What is it? This small, carved figurine depicting a falconer was discovered in Oslo, Norway. The object, made of bone, antler, or walrus tooth, is 7.5cm long, with a flat, oval cross-section. The lower half of the figurine is hollow,…
The human ape, with our big, social brain, is well suited to a life of dense social interaction. So, when faced with limited resources and growing populations, similar solutions tend to present themselves – in very different corners of the planet.
When it was completed in 1209, medieval London Bridge was the only fixed crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston-upon-Thames (until Fulham Bridge was built in 1729). Remarkably, it was also home to some 500 people – equivalent to the population of a small medieval town. In London Bridge and its Houses, Dorian Gerhold has scoured the archives of Bridge House – the medieval charity that managed the bridge – to find out more about the community that lived on this extraordinary structure, as Chris Catling reports.
The Museum of London will close its doors on 4 December, ahead of its planned relocation to larger premises in West Smithfield’s historic General Market. What will the new museum look like, and what is planned at the original site during its final few months? Carly Hilts reports.
Dulverton House began life as part of a medieval priory, and has since seen centuries of adaptations and amendments. What traces of its historic fabric have survived to the present day? Recent archaeological investigations ahead of planned refurbishment works have revealed many of the structure’s secrets once more, as Chiz Harward reports.
The festival welcomed some 4.3 million visitors over 152 days, and featured themed gardens, performances, a replica Roman bathhouse, and the much-loved ‘Coca-Cola’ roller coaster.
All individuals will be carefully reburied following completion of the research work.
The layers of tunnels under Naples preserve traces of Greek life and death in ancient Italy. Dalu Jones heads beneath the surface to visit ongoing restoration work that is making an ancient tomb and its rare surviving Greek paintings accessible to the public.
Last month we explored the evolution of Roman and medieval Leicester. Now Mathew Morris explains how recent University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) excavations in the city have revealed links between its Roman predecessor and North Africa.
Fresh traces of urban life spanning almost three millennia are coming to light in central Rome. New Danish-Italian excavations have uncovered far more than Caesar’s monumental forum project. Delving through archaeological layers, while travelling back in time from Mussolini’s 1930s constructions, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Eva Mortensen, Claudio Parisi Presicce, and Rubina Raja disentangle the complex urban stratigraphy of the Eternal City.
Traders poured in, London flourished, and in ten years it became the biggest town in Britain. But then, disaster! Boudica rebelled and London was destroyed: traces of burning from this episode are still visible in the lower layers of excavations.
The people of Chichester – or Noviomagus Reginorum, as the settlement was known in the 1st century AD – have much to celebrate when it comes to their Roman heritage. Claire Walton and James Kenny explore the city’s Roman archaeology, and explain how it has served as both a platform for public engagement and the inspiration for an annual celebration of all things Roman.
The excavations have revealed the iron foundry’s casting pits and a deep stone-lined cistern filled with roofing slates.
Review by Owen Humphreys. You wait decades for a new book about Roman London, then two come along at once. Dominic Perring’s previous work Roman London (Routledge, 1991) was the standard reference for nearly 30 years. Now, just three years…
Inventive Vents has a clever way of engaging younger people with scatological anecdotes, in the style of Horrible Histories. Thus we are told that the innocuously named Carting Lane was known colloquially as ‘Farting Lane’ because of the smell of sewer gas.
The new ‘City of Caves’ project will see researchers exploring historical records and creating 3D laser scans.
It is a detailed depiction, with the plumes of the bird of prey marked in careful lattice-work.
London Clay is an impressionistic survey of London and its history, filtered through the prism of the underlying geological strata. It is at once personal and overarching, meandering from pre-Roman to Victorian, south London to north, via what Chivers (a…
Lisbon's Núcleo Arqueológico da Rua dos Correeiros museum, London's Courtauld Gallery, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts have all reopened.
The first Hampden stadium, complete with enclosed pitch and turnstiles, was built in 1873.
Based in Rome, LoveItaly is now in its seventh year and its accent is decidedly American and not patrician. It owes everything to the dynamism of a Californian who is every bit as Roman as the Romans.
This new study of tools from Roman London is a hefty volume, but it more than justifies the bookshelf space. Thorough coverage of dozens of crafts and tool types will ensure that it becomes a standard reference work for artefact…
Berlin’s ambitious cultural project the Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public this summer. Exhibition spaces, museum collections, and presentations of scientific research are brought together in a partially rebuilt Baroque palace that once stood on the site. As Alfred Hagemann tells Lucia Marchini, this spot – and the buildings on it – has long occupied a prominent place in public discourse.
The Friends organise a rota of more than 100 volunteer ‘watchers’ to keep the churches open. They put on lectures, tours, and special events, while encouraging others to make use of the buildings.
All eyes were on Tokyo this summer, as the world's most populous metropolitan area (home to an astonishing 37 million people) finally played host to the postponed 2020 Olympic Games. With its gleaming skyscrapers and ultramodern stadia, the Japanese capital made a suitably impressive backdrop for the planet's biggest sporting event.
York Archaeological Trust, which also trades under the name York Archaeology, has launched a new community project at the former Willow House care home in the Walmgate area of York, specifically designed to improve participants’ health and wellbeing while teaching them new skills in archaeology.
Preparations for the 2020 Olympics saw excavations under way at numerous sites in Tokyo. Simon Kaner reflects on what archaeology tells us about activity in the area before and after the birth of a great city.
This artist’s impression shows the scale of the 58-room mansion, with its halls, kitchens, and chapel, as well as the largest private garden in the city.
With small tiles of marble and glass, Roman mosaicists created intricate mythological images, realistic scenes from nature, and other complex compositions to decorate the floors and walls of tombs, sanctuaries, and homes. Dalu Jones explores some mosaic masterpieces normally hidden in stores in Rome’s museums.
Excavations revealed old foundations, as well as bricks and pottery, dating to the late 18th century.
Excavations in the Bronze Age cemetery at Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus, are shedding light on trade networks and complex burial practices, as Peter M Fischer and Teresa Bürge explain.
A round-up of some of the latest stories in Archaeology around the world, including a previously unknown city uncovered in Luxor, a tree from the Battle of Waterloo, and research into how Neanderthals spoke and heard.
Writing a book about the history of a Roman town in Britain is not an easy task. To create a readable and balanced account, an author has to contend with various levels of knowledge, inevitably glossing over or filling in…
This monograph provides a detailed report on the major excavations by Oxford Archaeology South and Pre-Construct Archaeology at the site of Stoke Quay, Ipswich (2011-2012), covering 1.2 acres of the Saxon and medieval town. Ipswich is one of England’s oldest…
The city is situated near to Amenhotep III’s royal palaces and may have provided food and other items to the royal residence, as well as acting as the administrative and industrial centre of the empire.
This new publication, which draws on discussions at the 2017 European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) conference and the work of the EAA Urban Archaeology Community, explores the complexities of carrying out archaeology in urban spaces across Europe. Urban centres are…