Archaeologists discover ancient snack bar in Pompeii in ‘extraordinary’ find

Archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved snack bar from the ancient city of Pompeii which was destroyed in a volcanic eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.

The “extraordinary” find will be open to the public for viewings in 2021.

The frescoed hot food and drinks shop, also known as a termopolium, was discovered last year in Pompeii’s archaeological park to the south-east of Naples, Italy.

It would have served the equivalent of modern day street food to Roman customers.

The park is currently closed due to coronavirus restrictions, but the Pompeii site hopes to reopen for visitors by Easter.

Massimo Ossana, director of the Pompeii archaeological park, told the Reuters news agency: “This is an extraordinary find. 

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Roman road remains uncovered in Northumberland

The remains are part of The Stanegate - a Roman road which ran east-west south of Hadrian's Wall Northumbrian Water

Remains of a Roman road which pre-dates Hadrian's Wall have been uncovered in Northumberland.

The find, which is almost two thousand years old, was made during work on the water network near Settlingstones.

They are thought to be from the road's foundations and built by Agricola or his successors about AD80, although no evidence of its exact date was found.

Archaeologists said given its location it was an "important part" of the early northern Roman frontier.

The ancient remains were discovered by Northumbrian Water when it began improvement works at the site of The Stanegate road, which linked Corbridge and Carlisle.

Philippa Hunter, from Archaeological Research Services Ltd, which worked on the site, said: "While monitoring the excavation pit, our archaeologist identified a deposit of compacted cobbles thought to be the remains of the Roman road's foundations."

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Following the Roman Army between the Southern Foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains and the Northern Plains of Castile and León (North of Spain): Archaeological Applications of Remote Sensing and Geospatial Tools

Sixty-six new archaeological sites have been discovered thanks to the combined use of different remote sensing techniques and open access geospatial datasets (mainly aerial photography, satellite imagery, and airborne LiDAR). These sites enhance the footprint of the Roman military presence in the northern fringe of the River Duero basin (León, Palencia, Burgos and Cantabria provinces, Spain). This paper provides a detailed morphological description of 66 Roman military camps in northwestern Iberia that date to the late Republic or early Imperial eras. We discuss the different spatial datasets and GIS tools used for different geographic contexts of varied terrain and vegetation. Finally, it stresses out the relevance of these novel data to delve into the rationale behind the Roman army movements between the northern Duero valley and the southern foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains. We conclude that methodological approaches stimulated by open-access geospatial datasets and enriched by geoscientific techniques are fundamental to understand the expansion of the Roman state in northwestern Iberia during the 1st c. BC properly. This renewed context set up a challenging scenario to overcome traditional archaeological perspectives still influenced by the cultural-historical paradigm and the pre-eminence of classical written sources.

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Iron Age Settlement With Large Roundhouses and Roman Trinkets Found in the UK

The footprints of some of the Iron Age roundhouses (vans at top for scale).

Photo: Oxford Archaeology East

Over the course of 2020, a patchwork of circles were dug out from below the topsoil of Tye Green, Cressing in England. The circles—each a ring of polygonal depressions—were the footprints of large structures, all that remained of a settlement that began in the late Iron Age and lasted through the Roman conquest of Britain. The site was recently excavated by Oxford Archaeology East for Countryside Properties with RPS Consulting in advance of residential development there.

The archaeological work, carried out with social distancing and other measures to avoid the spread of covid-19, turned up the remains of at least 17 wattle-and-daub roundhouses, some nearly 50 feet (15 meters) across, and semi-circular structures that the archaeological team say may have served as windbreaks, which would have protected hearths, furnaces, or other fiery elements of life at the time.

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£1m grant to investigate secrets of Viking-age Galloway hoard uncovered by metal detectorist

pieces from the 10th-century treasure trove, known as the Galloway Hoard, which was found by a metal detectorist in a field in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014 and acquired by NMS in 2017, will go on display in an exhibition next year.

National Museums Scotland (NMS) will carry out the three-year project, entitled “Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard”, in partnership with the University of Glasgow to examine the objects in detail.

The 10th-century treasure trove, which was found by a metal detectorist in a field in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014 and acquired by NMS in 2017, will go on display in an exhibition next year.

The research will involve precise dating of the items and, it is hoped, identification of their places of origin, which are thought to range from Ireland to the Byzantine empire and perhaps beyond.

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A mystery woman dressed in silk and gold found buried under the London streets was from the elite of the Roman Empire, researchers say

An artist's reconstruction of the burial of the Spitalfields Roman woman.
Museum of London Archaeology

    A woman who lived in the 4th century AD and was buried in a stone sarcophagus under a market in London, England, was part of Rome's elite, researchers have said. 

    The woman was first discovered among rows of graves in March 1999 under London's Spitalfields market.

    While the researchers were aware that she came from a lavish background, recently published books revealed the extent of her wealth. 

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Early humans may have survived the harsh winters by hibernating

The site at Sima de los Huesos was a mass grave 400,000 years ago. Photograph: César Manso/AFP/Getty Images

Bears do it. Bats do it. Even European hedgehogs do it. And now it turns out that early human beings may also have been at it. They hibernated, according to fossil experts.

Evidence from bones found at one of the world’s most important fossil sites suggests that our hominid predecessors may have dealt with extreme cold hundreds of thousands of years ago by sleeping through the winter.

The scientists argue that lesions and other signs of damage in fossilised bones of early humans are the same as those left in the bones of other animals that hibernate. These suggest that our predecessors coped with the ferocious winters at that time by slowing down their metabolisms and sleeping for months.

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Researchers win £1m grant to unlock secrets of Viking-era treasure trove

The Galloway Hoard has been acquired by National Museums Scotland.

Photograph: National Museums Scotland/PA 

Researchers in Scotland hope to unlock the secrets of a stunning Viking-age hoard after a receiving a £1m grant to examine the provenance of the 10th century haul that lay undisturbed for a thousand years before being unearthed by a metal detectorist.

The incredible discovery of the Galloway Hoard, comprising more than 100 objects including silver jewellery and ingots, was made in September 2014 in a field in Dumfries and Galloway. It has since been acquired by National Museums Scotland (NMS).

NMS will carry out a three-year project, “Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard”, in partnership with the University of Glasgow, to examine in detail the objects, due to go on display in an exhibition next year.

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Neolithic Scotland: the Big Picture and Detailed Narratives in 2020

Rhind Lectures 2020

December 18 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

The Scottish Neolithic clearly fascinated Alexander Henry Rhind and he made important, and very early, contributions to its understanding. In the 170 years since Rhind’s prehistoric exploits, our understanding and perception of this fascinating period in Scotland’s past have been utterly transformed.

This series of six lectures will offer an in-depth assessment of the current state of our knowledge about the period c.4000-2500 BC, when new ways of living and of making sense of the world appeared and developed in Scotland. This involved the active production of food, as opposed to its procurement from wild resources, which had characterised subsistence strategies over the preceding millennia. Globally, the advent of food production with the possibilities it brought for accumulating surpluses has conventionally been hailed as a revolution, with major long-term consequences for the ways societies operated. 

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Radiocarbon dating revealed mosaic at Chedworth Roman Villa was designed and created in the fifth century

Britain's 5th Century mosaic

Archaeologists have discovered Britain's first known 5th Century mosaic at a Roman villa in Gloucestershire.

Radiocarbon dating revealed a mosaic at Chedworth Roman Villa was designed and created in the middle of the fifth century.

This shows sophisticated life continued within the luxury mansion decades after Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire and had entered the Dark Ages.

Previously, it had generally been believed that all towns and villas were largely abandoned and fell into decay following the economic crash at the end of the fourth century.

Chedworth is one of the largest Roman villas known in the country and one of the best-preserved, with 35 exposed rooms and significant features including fine mosaics.

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Stunning dark ages mosaic found at Roman villa in Cotswolds

An archaeologist works on the mosaic at Chedworth Roman villa.
Photograph: Stephen Haywood/National Trust

Fifth-century discovery suggests break with Rome did not cause steep decline in living standards for all

Life at the start of the dark ages in Britain is generally thought of as a pretty uncomfortable time, an era of trouble and strife with the departure of Roman rulers resulting in economic hardship and cultural stagnation.

But a stunning discovery at the Chedworth Roman villa in the Cotswolds suggests that some people at least managed to maintain a rich and sophisticated lifestyle.

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Child's Bones Buried 40,000 Years Ago Solve a Longstanding Neanderthal Mystery

We don't know whether it was a boy or a girl. But this ancient child, a Neanderthal, only made it to about two years of age.

This short life, lived about 41,000 years ago, was uncovered at a famous archaeological site in southwestern France, called La Ferrassie. The remains of several Neanderthals have been found there, including the most recent discovery, the child, known only as La Ferrassie 8.

When the ancient remains were first found – most at various stages of the early 20th century – archaeologists had assumed the skeletons represented intentional burials, with Neanderthals laying their departed kin to rest under the earth.

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'Mystery' pit skeleton found during Bishop's Stortford digs

The skull and collarbone of the body had collapsed into the remains of its ribs, while the rest of the body fell into the pit

OXFORD ARCHAEOLOGY EAST

A skeleton discovered leaning against the sides of a pit with its legs outstretched is "a little mystery", an archaeologist has said.

The find was made during an excavation at Whittington Way, Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire, along with Bronze Age and Roman burials.

Project manager Louise Moan said the site had evidently been "a sacred place" for centuries.

The skeleton was one of hundreds of finds from two digs in the town.

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Norway excavates a Viking longship fit for a king

Pyramids, castles, palaces: symbols of power and status have taken many forms down the ages, and for the Vikings what really counted was the longship.

This month Norwegian archaeologists hope to complete their excavation of a rare, buried longship at Gjellestad, an ancient site south-east of Oslo. It is the first such excavation in Norway for about a century.

Most of the ocean-going ship has rotted away over the centuries, but archaeologist Dr Knut Paasche believes the layout of the iron nails will still enable a replica to be built eventually.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealed it to be about 19m (62ft) long and 5m (16ft) wide - putting it on a par with the well-preserved Oseberg and Gokstad Viking ships on display in Oslo.

Those ships were found on the western side of the wide Oslo Fjord.

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Largest Viking DNA Study

(Dorset County Council/Oxford Archaeology)

Viking mass grave, England

The largest-ever study of Viking DNA has revealed a wealth of information, offering new insights into the Vikings’ genetic diversity and travel habits. The ambitious research analyzed DNA taken from 442 skeletons discovered at more than 80 Viking sites across northern Europe and Greenland. The genomes were then compared with a genetic database of thousands of present-day individuals to try to ascertain who the Vikings really were and where they ventured. One of the project’s primary objectives was to better understand the Viking diaspora, says University of California, Berkeley, geneticist Rasmus Nielsen.

It turns out that the roving bands of raiders and traders, traditionally thought to have come only from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, were far more genetically diverse than expected. According to Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, one of the most unexpected results was that the Viking Age of exploration may have actually been driven by outsiders. The researchers found that just prior to the Viking Age and during its height, between A.D. 800 and 1050, genes flowed into Scandinavia from people arriving there from eastern and southern Europe, and even from western Asia.

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Special Viking grave with beads and brooches found in Central Norway

Maria Vestvik and Elise Kjørsvik from the NTNU Museum at the Viking grave. 

(Photo: Eystein Østmoe, NTNU University Museum)

She was placed in a burial chamber and took several hundred miniature beads with her on her last journey. Who was the woman who was buried by Valsøyfjord over 1000 years ago?

It had been an uneventful excavation season at Hestnes in Heim municipality. After several weeks of digging, archaeologists had found nothing but some post holes and cooking pits.

When traces of some kind of rectangular construction emerged, field manager Eystein Østmoe didn’t think they had found anything exciting. On the contrary: it was most likely the remains of some modern, boring artefact.

But he changed his mind when a dark layer of soil with a greasy texture surfaced. This often signals the remains of a human body that has been lying in the ground for a very long time.

“It was a big surprise. There weren’t any other graves nearby,” says Østmoe.

“And it was an even bigger surprise when the grave turned out to be something we’ve hardly ever seen before in Central Norway,” he adds.

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HUGE 6TH CENTURY AD INDUSTRIAL KILN FOR CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS FOUND IN BULGARIA’S DANUBE CITY SILISTRA, LINKED TO BYZANTINE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN I

The huge 6th century AD Roman / Byzantine kiln for the industrial production of construction materials such as bricks and tiles has been discovered in Bulgaria’s Danube city of Silistra but outside the fortress walls of the Antiquity and medieval city of Durostorum – Dorostol – Drastar.  Photo: Silistra Regional Museum of History

A huge industrial kiln, or furnace, for the production of ceramic construction materials such as bricks and tiles, which dates back to the 6th century AD, more specifically to the reign of Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Emperor Justinian I the Great, has been discovered during rescue excavations in the Danube city of Silistra in Northeast Bulgaria.

Today’s Silistra is a successor of the major Ancient Roman, Early Byzantine, and medieval Bulgarian city of Durostorum – Dorostol – Drastar. Learn more about it in the Background Infonotes below!

The industrial kiln for the making of construction materials, however, has been discovered “extra muros", i.e. outside the walls of the ancient and medial city of Durostorum – Drastar, during rescue excavations for clearing a plot for the construction of state-sponsored housing.

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Melting ice patch in Norway reveals large collection of ancient arrows

An arrow from c. AD 700 as it was found lying on the stones in the scree, close to the melting ice. Credit: Innlandet Fylkeskommune

A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Norway and one in the U.K., has unveiled their findings after collecting and studying a very large number of ancient arrows they found near a melting ice patch in Norway's Jotunheimen Mountains. In their paper published in the journal The Holocene, the group describes how they kept their research secret to avoid the possibility of others contaminating the site and what they have learned about the arrows thus far.

Back in 2006, archeologist Reidar Marstein found an ancient shoe lying near a melting ice patch (which subsequent recent has shown to have formed approximately around 5600BC) in the Jotunheimen Mountains. The shoe was initially believed to have been from the Viking era, but subsequent study showed it to be approximately 3,300 years old.

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Block excavation of early Celtic tomb near the Heuneburg in southern Germany

The burial chamber can be seen within the bright gravel ring. The burial chamber is filled with humus. The light gravel ring comes from lower altitudes and was excavated by the early Celtic builders when the grave shaft was created [Credit: State Office for Monument Preservation in the Stuttgart Regional Council/Michael Lingnau]

The Heuneburg is a prehistoric hillfort by the river Danube in Hundersingen near Herbertingen, between Ulm and Sigmaringen, Baden-Wurttemberg, in the south of Germany, close to the modern borders with Switzerland and Austria.

Since 2019, the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (LAD) in the Stuttgart Regional Council has been investigating an early Celtic large burial mound in the Bettelbuhl area in the Danube plain below Heuneburg.

Because it is not possible to uncover the burial on site in a professional manner, the entire burial chamber was recovered en bloc. 

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Pompeii: Dig uncovers remains of rich man and slave killed by Vesuvius

The discovery was made in a villa on the outskirts of the ancient Roman city (EPA)

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of two men who died in the volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient Roman city of Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago.

One was probably a man of high status, and the other his slave, officials at the Pompeii archaeological park said.

They "were perhaps seeking refuge" from the eruption "when they were swept away", director Massimo Osanna added.

Pompeii was engulfed by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The eruption buried Pompeii in ash, freezing the city and its residents in time, and making it a rich source for archaeologists.

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