysis concerns Iron Age inhumed bones in eastern England. The burial types start in the late Bronze Age, with most people buried in settlements: ‘normal’ pit/ditch, crouched, and north–south orientated; disarticulated bones;…
The Bare Bones: Presenting a very regional Neolithic
During the early Neolithic period, a distinctive regional tradition of funerary architecture developed on either side of the waters stretching between Northern Ireland and south-western Scotland. Matt Ritchie explores how archaeological research and interpretation is helping to illuminate the chambered cairns of the North Channel and the people who built them, and describes the role they can play in developing an understanding of place and time in younger audiences.
Fortress Londinium: Tracing London’s Roman defences
This summer, a museum displaying a portion of the wall that once encircled Roman London has opened, and three sections of the settlement’s riverside defences have been granted scheduled status. Carly Hilts visited the museum and spoke to Jane Sidell to learn more about Londonium’s fortifications.
One and all: Discovering the distinctiveness of Cornish buildings
The Cornish Buildings Group recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Dedicated to preserving and improving Cornwall’s built heritage, the Group has marked its half-century by publishing a short history of its achievements and a volume of conference proceedings that address the question: what defines Cornish buildings? Among the factors that contribute to Cornwall’s architectural distinctiveness are the county’s geology and building stones, as well as particular building types and the designs of architects who devoted much of their career to the county, as Chris Catling reports.
Lost orders: Time Team and the Knights Hospitaller of Halston Hall
The Knights Hospitaller were forged in the fury of the Crusades, providing protection, hospitality, and medical care for travellers in the Holy Land, and building fundraising communities back in Britain. Few of these sites have been excavated in detail, but Time Team have been investigating a Shropshire example. Carly Hilts spoke to Stewart Ainsworth.
Excavating the CA archive
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.
Festival of Archaeology
Join in this July with the Council for British Archaeology’s Festival of Archaeology! The theme for 2023 is ‘Archaeology and Creativity’, which will be explored online and in-person across the programme. Ceri Pennington has put together a selection of this year’s regional highlights.
CA 401 Letters – July
Your thoughts on issues raised by CA.
Museum news and exhibitions
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
Farrah the Fox featuring at Hi! Street Fest – Woolwich, Greater London
This fox puppet, called Farrah, was made by Historic England in partnership with Emergency Exit Arts to celebrate Hi! Street Fest – the final part of the High Street Heritage Action Zones Cultural Programme, which has sought to revitalise high…
Finds tray – Neolithic flint chisel
This unusual stone tool was recently discovered in a back garden in Hastings, East Sussex. It is a Neolithic polished flint chisel, or possibly axehead, that appears to have been reworked into a cutting or scraping tool. The flint is…