First Palaeolithic DNA from Britain successfully sequenced
The study suggests that two Palaeolithic individuals - one from Kendrick’s Cave in Wales, and the other from Gough’s Cave in Somerset - came from two completely separate populations.
UK
Highlights from the CARD Fund: community radiocarbon-dating fund continues to unlock new secrets
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.
The sky’s the limit: surveying the aerial photography of Harold Wingham
Almost 2,000 images taken by Harold Wingham (1924-2021), an unsung pioneer of archaeological aerial photography, have been made available to the public for the first time in a new project by Historic England. CA explores his life and work.
An updated chart for determining the age-at-death of human remains
In this month’s ‘Science Notes’, we explore a recent paper that tests some of the assumptions behind Brothwell’s chart relating dental-wear to age and develops a more up-to-date one.
Highlighting hieroglyphs at the British Museum and the Petrie Museum
This autumn marked 200 years since the ‘hieroglyphic code’ was cracked, allowing scholars to read and understand the ancient Egyptian script for the first time in centuries, and revolutionising our understanding of the people who used it. Carly Hilts visited two London-based exhibitions reflecting this milestone.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire: the Roman frontiers in Wales
Review by Al McCluskey The Roman Frontiers in Wales is one of the latest tranche of publications in the ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire’ series. Co-authored by David Breeze and Peter Guest, this neat, informative, and accessible volume brings a…
The Watlington Hoard: coinage, kings, and the Viking Great Army in Oxfordshire, AD 875-880
Review by Murray Andrews This exciting new book is the definitive publication of the Watlington Hoard, a remarkable find of precious metal coins, ingots, and jewellery hidden in Oxfordshire in the late 870s AD and rediscovered in October 2015. Richly…
‘One of the most valuable women that ever lived’
During archaeological works beneath the floor of Bath Abbey between 2018 and 2020 (see CA 348), Wessex Archaeology recovered a stunning piece of an 18th-century bas relief marble sculpture. It was one of approximately 4,000 fragments removed from the Abbey’s…
Excavating the archives… from Fife to Moray
This stunning coastal location is better known for its Pictish carvings, but researchers have shown that it has a much longer, and more enigmatic, prehistoric pedigree, dating back at least as far as the Bronze Age.
From the Princes in the Tower to Northumbria’s Golden Age
Beneath the foundations of the staircase, the workmen found a wooden chest containing human bones and pieces of velvet. Charles II arranged for the remains to be reinterred in Westminster Abbey, but the bones were re-examined in 1933.
Dying Young: a bioarchaeological analysis of child health in Roman Britain
Review by Claire Hodson Over the last decade, numerous studies have challenged the traditional assumptions that the words ‘Roman Britain’ may incite. Included within this re-evaluation has been the increase in osteological analyses to reveal further insights into those working,…
New dietary evidence for The Cairns ‘Elder’
New isotope analysis of a jawbone found buried against the outside wall of an Iron Age broch at The Cairns on South Ronaldsay, Orkney, has shown that seafood was probably a major part of this person’s diet throughout their lifetime.
The London Gasketeers
The London Gasketeers (the name alludes, one assumes, to the swashbuckling heroes of the Alexander Dumas novel) are a newly created group set up to campaign for Britain’s historic gas lamps. Founded in January 2022, the Gasketeers operate by using…
Finds tray – Chinese lion figurine
This is a rare find – at least within Britain – that was recently discovered by archaeologists from Pre-Construct Archaeology at Bermondsey Square in Bermondsey, London. It is a stoneware lion figurine, probably Chinese in origin, but was found in…
Railway siding from the 19th century revealed in Huddersfield
It is believed these were used to house and maintain trains on the Manchester & Huddersfield Railway
Unlocking Prehistoric Houses
Down we probed into each and, before long, another surprise. Each contained a human skeleton, ranging from an adult woman to a child and, finally, a new-born infant. They were burying the dead under the floorboards!
Ancient mounds in America
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…
DNA, diets, and dealing with the weather
Svante Pääbo is the second member of his family to be elected a Nobel laureate: his father, Sune Bergström (1916-2004) shared the same Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1982. Is there a gene, one wonders, for Nobel-Prize-winning science?
World news in brief: Morocco, China, and the United States
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the world, including: evidence of an ear infection identified in 100,000-year-old remains; analysis of ancient Chinese bronze formulae; and a rethinking of how Cahokia's North Plaza was used.
A battle in the mists of the Lake District? Ambleside Roman fort under attack
Recent research has shed new light on a Roman fort in the Lake District, and the violent events that may have taken place there. Manuel Fernández-Götz, John Reid, Lawrence Keppie, and Ian Hardwick report.
UK news in brief: discovering SS Mesaba, St Saviour’s Priory, and a Roman ford
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the UK.
8,000 years of footprints preserved at Formby
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.
CA Letters 393 – November
Your views and opinions on issues raised in CA, plus information about CA Live! 2023!
Ancient DNA and ‘Anglo-Frisians’
I have a personal dislike of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to describe the people and culture of southern and eastern Britain from the 4th to the 8th centuries because it is anachronistic – it implies homogeneity where I see much more interesting diversity
A Cult Centre on Rome’s North-West Frontier: excavations at Maryport, Cumbria 1870-2015
Maryport is home to one of the largest and most-impressive collections of Roman altars in the world, with the role of religion at the site debated by academics and archaeologists over many years. Deliberately buried in pits, the altars –…
Piecing together the puzzle: understanding the Late Roman hacksilver from the Traprain Hoard
Excavation work at Traprain Law, an Iron Age hillfort in East Lothian, some 30km east of Edinburgh, was interrupted by the turmoil of the First World War. Two weeks after work began again on 12 May 1919, George Pringle loosened the soil with the tip of his pick and pulled out a Roman silver vessel. This was the first artefact to be found from what would prove to be the largest hoard yet known of Late Roman hacksilver – silver which has been chopped, cut, and crushed. More than a century later, an equally massive 784-page study has been published that tells us what the hoard represents in terms of the art and lifestyles of people from both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, as Chris Catling reports.
A Viking Market Kingdom in Ireland and Britain: trade networks and the importation of a southern Scandinavian silver bullion economy
This book is the third in Routledge’s ‘Archaeologies of the Viking World’ series, and maintains the high standard of the others in terms of content. The book’s core idea is that groups with connections to southern Scandinavia established an often-loose…
Little London: Nero, Silchester, and building infrastructure in the new province
Distinctive tiles stamped with the name and titles of the Roman emperor Nero have been found at only two sites from Roman Britain, both in Hampshire. Michael Fulford explores what this might mean.
Cereal consumption at Hebridean crannogs
Chemical analysis of pottery found in the waters surrounding crannogs in Scotland has revealed that cereals were cooked in pots and mixed with dairy products, and occasionally meat.
Caistor St Edmund: excavating an aqueduct in Roman Norfolk
Archaeological investigations in a field outside Norwich, close to the remains of a Romano-Celtic temple, have uncovered further evidence of activity associated with the religious complex. Carly Hilts reports on a recent visit to the site.
Museum news: from unlocking past lives at the Museum of East Dorset, to changing perceptions at the Museum of Homelessness
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions
Recovering an anchor from the North Sea
Through the combined efforts of ScottishPower Renewables and Maritime Archaeology Ltd, with support from Historic England, a wrought-iron anchor, possibly dating from the Roman period, was successfully raised from the North Sea in June of last year. The location of…
Revealing royal Rendlesham: luxury living in early medieval Suffolk
A second summer of excavation at Rendlesham, four miles from Sutton Hoo, has uncovered further evidence of a high-status settlement that thrived from the late 5th to the early 8th century. Carly Hilts spoke to Faye Minter and Professor Christopher Scull to find out more.
Excavating Scotland
Moving geographically west to east, we then come to Bearsden on the north-west outskirts of Glasgow. This site is, if not the most excavated of Antonine sites, then certainly that most visited by Current Archaeology.
Stonehenge and Middle to Late Neolithic Cremation Rites in Mainland Britain (c.3500-2500 BC)
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…
Coring crannogs: a multi-pronged approach to assessing lake sediments
Biomolecular and mineralogical techniques applied to lake settlements obtained from Scottish and Irish crannogs have yielded genetic and environmental data, providing evidence of animal butchery and feasting.