ARCHAEOLOGISTS TO DRILL IN BEXLEY FOR EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT OCCUPATION

Archaeologists from Durham University will be returning to a London borough site where a 19th century historian once found flint tools and animal bones.

This time, however, the latest sonic drilling equipment will be used to take samples from the earth, for the ongoing Ancient Human Occupation of Britain II project (AHOB).

Initial drillings were carried out at Holmscroft Open Space in September 2007 by the archaeologists, who are looking at human occupation of the country right from the first people who lived here about 700,000 years ago, up to the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 8,800 years ago.

AHOBII, Ancient Britain in its European Context, entails the re-analysis of old artefacts held in museum collections as well as fieldwork to refine dates and provide more accurate reconstructions of past environments.

Read the rest of this article...

Shroud of Turin Gets High-Def Scrutiny

The Turin shroud, the 14- by 4-foot linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, has entered the digital age.

A huge 12.8 billion-pixel image was made of the linen, on which the smudged outline of the body of a man is indelibly impressed. The image was made following a Vatican request to obtain the most detailed reproduction of the yellowing ancient cloth. The technology allows a level of scrutiny of the linen as never achieved before.

"The Shroud has been photographed in high definition for the first time. We have stitched together 1,600 shots, each the size of a credit card, to create a huge photo which is almost 1,300 times stronger than a picture taken with a 10 million pixel digital camera," Mauro Gavinelli, technical supervisor at HAL9000, a company specializing in art photography, told Discovery News.

Read the rest of this article...

'100 000 Years of Sex' opens in Germany

Trier, Germany - Erotic carvings and excavated Roman artefacts connected to sex will go on display on Saturday in Germany's best-preserved ancient Roman city, Trier.

The temporary exhibition, 100 000 Years of Sex, comprises 250 items, mainly archaeological.

They date back to the Stone Age and show how our ancestors experienced lust and procreation, said Mechthild Neyses-Eiden, deputy director of the museum.

Devised in the Netherlands and first mounted in 2003 in another museum, the exhibition is being supplemented at the Rhenish Museum in Trier with about 50 local Roman-period artefacts recovered by archaeologists.

Read the rest of this article...

Exhibition explores history of Lakes landscape

TWELVE thousand years of Lake District human history is about to be revealed in a new exhibition showing how the landscape developed.

“Unlocking the past, understanding the present” will be thrown open to the public on March 14 at the Lake District Visitor Centre at Brockhole, on the shores of Windermere.

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the exhibition – designed to introduce archaeology in a fun, hands-on way – will run until the beginning of November.

A comprehensive county-wide tour follows, which has already been booked up until 2010.

Read the rest of this article...

PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Viking Women Wore "Sexy" Outfits

Call it the Viking version of a low-cut top.

A modern reconstruction of a Norse outfit (worn above by textile researcher Annika Larsson of Uppsala University in Sweden) is a single piece of fabric held in place by clasps that sit on the middle of each breast.

Such a provocative outfit was probably common among Viking women before Christianity took hold in Scandinavia, Larsson said in a statement. She recently analyzed ancient textiles from the Lake Mälaren Valley, which was inhabited during the "Viking Age," from about A.D. 750 to 1050.

A mélange of Nordic and Oriental flair, the clothing "was designed to be shown off indoors around the fire," she said.

Read the rest of this article...

VIDEO: Inquisition Docs Made Public

The Vatican has opened to the public Inquisition documents from the Roman Catholic Church's efforts—beginning in medieval times—to root out heresy.

Watch the video...

Historic heritage vs tourism profits debated at panel

The decision by the Four Seasons Hotel to enlarge its existing building over an archaeological site in the historic Sultanahmet neighborhood of Istanbul has sparked debate over whether the desire to preserve the city's heritage is being sacrificed to possible profit from tourism.

The hotel, a transformed prison from Ottoman times which itself was built on Byzantine and Roman ruins, currently has a 130-room capacity that it plans to increase by 50 with the additional building. The extension has drawn severe criticism despite the fact that the hotel has been granted the legal right to do so.

Atilla Öztürk, CEO of the holding company responsible of the additional building, said at a panel organized by the History Foundation of Turkey yesterday that everything they did was legal. He said the Four Seasons Hotel was granted the right by the cabinet to build a 303-bed capacity building on the site 17 years ago.

Read the rest of this article...

Free Archaeological Publications!

Wessex Archaeology is pleased to offer many of its archaeological publications free (bar P&P) to the general public.

We have reports on our excavations undertaken over the last 20 years in Dorset, Berkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire, which we would like to offer free to any member of the general public, interested amateur or historic environment professional.

See the reports and research agendas that are available free.

The reports are offered free subject to postage and packaging at £2.50 per volume up to a maximum of £10 – so you can have the complete set of 18 volumes for just £10! If you wish to collect direct from our offices, there will be no cost at all to you.

Read the rest of this article...

Medieval wall painting discovered

Fragments of an ancient wall painting dating back to medieval times have been discovered during restoration work at 13th century Stuston church.

Last year villagers rallied to the cause when it emerged that £185,000 was needed for urgent repairs to make the nave, porch and vestry roofs watertight.

English Heritage and other funding bodies promised £165,000 towards the project - on condition that the small community of 140 souls met a December 2007 deadline to prove their commitment to making up the shortfall.

Read the rest of this article...

Grave yard unearthed at former Chester police HQ

A MEDIEVAL grave yard with more than a hundred skeletons has been unearthed on the multimillion pound Police HQ site.

The “fascinating” and “important” discoveries have “transformed” experts’ views of ancient Chester.

City archaeologist Mike Morris said: “This was the largest excavation to have taken place in Chester in more than 30 years. It will transform our view of the Roman town and the Medieval nunnery.”

Read the rest of this article...

Fashion counted for some Vikings, researcher says

Vikings were much snappier dressers than thought, according to new evidence unearthed by a Swedish researcher.

The men were especially vain while the women dressed provocatively, adorning themselves in vivid colors, silk ribbons and glittering bits of mirrors, said Annika Larsson, a textile researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"They combined oriental features with Nordic styles," she said in a statement. "Their clothing was designed to be shown off indoors around the fire."

The findings are based on the Swedish Vikings who traveled east into what is now Russia rather than the Danish or Norwegian Vikings who went west.

Read the rest of this article...

Cannibalism May Have Wiped Out Neanderthals

A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history.

Aside from illustrating that consumption of one's own species isn't exactly a healthy way to eat, the new theoretical model could resolve the longstanding mystery as to what caused Neanderthals, which emerged around 250,000 years ago, to disappear off the face of the Earth about 30,000 years ago.

"The story of Neanderthal extinction is one of the most intriguing in all of human evolution," author Simon Underdown told Discovery News. "Why did a large-brained, intelligent hominid that shared so many traits with us disappear?"

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeological treasures found in Roscrea

A 'beautiful' Bronze Age axe and a number of ancient burial grounds have been unearthed near Roscrea during the construction of the new Dublin-Limerick motorway in the area.

A 'beautiful' Bronze Age axe and a number of ancient burial grounds have been unearthed near Roscrea during the construction of the new Dublin-Limerick motorway in the area.

The bronze axe was found in Camblin, south of Roscrea. Archaeologists say the find dates to the later Bronze Age and appears to have been hidden in a shallow pit and never recovered by the person who concealed it.

On a second site in Camblin a medieval iron 'bearded' axe was discovered while two Bronze Age enclosed settlements with two ancient houses were found near the N62 Templemore Road.

Read the rest of this article...

Vikings did not dress the way we thought

Vivid colors, flowing silk ribbons, and glittering bits of mirrors - the Vikings dressed with considerably more panache than we previously thought. The men were especially vain, and the women dressed provocatively, but with the advent of Christianity, fashions changed, according to Swedish archeologist Annika Larsson.

"They combined oriental features with Nordic styles. Their clothing was designed to be shown off indoors around the fire," says textile researcher Annika Larsson, whose research at Uppsala University presents a new picture of the Viking Age.

She has studied textile finds from the Lake Malaren Valley, the area that includes Stockholm and Uppsala and was one of the central regions in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The findings, some of which were presented in her dissertation last year, show that what we call the Viking Age, the years from 750-1050 A.D., was not a uniform period.

Through changes in the style of clothing we can see that medieval Christian fashions hit Sweden as early as the late 900s and that new trade routes came into use then as well. The oriental features in clothing disappeared when Christianity came and they started to trade with the Christian Byzantine and Western Europe.

Read the rest of this article...

Ancient toy or whistle found at Pyrgos

A SMALL masterpiece of coroplastic Early Bronze Age Cyprus (3500- 2000 BC), believed to be a water whistle or a toy, was found during the excavations at Pyrgos/Mavrorachi, in Limassol and restored by an Italian archaeological mission led by Maria Rosaria Belgiorno.

"This is an askos, representing a load of two panniers, with its mane knotted in five bobs and a statuette of a naked child riding in the middle of the shoulder," Belgiorno said.

Donkeys loaded with baskets of fruit and vegetables are one of the most common images of the Mediterranean, she explained.

"This is a familiar subject especially on the islands, from the first appearance and domestication of small horses and donkeys. Both have played a very important role in the evolution of agriculture and culture in prehistory," she said, noting that what is more rare is the child riding on the back of the donkey.

Read the rest of this article...

The Magerius Mosaic

How a Roman amphitheatre really worked

"Roll up! Roll up! Roll Up! There will be a magnificent spectacle at the amphitheatre today, and you mustn't miss it! Magerius is giving it. Of course, you all know Magerius who has just finished his term of office as mayor. He's a pompous old ass but he thinks the world of himself and he's going to lay on a big spectacle and he is paying through the nose for it, and he wants everyone to know how generous he has been."

"He is bringing in the Telegenii. You've heard of the Telegenii - they are the best theatrical producers in North Africa. They have all the best beasts and all the best hunters too. Today they have for your delight four leopards, all home grown and well trained. They are called Crispinus, Luxurius, Victor - who of course is going to be conquered - and then, Ho! Hum! there's Romanus, 'The Roman' who is going to bite the dust at the hands of a hunter. And then he's got four of his best hunters, Hilarinus, Bullarius, Spittara, who always hunts on stilts, and finally the champion, Mamertinus. It's going to be a great spectacle, so hurry along to the amphitheatre. Who's going to win - the beasts or the hunters?

Read the rest of this article...

Antarctic may hold the future of archaeology

It is a truism that archaeology begins yesterday, and now with only the archaeology of the future to plan for, the discipline has been expanding into areas of the globe where material culture has hitherto played little part.

Antarctica is one of these new areas: more than two centuries of human occupation have left plentiful traces. At least five successive and partly overlapping phases of activity can be defined: sealing, whaling, polar exploration, scientific investigation and tourism.

Sealing began in the late 18th century, when Captain James Cook’s account of his voyages in the Southern Ocean, published in 1777, included his discovery of South Georgia with its enormous population of fur seals. Sealers from England and the eastern United States swarmed to raid the seal rookeries.

Read the rest of this article...

Neolithic artefacts discovered in church

PLANNED repairs to the central heating of a church have uncovered remains suggesting it may have been used as a place of worship in prehistoric times.

Archaeologists now believe the medieval church of St Michaels and All Angels, in Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, is on the site of earlier places of worship, possibly dating from the Neolithic period.

Old burial grounds have been unearthed during work by the Archaeology Practice, but it has also revealed foundations of previous churches on the site.

Stones uncovered beneath the church floor are thought to have been part of a Roman building, while there is also evidence of prehistoric activity in the area.

Read the rest of this article...

Go to the "New Discoveries page of the St Michaels website...

Fresh tests on Shroud of Turin

The Oxford laboratory that declared the Turin Shroud to be a medieval fake 20 years ago is investigating claims that its findings were wrong.

The head of the world-renowned laboratory has admitted that carbon dating tests it carried out on Christendom's most famous relic may be inaccurate.

Professor Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said he was treating seriously a new theory suggesting that contamination had skewed the results.

Though he stressed that he would be surprised if the supposedly definitive 1988 tests were shown to be far out - especially "a thousand years wrong" - he insisted that he was keeping an open mind.

Read the rest of this article...

BRUNEL PUMP HOUSE FACES DEMOLITION

Heritage campaigners are up in arms over plans to demolish an "atmospheric" pumping house designed by the great 19th-century engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Residents in Totnes have joined forces with the Save Britain's Heritage group to fight for the building to be listed and protected.

Campaigners believe the pumping house, which is on a site owned by Surrey-based milk company Dairy Crest, is one of only three left in the Westcountry. The others are at Starcross and Torquay.

Alan Langmaid, Totnes Museum administrator, said: "Many people are working behind the scenes to see the building listed and saved. It's causing a bit of stir in the town. Totnes is a historical town, which is not just a medieval town centre - history didn't stop here with the Normans. "This is a significant building which is 160 years old, and Brunel was an engineer of national importance."

Read the rest of this article...