Online Courses in Archaeology

Cave paintings, castles and pyramids, Neanderthals, Romans and Vikings - archaeology is about the excitement of discovery, finding out about our ancestors, exploring landscape through time, piecing together puzzles of the past from material remains.

Our courses enable you to experience all this through online archaeological resources based on primary evidence from excavations and artefacts and from complex scientific processes and current thinking. Together with guided reading, discussion and activities you can experience how archaeologists work today to increase our knowledge of people and societies from the past.

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Archaeologists uncover large Roman statue of Augustus

Archaeologists in have discovered fragments of a 2,000-year-old bronze Roman equestrian statue of Emperor Augustus in a stream near Giessen, the Hessian state science ministry has announced.

"There has never been a find of such quality and preservation in Germany," a statement from the ministry said, adding that it was a "sensational" discovery.

On August 12, archaeologists pulled the gold-gilded, life-sized head of a horse and a shoe of the emperor – who ruled the Roman Empire between 23 BC and 14 AD – from a stream in what was once the Roman outpost Germania Magna. Experts there have uncovered several bits of the statue among some 20,000 artefacts uncovered at the site in recent years.

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Exhuming a violent event

Scientists glean clues to a lethal prehistoric raid from skeletons excavated at a German site

Thirteen people who perished around 4,600 years ago still have something to say about life and death in prehistoric Europe.

Analyses of their skeletal remains, found in 2005 in four large graves at a German Neolithic-era site called Eulau, provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct a lethal encounter from Europe’s Corded Ware culture, say anthropologist Christian Meyer of the University of Mainz in Germany and his colleagues. Between about 4,800 and 4,000 years ago, Corded Ware farmers and cattle-raisers spread across central and eastern Europe.

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Digging up the past at Maiden Castle

FAMILIES and history lovers will be blazing a trail to Dorchester for a Bronze Age festival at Maiden Castle.

They will be digging up the past at the ancient monument just outside the county town on the weekend of September 19 and 20.

The free weekend will include living history, arts, crafts and workshops South Dorset Ridgeway Heritage Project officer Sarah Harbige said: “Experimental archaeologists and living history experts will demonstrate aspects of Bronze Age life including metal work, house building, textiles and food.

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Dig will unearth history of abbey

Archaeologists have won a £48,000 Heritage Lottery grant to carry out an extensive dig at a Cumbrian abbey.

Holm Cultram Abbey in Abbeytown was the largest monastic house in Cumbria and founded by Cistercian monks in 1150.

Members of West Cumbria Archaeological Society will use the cash to search for abbey foundations in a nearby field.

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English crusaders settled in 12th century Spain, study finds

A recent article in the Journal of Medieval History has found records indicating that a group of crusaders from England and Wales took part in the siege and conquest of the Spanish city of Tortosa in 1148, and that some of them decided to stay and live in the area.

In his article "Angli cum multis aliis alienigenis: crusade settlers in Tortosa," Antoni Virgili on the University of Barcelona traces the records of about twenty individuals who lived in and around Tortosa during the second half of the twelfth century. He identifies these people as being from England and Wales, including some people who became wealthy and important members of the local oligarchy.

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Ancient skeletons could help solve mystery of rare disease

TWO ancient skeletons with a rare genetic bone disease unearthed from a medieval Irish graveyard may hold key insights for medical experts.

An archaeologist believes the discovery of the remains -- afflicted by massive bone growths -- could help modern-day clinicians glean more information about that unusual debilitating condition.

There have only been 16 cases of the hereditary bone growth disorder, now known as multiple osteochondromas, identified in ancient remains worldwide. Four of these have been located in Ireland.

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Ice Age probe is off to Italy

Archaeologists at the University of Bradford will be leading an exploration into how prehistoric people made their living in Italy at the end of the Ice Age.

The research aims to find out how hunter-gatherers in Mediterranean Europe survived before farming became widespread and why the transition to agriculture was a smooth one.

Researchers will use high-precision dating to accurately age occupation layers in archaeological cave sites and identify which animals were being hunted by the prehistoric people by studying bones found at sites.

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Crew goes to aid of Viking ship

lifeboat crew went to the aid of a replica Viking longship after it got into difficulty in strong tides at the Kessock Bridge at Inverness.

The boat was being towed out of the city's marina when its support craft suffered engine problems.

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Bulgarian Archaeologists Discover Unique Medieval Byzantine Seal

Bulgarian archaeologist, Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov, has discovered a unique medieval seal at the site of the Knyazhevski (i.e. "Princely") Monastery near the Eastern city of Varna.

The seal is dated back to the 10th century and belonged to the Byzantine dignitary Antonius, who was an imperial protospatario in Constantinople. Antonius had correspondence with a representative of the Knyazhevski Monastery, who is believed to have been the Bulgarian Knyaz (i.e. king) Boris I (r. 852-889 AD) himself.

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New York University Digs in Cyprus Show Worship of God Apollo

Archaeologists in Cyprus found evidence that an island off the Mediterranean country’s south- west coast was the site of a temple for worshiping Apollo, the ancient Greek god of light, prophecy, music and healing.

Excavations led by New York University on Geronisos unearthed fragments of pithoi, or storage vessels probably used to hold olive oil, that could be repaired to stand to a height of 1.20 meters, among the largest storage containers ever found on Cyprus, according to a statement today on the Web site of the Cypriot Interior Ministry’s Public Information Office.

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For Early Man, It Wasn't Easier Being Green

Archaeologists who study early hunter-gatherer societies are discovering that even the simplest cultures altered their environments, whether they meant to or not.

For example, aboriginal people in Australia burned huge areas to change the landscape so they could hunt animals more easily. Perhaps the most famous example is the way mastodons and giant sloth and other ice-age animals were killed off by roving bands of hungry humans.

Torben Rick, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, says the notion of hunter-gatherers living in perfect harmony with their environment is going the way of the dodo (another animal extinguished by early humans). He says he's discovered that indigenous people even altered America's coastlines, thousands of years ago.

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Rare tiles unearthed at palace

Rare Valencian tiles have been uncovered by archaeologists during excavations at the ruins of a Surrey palace, once owned by Henry VIII.

The items, which were made in Valencia, Spain, between 1450 and 1490, were discovered at Woking Palace.

More than 100 members of the public took part in the dig at the palace, which fell into disrepair in 1620 and was later virtually demolished.

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Scotland's 'earliest face' found

A carving believed to be Scotland's earlist human face, dating back thousands of years, has been found on the Orkney island of Westray.

The small Neolithic sandstone human figurine is believed to be up to 5,000 years old.

Experts have described the find as one of "astonishing rarity".

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Archaeologists unearth home of Lord of Man

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed the ruins of the former home of Lord of Man, the Seventh Earl of Derby.
Lathom House, near Ormskirk, West Lancashire, was the setting of an infamous Civil War siege.

Ordered by the King to fortify the Isle of Man against a possible Scottish invasion, Lord Derby left his wife Charlotte de La Tremouille in charge to defend the house, the last remaining Royalist stronghold in Lancashire, against the Parliamentarian forces.

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Was ancient Cypriot cave a prehistoric diner?

Thousands of prehistoric hippo bones found in Cyprus are adding to a growing debate on the possible role of humans in the extinction of larger animals 12,000 years ago.

First discovered by an 11-year-old boy in 1961, a tiny rock-shelter crammed with hippo remains radically rewrote archaeological accounts of when this east Mediterranean island was first visited by humans.

It has fired speculation of being the first takeaway diner used by humans to cook and possibly dispatch meat. It also adds to growing speculation, controversial in some quarters, that humans could have eaten some animals to extinction.

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3,000-year-old butter found in Kildare bog

AN OAK barrel, full of butter, estimated to be roughly 3,000 years old has been found in Gilltown bog, between Timahoe and Staplestown.

The amazing discovery of the barrel, which is being described by archaeology experts in the National Museum as a "really fine example" was found by two Bord na Mona workers.

The pair, John Fitzharris and Martin Lane, were harrowing the bog one day in late May when they noticed a distinctive white streak in the peat.

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Facelift for Stonehenge?

Plans for access and a new visitor centre for Stonehenge have been going around for years but a solution could finally be in the offing...

More than 15 years after MPs branded the situation ‘a national disgrace', has a solution finally been found for Stonehenge? At present, the Stones are hemmed in by roads the busy, arterial A303 south-western route and the A344 Devizes road, which joins it, cutting the site off from its surrounding monuments and landscape. The latter not only comes up so close so as to almost clip the heel stone of the circle, but also lies slap across the Avenue, believed to be the site's ancient processional approach. In addition, the current visitor facilities, housed in a 1968 ‘concrete monstrosity' on the other side of the A344, are not only outdated and ineffectual, but also represent a significant visual intrusion to the site.

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Excavations reveal Roman history

Archaeological excavations at the site of a former plant nursery, set to be developed for housing, have found evidence of Iron Age and Roman use.

The dig at the former Unwins Nursery at Impington, Cambridgeshire, found occupation dating from about 100BC with evidence of an Iron Age roundhouse.

The site was developed in Roman times with a series of ditches and pottery found is from the 2nd and 3rd Century.

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Excavations reveal Roman history at Impington

Archaeological excavations at the site of a former plant nursery, set to be developed for housing, have found evidence of Iron Age and Roman use.

The dig at the former Unwins Nursery at Impington, Cambridgeshire, found occupation dating from about 100BC with evidence of an Iron Age roundhouse.

The site was developed in Roman times with a series of ditches and pottery found is from the 2nd and 3rd Century.

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