Archaeologists unearth 4,000-year-old ‘Stonehenge of the Netherlands’

The Tiel sanctuary featured a solar calendar that was used to determine important events including festivals and harvest days, say archaeologists.
Photograph: Municipality of Tiel/Reuters

Dutch archaeologists have unearthed an approximately 4,000-year-old religious site – nicknamed the “Stonehenge of the Netherlands” – that includes a burial mound that served as a solar calendar.

The mound, which contained the remains of about 60 men, women and children, had several passages through which the sun shone directly on the longest and shortest days of the year.

The town of Tiel, where the site was discovered, said on its Facebook page: “What a spectacular archaeological discovery! Archaeologists have found a 4,000-year-old religious sanctuary on an industrial site.”

It added: “This is the first time a site like this has been discovered in the Netherlands.”

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‘It stands over us like a giant’s dining table’: on the trail of the UK’s ancient stones

One of Cornwall’s most recognisable megaliths … Lanyon Quoit. Photograph: Alamy

No longer just for solstice, a new type of tourism means these mysterious formations are being visited year round. Our writer joins a stone hunt on the Cornish moors.

Up on Cornwall’s Penwith Moors time takes a strange quality. Here the landscape is a morass of knotted bracken and bristly gorse, a soft marigold tinge signalling warmer summer days. A grey smudge of cloud sags on the horizon and the wind whirs like white noise, a low and disorientating murmur. The topography is a palimpsest, with working farms etched over ruinous mines and prehistoric settlements. And at its heart is a scattering of ancient stones, the enigmatic quoits, barrows and stone circles that have captivated and confounded societies for millennia.

It’s an enchanting place just to wander, but to help me dive deeper into the mysteries of the moors, I am meeting artists and stone enthusiasts Lally MacBeth and Matthew Shaw. Almost immediately I feel underdressed in hiking boots primed with mud and a hardy waterproof – in Cornwall, we come perpetually prepared for the threat of showers. MacBeth, on the other hand, looks the part of an antiquarian in an emerald-green blazer and matching beret finished with a swipe of ruby lipstick. The only muted part of her outfit is a monochrome badge, the size of a small pebble, that reads: “The Stone Club”.

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A Couple Renovating Their Kitchen in Denmark Found an Ancient Stone Carved With Viking Runes

An ancient stone was discovered under the kitchen floor in a home in Denmark.
Photo Lene Brandt, courtesy National Museum of Denmark.

When Lene Brandt and her husband, Anders Nielsen, were preparing to tear up the linoleum floors in the kitchen in their home in the village of Mosekær, in Denmark, they probably expected the normal things that occur in the course of such a project: cost overruns, delays, and problems with contractors.

Instead, what they found was an ancient artifact. The couple stumbled across a nearly 2,000-pound stone, measuring more than six feet long, carved with ancient runes. The couple contacted local experts at the Museum Østjylland. Staff archaeologist Benita Clemmensen is quoted by the cultural news site Skjalden saying that these stones are the sole written records of the Viking Age. 

Five runes can be found carved into the stone’s surface, reading “aft Bi,” which can be translated as “after B.” 

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Game piece with runic inscription found in Trondheim

A round soapstone game piece discovered in an archaeological survey in advance of sewer pipe repair in Trondheim, Norway, is inscribed with runes. This is only the second known game piece with a runic inscription ever discovered in Norway.

The excavation uncovered a sunken pit with archaeological layers dating to the Middle Ages. The deepest part of the pit, more than 12 feet below today’s street surface, has been dated to between 1000 and 1150 A.D. A coal layer above it was only slightly more recent, dating to 1030-1180 A.D. The soapstone game piece was found between the two layers.

Archaeologists first thought the lines incised on the round piece’s surface could be stylized floral motifs, but the geometry was also reminiscent of runic inscriptions albeit laid out in artistic fashion.

The team sent high-resolution images of the piece to runologist Karen Langsholt Holmqvist. She was so intrigued she was compelled to view the object in person. That’s when she conclusively identified the decoration as runic writing.

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“Ipswich ware” pottery made for the first time in over 1,000 years

“Ipswich ware” jars and pots, first made 1,400 years ago in the English town, are being fired again in a replica Anglo-Saxon kiln thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

This new experimental archaeology project is being led by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, to investigate how Anglo-Saxon pottery was once made in Ipswich. The new kiln has been built and fired by studying archaeological remains excavated from the Buttermarket in Ipswich, something never attempted before. Only two kilns have ever been excavated in Ipswich, the other was discovered at Stoke Quay.

Ipswich ware pottery was made in the town from c. AD 680-870. Jars, cooking pots and pitchers were the most commonly-made items, simple in design and grey in colour. They were mass-produced and distributed throughout eastern England, and were some of the first of their kind in post-Roman Britain.

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What did the Vikings eat?

Serra is a culinary archaeologist recreating long-lost Viking recipes (Credit: Maddy Savage)

While the word "Viking" is often used to describe anyone who lived during the Viking era, Serra explained that it should technically only refer to the pirates and pillagers who travelled across northern Europe between the 8th and 11th Centuries. He said that most people during this period weren't bloodthirsty invaders, but worked as farmers, fishermen, crafters or traders, and he's made it his life's mission to research and recreate the kind of dishes that dominated their everyday diets. 

"I like to eat, and I like to eat good food, so I was curious: what did [the Vikings] eat?" said Serra, who initially studied the food of ancient Rome as an archaeology student by recreating dishes from the 1st- to 5th-Century cookbook De Re Coquinaria. He then reconstructed, cooked and tasted his way from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages before focusing on the Viking era during his graduate studies. Today, having established that Vikings were much more farm-to-table locavores than meat-loving hunter gatherers, Serra is now considered one of Scandinavia's leading authorities on the culinary practices of the Vikings. 

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Stone Carved With Viking Ship May Be Oldest Picture Ever Found in Iceland

Photo: Landnámsskáli í Stöð / Facebook

Archaeologists in Iceland have found a sandstone carved with a Viking ship that may be the oldest picture ever found in the country. The stone was found at the archaeological site Stöð in East Iceland in a longhouse that is believed to predate the permanent settlement of the island. RÚV reported first.

Richest longhouse ever excavated in Iceland

The first exploratory digs at Stöð were made in 2015 and archaeologists have returned every summer since to continue excavating the site, where they first focused their efforts on a settlement-era longhouse.  “The longhouse is among the largest found in Iceland, 31.4m [103ft] long. In Scandinavia, only chieftains’ farms had longhouses larger than 28m [92ft]. It is also the richest longhouse ever excavated in Iceland. We have found 92 beads and 29 silver objects, including Roman and Middle Eastern coins,” Bjarni F. Einarsson told Iceland Review for a 2020 article on the archeological site.

Oldest building predates settlement

What makes the site still more significant is that archaeologists discovered an even older longhouse underneath the settlement-era longhouse, estimated to date back to around 800 AD, some 75 years before the permanent settlement of Iceland. The most striking feature of the older structure is the conspicuous absence of the bones of domesticated animals. “My theory is that the older longhouse was a seasonal hunting camp, operated by a Norwegian chief who outfitted voyages to Iceland to gather valuables and bring them back across the sea to Norway,” Bjarni told Iceland Review. One of these valuables may have been walrus ivory: in 2019, DNA analyses and radiocarbon dating confirmed that Iceland was previously inhabited by a North Atlantic subspecies of walrus, now extinct.

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Ipswich Anglo-Saxon pottery created in replica kiln in Tunstall, near Woodbridge

Teams in Tunstall have been recreating 1,400 year-old Anglo-Saxon pottery, known as 'Ipswich-ware'. Picture: Suffolk County Council

Cash for the project was donated by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

This comes after an Anglo-Saxon kiln was uncovered under the Buttermarket shopping centre in Ipswich.

Faye Minter, from Suffolk County Council, said project such as this were important as they allow teams to test hypotheses.

She said: “They allow us to test historical methods and techniques based on evidence from excavations.

“This can give invaluable insight into our history - the lives, skills and industry of people who lived in the past.”

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Burnt Mound Complex Dated To Bronze Age - Uncovered At Suffolk Site

The site, showing the evaluation trenches and excavation areas.
Image credit: Cotswold Archaeology

In Area 1, the remains of a Bronze Age burnt mound complex were revealed. In Area 2, an enclosure system of broadly the same period was recorded, together with the remains of three Iron Age roundhouses.

Overlying these remains were field patterns of medieval and later dates.

Unfortunately the Bronze Age burnt mound in Area 1 had been largely destroyed by later ploughing. Burnt mounds are enigmatic prehistoric features known from across the British Isles. Well-preserved examples are characterised by a flattened mound formed from discarded, burnt stones.

The stones were heated and then functioned as ‘pot boilers’, heating water in nearby earth-cut, possibly timber-lined troughs.

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Northumbria University forensic scientist uncovers earliest known example of burials among human ancestors

Figure 3: Artist’s reconstruction of the burial of an adult Homo naledi found in Feature 1 from the Dinaledi Chamber. Images from Berger et al., 2023. (Image: Berger et al)

A Northumbria University forensic scientist was part of a team which has unearthed the earliest example of burials by human ancestors.

Dr Patrick Randolph-Quinney is Associate Professor of Forensic Science at Northumbria and specialises in taphonomy and thanatology - the science of death and processes that affect a body from decomposition, through to skeletonisation, then recovery. In a project funded by the National Geographic Society, Dr Randolph-Quinney was one of a team of experts who unearthed new evidence in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa suggesting an extinct human cousin named Homo naledi buried their dead.

This symbolic behaviour had previously only associated with modern humans and Neanderthals. Bodies of Homo naledi adults and several children, thought to be younger than 13 were deposited in foetal positions within pits, which suggests intentional burial of the dead.

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Violent Conflict Played A Crucial Role In Early Farming Societies In Neolithic Europe – New Study

Cave painting of a battle between archers, Cueva del Roure, Morella la Vella, Castellón, Valencia, Spain. Image credit: Eduardo Hernández Pacheco -  public domain

Complexity scientist Peter Turchin and his team at CSH, working as part of an international and interdisciplinary collaboration, may have added a meaningful piece to a long-standing puzzle in archeology. Scholars have long tried to understand why Neolithic farmer populations go through boom-bust cycles, including “collapses” when whole regions are abandoned.

According to one common explanation, climate fluctuations are the main driver, but empirical tests do not fully support this claim. In a new paper, published in the latest issue of Nature Scientific Reports, Turchin and his team seem to have come up with a new piece of information.

“Our study shows that periodic outbreaks of warfare — and not climate fluctuations – can account for the observed boom-bust patterns in the data,” argues Turchin, who’s a project leader at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH).

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Trumpington burial: Teenage Anglo-Saxon girl's face revealed

Without DNA analysis, forensic artist Hew Morrison could not be sure of her precise eye and hair colour

The face of a girl who died more than 1,300 years ago has been revealed through facial reconstruction.

Her skeleton was found buried on a wooden bed, with a gold and garnet cross on her chest at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, in 2012.

The image will go on display as part of a Cambridge University exhibition.

Anglo-Saxon specialist Dr Sam Lucy said "as an archaeologist I'm used to faceless people" so it was "really lovely" to see how she may have looked.

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First look at what the Anglo-Saxon teenager buried in Cambridge would have looked like

The face of a 16-year-old woman buried near Cambridge in the seventh century
(Image: Hew Morrison ©2023)

The face of a teenager buried near Cambridge in the seventh century has been reconstructed after analysis of her skull. Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge discovered the burial site at Trumpington Meadows in 2012.

Forensic artist Hew Morrison created the likeness using measurements of the woman's skull and tissue depth data for Caucasian females. Without DNA analysis, Mr Morrison could not be sure of her precise eye and hair colour, but the image offers a strong indication of her appearance shortly before she died. (see the reconstructed photo below).

Mr Morrison said: "It was interesting to see her face developing. Her left eye was slightly lower, about half a centimetre, than her right eye. This would have been quite noticeable in life."

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Viking Support Animals

(The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo) Stela depicting Odin’s horse Sleipnir

The warriors of the Viking Great Army who campaigned in Britain from A.D. 865 to 878 worshipped gods often associated with animal companions, such as Odin and his eight-legged horse Sleipnir. It seems that some of the army’s leaders may have made the voyage across the North Sea from Scandinavia with their own cherished animals as comrades. A team led by University of Durham archaeologist Tessi Loeffelmann discovered evidence of these travel arrangements while analyzing isotopes of the element strontium in cremated animal bones recovered from Norse burial mounds near the site of the army’s A.D. 873–874 winter camp in Repton.

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The cruelty of the Vikings was legendary. However, the reality was different

[Photo by DAMIANUM CASTRUM from Pexels]

They were famous for their violent nature, sudden attacks and barbarism. But to what extent is the cruelty of the Vikings a fact confirmed by historians?

In June 793, Vikings invaded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England. The center, which had existed for 150 years, was the spiritual and intellectual center of the region. However, to the pagan aggressors it was nothing more than an undefended object full of riches. Thus began in the history of Europe an era of Vikings that lasted more than 250 years, until the decisive battle of Hastings fought in 1066.

“Never before had there been such a terror in Britain as that which has now arisen through the heathen race. These barbarians poured the blood of the saints around the altar [in St. Cuthbert’s Church] and trampled on the bodies of the saints in the temple of God like dung in the streets.”

These words, still breathing terror today, were written by Alcuin of York in a letter to King Ethelred of Northumbria. This was the name of the land on the coast of which the profaned and devastated monastery and church were located.

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Unusual Discovery Of A Viking Age Phallic Stone In Tystaberga, Sweden

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - As an archaeologist, you can expect to find some surprises everywhere. That's what happened during recent excavations on a hill in Tystberga outside the city of Norrköping, Sweden, where scientists unearthed something eye-catching.

A new railroad will be constructed, so scientists excavated the site from May to June this year. It's an archaeological site where researchers have previously unearthed more than 60 Viking Age graves and a settlement from the Bronze Age.

In a recent study, scientists found a grave containing two curious stones. An examination of the stones showed one was a grave ord. These stones were common in Scandinavia from the Pre-Roman Iron Age until the Vendel era. Engraved with ornaments, grave orbs were placed on an individual's tomb.  The other stone unearthed in Tystberga was shaped like a penis.

The phallus was a powerful and important symbol throughout the ancient world, but unearthing a Viking Age Phallic stone in Sweden does not happen often.

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Scramasax with preserved wood handle found in Sweden

An archaeological excavation in Skälby on the outskirts of Västerås, southeastern Sweden, has uncovered a scramasax (short sword) with its decorated wooden handle so well-preserved it looks like new even though it’s more than 1100 years old.

About 16 inches long with its unusually decorative grip intact, the scramasax was discovered in 2021 at the bottom of a well, embedded deep in the mud and the waterlogged clay. The anaerobic environment preserved the wooden handle in pristine condition. It is turned to fit the hand and carved with a central enlaced design. Its style dates it to the Vendel Period between the 7th and 9th centuries A.D.

The Skälby site was home to several scattered farming settlements in the Iron Age. Its wells were used for different purposes in different phases, alternating between water sources, garbage pits and places for ritual deposits. Archaeologists believe the short sword was sacrificed, thrown into the well as an offering, as swords like this were extremely valuable objects and not likely to be lost by accident. In fact, they are most frequently found as grave goods, interred with the warrior who wielded it as one of his most prized possessions.

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A Centuries-Old Mystery: Did This Elusive Viking City Exist?

A recreated “Slavs and Viking” settlement, with medieval craft demonstrations, re-enactments and guided tours in Wolin, Poland.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Was a “medieval New York” called Jomsborg a literary fantasy or a historical reality? New archaeological discoveries may provide a clue.

After the local government decided to build an observation tower atop a sandy hill on Wolin, an island in the Baltic Sea, a Polish archaeologist was called in to check the site before construction and look for buried artifacts from the spot’s macabre past.

Hangmen’s Hill, a public park, had in earlier times been an execution ground, a cemetery and, some believe, a place for human sacrifices — so who knew what grisly discoveries were in store?

But what the archaeologist, Wojciech Filipowiak, found when he started digging caused more excitement than distaste: charcoaled wood indicating the remains of a 10th-century stronghold that could help solve one of the great riddles of the Viking Age.

Was a fearsome fortress mentioned in ancient texts a literary fantasy or a historical reality?

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Viking Burial Goods: 10 Exotic Items the Vikings Took to Valhalla

According to The Saga of the Ynglings, Odin ordered mortal Vikings to bury the dead accordingly: “He decreed that the dead were all to be cremated along with their possessions and said that everyone should arrive in Valhalla with the riches from his funeral pyre, and with the treasures he had hidden in the earth.”

Harnessing sails and ships, medieval Scandinavians explored the world, amassing treasures from faraway places. These exotic Viking burial goods preserve tales of exploration and adventure.

1. Glass Vessels in Viking Burials

On the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, the Vikings built a trading and manufacturing settlement called Birka. Thousands of people were buried at Birka from the late ninth to the tenth centuries. The graves contained an assortment of grave goods.

Archaeologists found glass vessels from the Rhineland, France, and the British Isles inside the Birka graves. Making glass vessels was an expensive and time-consuming process. Vikings did not make their own glass drinking vessels and had to import glass cups from other places in Europe and the Near East. These items were so important to the Vikings that they took glass goblets to the grave just like other treasures of more obvious importance.

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Is There Something Fishy About Radiocarbon Dating?

A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army.
Hel-hama, own work, via Wikipedia

The Vikings started out as raiders, but then, in the way of these things, ended up as rulers, and their influence stretched from Greenland to what is now Russia. They first enter English history in 793, with the sacking of the Monastery of Lindisfarne. By the late 9th century, they were colonising Iceland, and serving as mercenaries to the Emperor of Byzantium. In 862, Vikings under Rurik established themselves in Novgorod, forming the nucleus of what would become Kyivan Rus. In 885, Vikings besieged Paris, and although they were beaten back settled in what is now Normandy (Norman, Northmen). In 865, the Viking Great Heathen Army arrived in England, and a year later, under Ivar the Boneless, captured York, which would remain their capital in England until the defeat of Eric Bloodaxe in at 954.

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Seemingly 'empty' burial mound is hiding a 1,200-year-old Viking ship

The ship-shaped signals from ground-penetrating radar were detected in 2022 during excavations of burial mounds on the island of Karmøy, in southwest Norway.
(Image credit: Theo B. Gill – The Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger)

Ground-penetrating radar has revealed the outline of a Viking ship in a mound in southwest Norway that was once thought to be empty.

A Viking Age burial mound in Norway long thought to be empty actually holds an incredible artifact: the remains of a ship burial, according to a ground-penetrating radar analysis.

The remains, which are still underground, indicate that a ship burial took place during the late eighth century A.D., the very start of the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066). If confirmed, it would be the third early Viking ship burial found in the area, on the coast of the island of Karmøy in southwestern Norway, a region that may be the origin of Viking culture.

"This is a very strategic point, where maritime traffic along the Norwegian coast was controlled," Håkon Reiersen(opens in new tab), an archaeologist at the University of Stavanger in Norway, told Live Science. Reiersen works for the university's Museum of Archaeology and led the team that made the discovery last year, near the village of Avaldsnes.

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20-METRE-LONG VIKING SHIP FOUND IN NORWAY

Image Credit : Eva Gjerde - Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger

ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE DISCOVERED A 20-METRE-LONG VIKING SHIP DURING EXCAVATIONS OF THE SALHUSHAUGEN BURIAL MOUND IN KARMØY, NORWAY.

The mound was first investigated over a century ago by the archaeologist, Haakon Shetelig, however, excavations at the time showed no evidence to indicate that a ship was buried in situ.

“He was incredibly disappointed, and nothing more was done with this mound,” says Håkon Reiersen, an archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger.

Archaeologists returned to the mound in June 2022 to conduct a ground-penetrating radar survey (GPR), a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface and detect archaeological features.

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Rare, 1,000-year-old Viking Age iron hoard found in basement in Norway

The Viking hoard consists of 32 iron ingots, which are all pierced with a hole on one end and may have been grouped together in a bundle. (Image credit: Mildri Een Eide)

Forty years after her father stored them away, a woman discovered 32 identical iron ingots that Vikings may have used as a form of currency

A rare stash of 1,000-year-old ironwork, which sat for 40 years in a family's basement in Norway, is now seeing the light of day after a woman discovered the hoard during some spring cleaning. 

The hoard consists of 32 iron ingots that look like small spatulas and date back to the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) or high Middle Ages (1066 to 1350). The rods are identical and weigh about 1.8 ounces (50 grams) each, prompting archeologists to think they may have been used as a form of currency and that someone probably buried them with the intention of coming back for the treasure later.

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How Accurate Are the Viking Sagas?

The Viking sagas are deeply compelling mythologies, but epics like the Volsunga saga also preserve some elements of historical fact.

Almost a thousand years after stories of the Germanic Burgundians were first told, an unknown Icelandic scribe wrote down an accurate description of the events and personages of the 5th century CE, based only on the legends of his people. This incredible feat of oral history was powerful — and to understand its implications, we have to get inside the heads of the Christian Icelanders who looked to their pagan past for a proud literary tradition. Here, we shall attempt to do just that, examining just how accurate the Viking sagas really are.

What Are the Viking Sagas?

At their simplest, the Viking sagas are a body of literature that was mostly written by Icelanders in the 13th century CE. Saga is an Old Norse word meaning “a thing that is said” — it’s roughly analogous to the ancient Greek muthon (“things that are said”, from where we get our word myth), as opposed to ergon (“things that are done”). Thus, we can broadly conceive of the sagas as oral tales about a central figure or figures that recount the deeds of characters from Viking mythology and history. As we shall see, debate still rages as to whether the Norse themselves made a meaningful distinction between these two modern categories — myth and history.

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How Were Viking Ships Built and Buried?

In 793, the monks of Lindisfarne watched in horror as men invaded their holy place. They were under attack. There had been rumors of pirates in nearby Kent, but this was the first time the monks at Lindisfarne had come face-to-face with the raiders. The strangers plundered the monastery of everything valuable and left the edifice covered in the blood of the priests. Then the invaders returned to their ships and sailed away.

Their fine vessels would take the Vikings through Europe, the Baltic, and the Near East, allowing the Norse to establish trading ports and conquer foreign kingdoms. The ships would also allow the Vikings to colonize Greenland and Iceland. Always the ship carried the Vikings onward. Viking ships represented technical innovation and became monuments to honored leaders, ensuring the iconic legacy of the Vikings.

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New Genetic Study of Scotland’s Picts

A new genetic study has offered insight into the geographic origins and social organization of the Picts of Scotland, according to a report from Live Science. The Picts’ name is derived from the Latin word picti and references their use of body paint or tattoos. In the third century A.D., they fought off the Romans and established a kingdom in northern Britain that survived until around A.D. 900. Little is known of the Picts, but early medieval historians suggested they came from the Aegean Sea or Eastern Europe and that they traced their descent through their mother’s side. The new study, led by Adeline Morez of Liverpool John Moores University and Linus Girdland-Flink of the University of Aberdeen, analyzed genetic material from eight skeletons—seven from the Lundin Links cemetery and one from the Balintore cemetery, both in present-day Scotland.

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DNA study sheds light on Scotland’s Picts, and resolves some myths about them

The people known as the Picts have puzzled archaeologists and historians for centuries. They lived in Scotland during the early medieval period, from around AD300 to AD900, but many aspects of their society remain mysterious.

The Picts’ unique cultural characteristics, such as large stones decorated with distinct symbols, and lack of written records, have led to numerous theories about their origins, way of life, and culture.

This is commonly referred to in archaeology as the “Pictish problem”, a term popularised by the title of a 1955 edited book by the archaeologist Frederick Threlfall Wainwright.

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The Shadowy Kingdom Of Gewissae, Britain’s First Kings

Gewissae was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that ruled much of southern Britain from the fifth to the seventh centuries as the island began forging a new identity in the aftermath of Roman occupation. Beginning with the fabled reign of the mysterious Germanic invader Cerdic and ending with the documented conquests of Cædwalla, the Gewissae straddled the murky line between myth and history and as such, many of the dates discussed have been the subject of intense historical debate and should not be viewed as definitive fact.

Cerdic and Cynric

The first recorded king of the Gewissae was Cerdic, an obscure individual allegedly of Germanic stock said to be directly related to Gewis, a mythological founding figure. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Cerdic and his son Cynric first arrived in southern Britain at a place called Cerdicesora in 495 with five ships. Later on in 508 a great battle involving an indigenous British ruler called Natanleod is recorded, with Cerdic and his son emerging triumphant. For the next decade or so, the pair established themselves in the region though military force and became kings in 519 after defeating the British at Cerdicesford, a settlement which has since been identified as Charford in Hampshire.

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Tiny Bead, Found In Bulgaria, Is World's Oldest Gold

Every year, we discover something about our history on the planet through excavations around the world. In one such excavation, archaeologists found what may be the world’s oldest gold dating back to 4,500 B.C. The gold bead found was an eighth of an inch found in Bulgaria and it might be the oldest processed gold ever discovered in Europe and probably the world.

Reuters reported in 2016 that the bead predates the previous oldest gold object, the Varna Gold, which is a cache of gold found in a necropolis outside the Black Sea port of Varna. The Varna Gold cache was found between 1972 and 1991 and weighed about 5.8 kilograms. However, the new bead found in Bulgaria pushes the mystery back another 200 years.

Yavor Boyadzhiev, professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Science and in charge of the dig told Krasimiov, “I do not doubt that it is older than the Varna gold. It’s a really important discovery. It is a tiny piece of gold but big enough to find its place in history.”

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Researchers discover what triggered Earth's last ice age

At the beginning of the last ice, local mountain glaciers grew and formed large ice sheets, like the one seen here. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)

For quite some time, paleo-climate specialists have been perplexed by two enigmas: What was the origin of the ice sheets that defined the final ice age, and how could they expand so rapidly?

A fresh research conducted by the University of Arizona's experts suggests a plausible explanation for the swift expansion of the ice sheets that coated a considerable portion of the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age. Furthermore, the study's findings may be applicable to other glacial periods in the Earth's past.

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The puzzle of Neanderthal aesthetics

Surprising new insights into the minds of this extinct human species suggest they may have been far more cultured than their outdated brutish reputation once suggested. But getting into the minds of a long-dead species is no easy task.

Sometime between 135,000-50,000 years ago, hands slick with animal blood carried more than 35 huge horned heads into a small, dark, winding cave. Tiny fires were lit amidst a boulder-jumbled floor, and the flame-illuminated chamber echoed to dull pounding, cracking and squelching sounds as the skulls of bison, wild cattle, red deer and rhinoceros were smashed open.

This isn't the gory beginning of an ice age horror novel, but the setting for a fascinating Neanderthal mystery. At the start of 2023 researchers announced that a Spanish archaeological site known as Cueva Des-Cubierta (a play on "uncover" and "discover") held an unusually large number of big-game skulls. All were fragmented but their horns or antlers were relatively intact, and some were found near to traces of hearths.

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Video – Viking Age fortresses on the North Frisian islands

The Borgsumburg on the North Frisian island Föhr.

The recording of April’s research seminar, featuring Dr Martin Segschneider on the Viking Age fortifications in Germany’s North Frisian Islands.

The two well-preserved, circular ramparts Borgsumburg and Tinnumburg were something of an enigma for decades as little was known about their structure, role and archaeological context.

But recent rescue excavations, aerial photography and geophysical survey have remedied the situation dramatically, leading to a research project focusing on Viking Age merchant sites in the vicinity of the fortifications and a second focusing on the ramparts themselves.

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Beowulf was connected to King Cnut, study finds

When King Cnut sailed to Denmark in 1019, did he bring a copy of Beowulf with him? That is the theory put forward in a new article on why the famous Old English poem was written in the early years of the 11th century.

Beowulf is only found in one copy: the Nowell Codex, which is now kept at the British Library. In his article, “Behold the Front Page: Cnut and the Scyldings in Beowulf,” the historian Richard North argues that this manuscript was at least partially written after Cnut became King of England in 1016. Moreover, the Norse leader and his entourage took a keen interest in the story, using it to develop a claim to the throne of Denmark.

Set hundreds of years in the past, Beowulf tells the story of a hero arriving to help Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, defeat the monster Grendel. Beowulf slays Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, before returning home to Geatland and becoming King of the Geats. Many years later, Beowulf also defeats a dragon, but at the cost of his own life.

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Stolen coins reveals King Alfred had help from ally to stop Vikings ruling England

Alfred was the king of Wessex and then later king of the Anglo-Saxons, and his grandson Æthelstan was the first 'King of the English' (Image: HampshireLive - Grahame Larter)

Alfred, who is widely regarded as the first person to be king of the English, may have been assisted by fellow leader Ceolwulf in his struggle against Viking marauders

Alfred the Great was helped on his way to legendary status by a fellow leader he refused to give credit to and allowed to be written out of history, experts now believe.

Images on medieval coins found in a stolen haul suggest King of Wessex Alfred, who stopped the Vikings in their tracks and paved the way for the formation of England, was in a years-long alliance with Ceolwulff II, King of Mercia.

A silver ‘Two Emperor’ penny from 870 AD shows the pair together, suggesting they were strong allies.

But Ceolwulf was later mocked by scribes loyal to Alfred as being a puppet of the Vikings.

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Double hoard of Viking treasure discovered near Harald Bluetooth's fort in Denmark

 Archaeologists say Harald Bluetooth paid his men and the Danish aristocracy with "cross coins" and thereby spread knowledge of the new Christian religion throughout the region. On this side of the silver coin there are several runes. (Image credit: Nordjyske Museer, Denmark)

Silver coins and jewelry unearthed from a field on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark are revealing new insight into the reign and religious ambitions of the powerful Viking king Harald Bluetooth, according to archaeologists.

The objects — around 300 pieces of silver, including about 50 coins and cut-up jewelry — were discovered late last year by a local archaeology group surveying a farm northeast of the town of Hobro and near Fyrkat, a ring fort built by Harald Bluetooth in about A.D. 980. 

Excavations show that the valuables were originally buried in two hoards about 100 feet (30 meters) apart, probably beneath two now long-gone buildings. Since then, these hoards have been spread around by farm machinery.

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Modern-day Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

Pictish Stone in the Museum of Scotland. Credit: Johnbod/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The Picts of Scotland who have long intrigued and have been ascribed exotic origins in fact descended from indigenous Iron Age society and were genetically most similar to people living today in Scotland, Wales, North Ireland and Northumbria. Adeline Morez of Liverpool John Moores University and Linus Girdland-Flink of the University of Aberdeen report these findings in a new study published April 27 in the journal PLOS Genetics.

The Picts, who inhabited early medieval Scotland from about 300–900 AD, formed the first documented kingdoms of eastern Scotland, but have often been a subject of mystery due to the lack of historical and archaeological evidence and due to their enigmatic symbol tradition inscribed on stone. In their new study, Morez and Girdland-Flink sampled Pictish burials to extract genomes to explore how the Picts are related to other cultural groups in Britain. They sequenced DNA from two individuals from central and northern Scotland that dated from the fifth to the seventh century AD. They compared the resulting high-quality genomes to more than 8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes.

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Collectors guilty of illegal plot to sell historic Anglo-Saxon coins abroad

Two metal detectorists have been found guilty of hatching an illegal plot to sell Anglo-Saxon coins of “immense historical significance” abroad.

Craig Best, 46, and Roger Pilling, 75, were convicted of conspiring to sell criminal property worth £766,000, namely ninth century coins believed to have been buried by a Viking and which have never been declared as Treasure, and have not been handed to the Crown.

Following a trial at Durham Crown Court, the defendants were also convicted of separate charges of possessing the criminal property, which was thought to be part of a larger, undeclared find known as the Herefordshire Hoard.

Best, of South View, Bishop Auckland, was arrested with three coins at a Durham hotel in May 2019 in a police sting operation.

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Burnt graves full of ancient Roman artifacts uncovered during construction in Belgium

Experts said they were surprised by their findings. Gemeente Zemst

What started as a pre-construction archaeological project in Belgium has evolved into a sprawling excavation uncovering a trove of Roman-era artifacts and ruins, government officials say. Ahead of refurbishing Sportpark Hubert Van Innis, archaeologists launched an investigation into the area given its location in Elewijt — which was under Roman rule thousands of years ago. Experts expected to find remains, but the extent of their discoveries was surprising, according to an April 25 news release from the Zemst government. First, as expected, archaeologists unearthed a building and well dating to the Middle Ages, according to officials. They also discovered several burial mounds.

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Archaeologists Find Evidence of ‘Lost’ Ancient Roman Campaign in Arabia

The Romans tell that their conquest of the Nabateans was peaceful, but is that a tall tale of the victor? Or did they erase the memory of a fiasco in Arabia?

In the year 106, the Romans annexed the Nabatean kingdom and renamed it Arabia Petraea. The question is how exactly that was achieved.

Roman historians described this as a nonviolent process following the demise of the last Nabatean king, Rabbel II Soter. But now, in the barren desert of northern Arabia, archaeologists have detected what they believe were three Roman army camps. They're situated in a straight line between the Bayir oasis near the Nabatean capital of Petra and Dûmat al-Jandal in what is now northern Saudi Arabia.

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Neanderthals Built Boats And Sailed 100,000 Years Ago – Long Before Modern Humans

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - Maritime history dates back thousands of years, och there is no doubt many ancient civilizations had excellent knowledge of navigation and sailing. Once ancient civilizations understood the value of trading, many maritime routes were established, and spices, gold, silk, and many other items were bought and sold. There is archaeological evidence magnificent ancient ships crossed the oceans, and curious explorers set foot on new lands

Still, modern humans were not the ones who invented the boat. According to a study, the first seafarers were the Neanderthals, who lived from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. On islands in the Mediterranean Sea, scientists have examined several artifacts and stone tools uniquely associated with the Neanderthals.

"Archaeological data from the southern Ionian Islands show human habitation since Middle Palaeolithic going back to 110 ka BP yet bathymetry, sea-level changes and the Late Quaternary geology, show that Kefallinia and Zakynthos were insular at that time. Hence, human presence in these islands indicates inter island-mainland seafaring. Seafaring most likely started some time between 110 and 35 ka BP and the seafarers were the Neanderthals. Seafaring was encouraged by the coastal configuration, which offered the right conditions for developing seafaring skills according to the “voyaging nurseries” and “autocatalysis” concepts," the research team writes in a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

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Archaeologists Discover Ancient Necropolis Near Parisian Train Station

Researchers uncovered 50 burials dated to roughly the second century C.E.
© Camille Colonna / INRAP

Residents of Lutetia buried their dead at Saint-Jacques between the first and fourth centuries C.E.

Little is known about the Parisii, the ancient Gallic tribe that dwelled on the banks of the Seine some 2,000 years ago. At the time, the French capital that now bears the Parisii’s name was called Lutetia.

Last week, archaeologists unearthed 50 burials that may shed light on funerary traditions in the ancient city that preceded Paris. Discovered just a few feet away from a bustling train station, the graves are believed to be part of the largest known Lutetian burial site, the Saint-Jacques necropolis.

Dominique Garcia, president of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), tells Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the finds open “a window into the world of Paris during antiquity.”

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Urine Wheels in Medieval Manuscripts: Discover the Curious Diagnostic Tool Used by Medieval Doctors

If you went to the doctor in late medieval Europe hoping to get a health complaint checked out, you could be sure of one thing: you’d have to hand over a urine sample. Though it dates back at least as far as the fourth millennium BC, the practice of uroscopy, as it’s called, seems to have been regarded as a near-universal diagnostic tool by the thirteenth century. At Medievalists.net, you can read excerpts of the then-definitive text On Urines, written about that time by French royal physician Gilles de Corbeil.

When a skilled physician examines a patient’s urine, de Corbeil explains, “health or illness, strength or debility, deficiency, excess, or balance, are determined with certainty.” Urine “darkened by a black cloudiness, and muddied with sediment, if produced on a critical day of an illness, and accompanied by poor hearing and insomnia, portends a flux of blood from the nose”; depending on other factors, “the patient will die or recover.”

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