Details of prehistoric Galloway heartland discovered during work on A75 go online

The Iron Age structure uncovered by archaeologists during excavtion work on the new A75 bypass at Dunragit.

Details of a prehistoric Galloway heartland hidden for eight millennia have now been published online.

The major prehistoric treasure trove of a number of ancient sites, artefacts and cremated human remains were discovered in the region during the £17million A75 bypass works in 2014.

The “significant” finds were unearthed around Dunragit by GUARD Archaeology Ltd – working on behalf of Transport Scotland – and stretch across the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages.

As well as jewellery and cremation urns, they uncovered the earliest known Mesolithic house in south-west Scotland, Neolithic ceremonial structures, two Bronze Age cemeteries and an Iron Age village – which show the use of the land for both hunting and farming for more than 9,000 years.

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To Save Norway’s Stave Churches, Conservators Had to Relearn a Lost Art

For more than 800 years, the stave church of Borgund, Norway, has towered over the surrounding village. Conservators face a constant struggle to protect the historic wooden building from the elements. HÅKON LI

TO STEP INTO ONE OF Scandinavia’s surviving stave churches is to enter the past. Shadows shift and tell stories in the elaborate carvings of intertwined beasts that are hallmarks of the churches’ unique architecture. Sounds reverberate off the timber as if traveling across centuries. The air feels dense with the tang of hewn wood, peat smoke, and pine tar.

As early as the 11th century, builders began erecting these churches all over the region. Much of Europe was raising massive cathedrals of stone during this period, but the Scandinavians knew wood best. While each house of worship was unique, all of them had staves, or load-bearing corner posts joined to vertical wall planks with a tongue-and-groove method.

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Dig reveals 6,000-year-old salt hub in North Yorkshire

Excavations at the archeological site near Loftus in North Yorkshire

Neolithic people were manufacturing salt in Britain almost 6,000 years ago, before the building of Stonehenge and more than two millennia earlier than was first thought, a new archaeological discovery suggests.

Excavations at a site at Street House farm in North Yorkshire have revealed evidence of the earliest salt production site ever found in the UK and one of the first of its kind in western Europe, dating to around 3,800BC.

The finds, uncovered at a coastal hilltop site near Loftus, include a trench containing three hearths, broken shards of neolithic pottery, some still containing salt deposits, shaped stone artefacts and a storage pit – all key evidence of salt processing.

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Norfolk: 'Elephant and castle' gold seal only third found

The elephant is carved on to a gemstone, which experts believe is probably a carnelian  PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME

A medieval gold seal which shows an elephant carrying a castle on its back has become only the third of its kind recorded by the British Museum.

A metal detectorist found it in Norfolk in June and it is thought to date from between 1250 and 1350.

Experts said the "rare portrayal", carved into a gemstone, was found mainly on items signifying wealth.

Its status as treasure is subject to a coroner's inquest on 29 April and Norwich Castle Museum hopes to buy it.

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Analysis of ancient bones reveals Stone Age diet details

Human skull of Mollet III at Serinyà from the ancient excavation.

Fish was not on the menu of the hunter-gatherers of southern Europe 27,000 years ago. Surprisingly, people on the Iberian Peninsula in the Late Gravettian period mostly ate plants and land animals such as rabbits, deer and horses. An international team of researchers has been able to determine this for the first time on the basis of an isotope study of human fossils from the Serinyà caves in Catalonia. The results of the investigation led by Dr. Dorothée Drucker, of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP) at the University of Tübingen, and Joaquim Soler, from the Institute of Historical Research at the University of Girona, were published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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Megaliths With Geometrical Engravings Found In France

Southern view of the megalithic sector under excavation

[Credit: Florent Notier, Inrap]

In 2018, in the commune of Massongy, a team of Inrap archaeologists excavated a small settlement and a vast megalithic complex from the Middle Neolithic period. Since then, laboratory work has revealed a great deal of information that complements the elements already collected in the field, revealing a site of exceptional importance.

The "Chemin des Bels" site is divided into two main zones: one corresponds to the traces of a village dated to the Middle Neolithic, the so-called "Cortaillod" culture; the other to a vast contemporary megalithic complex. The latter seems to be organised according to a very coherent plan with several phases of development. A large number of artefacts were found in the fill around a large recumbent slab 3.4 m long, 1.1 m wide and 1 m high, weighing around 5 tonnes. These objects show that the various stages of occupation of the site were fairly short (one to two centuries maximum).

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Archaeologists baffled by mystifying feature at Hadrian's Wall: 'Don't know why'

The Roman Empire's conquest of Britain began almost 2,000 years ago. It changed the face of the country forever. Roman culture, food, art, as well as the myriad religions that were practiced across the Empire were brought to the island's shores.

To occupy and cordon off swathes of land the Romans erected forts and walls around Britain, many of which survive today.

One of the most notable pieces is Hadrian's Wall.

Stretching 73 miles from the banks of the River Tyne near the North Sea, all the way west to the Solway Firth near the Irish Sea, work on the Wall started in 122 AD.

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Warriors’ down bedding could ease journey to realm of the dead

The boat graves are located 2 km north of Old Uppsala in Sweden.
Photo: Johan Anund, CC-BY-SA 3.0.

The burial field in Valsgärde outside Uppsala in central Sweden contains over 90 graves from the Iron Age.

“On a light note, we could say that Valsgärde is Scandinavia’s answer to Sutton Hoo in England as portrayed in the film The Dig on Netflix,” says Birgitta Berglund, professor emeritus of archaeology at the NTNU University Museum.

Valsgärde is especially known for its spectacular boat graves from the 600s and 700s CE. This timeframe is in the middle of what Norway calls the Merovingian period, the era just before the Viking Age.

Two of these spectacular boat graves are at the centre of this story – or more specifically the down bedding that was found in the graves are.

When researchers from NTNU investigated which birds contributed their feathers to the bedding, they made a surprising discovery that provides new insight into Iron Age society.

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Burrowing Bunnies in Wales Unearth Trove of Prehistoric Artifacts

The site of the rabbit burrow has apparently been occupied by different groups over the millennia. (Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle / WTSWW)

Scholars studying prehistoric life in Wales recently got an assist from an unexpected source. As Steven Morris reports for the Guardian, rabbits making a burrow on Skokholm Island, two miles off the coast of the southwest county of Pembrokeshire, dug up two Stone Age tools, as well as early Bronze Age pottery shards.

Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle, seabird experts who serve as wardens of the otherwise uninhabited island, spotted the objects and sent photographs of them to archaeological researchers. Looking at an image of one of the artifacts, Andrew David, an expert in prehistoric tools, identified it as a 6,000- to 9,000-year-old Mesolithic beveled pebble that was likely used to make seal skin–clad boats or prepare shellfish.

“Although these types of tools are well known on coastal sites on mainland Pembrokeshire and Cornwall, as well into Scotland and northern France, this is the first example from Skokholm, and the first firm evidence for Late Mesolithic occupation on the island,” says David in a statement.

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Iron Age warrior discovered at 'Scandinavia's answer to Sutton Hoo' was buried in a boat alongside a beheaded OWL and a down duvet 'to ease the journey to the realm of the dead'

Two 7th century warriors at an ancient burial ground in Sweden were laid to rest with comfy bedding stuffed with feathers from a variety of birds, research shows. 

New microscopic analysis of the bedding shows traces of feathers from local geese, ducks, grouse, crows, sparrows, waders and even eagle owls. 

The warriors were also buried in their boats with richly adorned helmets, shields and weapons and even gaming pieces, which, along with the several layers of bedding, would have eased the journey 'to the realm of the dead', according to researchers. 

Bizarrely, in one grave, an Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo) had been laid with its head cut off – and the experts aren't entirely sure why. 

The graves are two of 15 that were uncovered and excavated by archaeologists in the 1920s in Valsgärde outside Uppsala in central Sweden.

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Early stone technologies found to be much older than researchers thought

Tools made of stone show the migratory patterns of early humans

(photo credit: EMIL ELJEM/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

Researchers from Kent’s School of Anthropology and Conservation have found that prehistoric Oldowan and Acheulean stone tool technologies are tens of thousands of years older than previously thought, according to a new study. 

The new study, which was published in the Journal of Human Evolution, claims that Oldowan stone tools were developed some 2.617-2.644 million years ago, 36,000 to 63,000 years prior , while Acheulean stone tools date, developed 1.815-1.823 million years ago, were made 55,000 years earlier to what existing evidence suggests.

This discovery was based on a statistical modelling method newly used in archaeology, and provides greater insight into the chronology of human evolution, in addition to their dietary habits and behavior. Oldowan and Acheulea stone technologies helped early humans gain access to new foods, along with preparing animal carcasses.

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Massive Roman Villa From 4th Century With Huge 60ft Mosaic Discovered In Southern Spain

The Roman villa was discovered in the site of El Altillo in Jaen province of southern Spain. (Universidad Jaen/Real Press)

A massive 1,600-year-old Roman villa measuring over 20,000 square feet was discovered in southern Spain.

The villa boasts a huge mosaic measuring over 60 feet long.

The experts think that the villa probably belonged to a rich family that owned numerous farms, which is why they had enough capital to afford such a luxurious mosaic.

The excavations took place at the archeologic site of El Altillo, located in the municipality of Rus, in the southern Spanish province of Jaen, in the Andalusia region, after a few remains from the mosaic were unearthed.

Dr. Jose Luis Serrano Pena, co-director of the Villa El Altillo excavation project, along with Marcos Soto Civantos, decided to do a full-scale dig because the ancient remains were at risk of being destroyed by farmworkers in the area or of being stolen.

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Curule chair found in Roman funeral pyre

The charred remains of a curule chair have been recovered from a 1st century A.D. funeral pyre in the town of Épagny-Metz-Tessy in southeastern France. Archaeologists discovered the remains of two Roman funeral pyres in a salvage excavation before construction of new residential buildings.

The first pyre is the oldest of the two. It contains the remains of a young child between five and eight years old at time of death. The pyre was furnished with a great abundance of goods, including 17 ceramic vessels, 10 bronze vases and four glass vessels containing the remains of food offerings (lentils, beans, pork, rooster, wine). It was the child’s final banquet, and it was a grand one. Other goods were use items — three copper alloy strigils, bone game tokens — and furnishings (the funeral bed, boxes).

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‘Such a funny little thing’: ‘snail-man’ relic may depict ancient joke

The snail-man has been described as a kind of ‘medieval meme’.
Photograph: Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service/PA

Silver-gilt object, announced by British Museum, was discovered in a field near Pontefract last year

Delicately crafted using silver-gilt, it shows a praying knight emerging from a snail on the back of a goat and may be an example of 13th-century Yorkshire satire. Precisely what the joke was may never be known.

“It is very unusual,” said Beverley Nenk, the curator of later medieval collections at the British Museum, which announced its discovery on Monday. “It is such a funny little thing … I haven’t seen anything like it.”

The “snail-man” object, just over 2cm long, was discovered by a metal detectorist in a field near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, in September last year.

The best guess is that its owner commissioned it and wore it as a badge, or attached it to a leather belt or strap.

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Time Team sneak peak as fans bring back beloved TV favourite by popular demand

It was the surprise hit TV show that gripped the nation, making archaeology cool and history fun.

Presented by Sir Tony Robinson, Time Team was watched by people in 41 countries but after 20 years and 224 digs it was axed by Channel 4 in 2014 despite its huge following.

However, fans of the series remained devoted and have now raised enough money through a subscription scheme to bring it back and filming will start this year.

The first dig will take place at a huge Oxfordshire Roman villa owned by Martin Fiennes, a cousin of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes and explorer Sir Ranulph.

Time Team creator Tim Taylor said they now have enough funds to start work on two new YouTube episodes, with two more in the pipeline.

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‘Bradford Tooth Fairy’ Solves Mystery of Medieval Priest Teeth

Dr. Julia Beaumont, the Bradford Tooth Fairy, has unraveled the ‘startling history’ behind 800-year-old Medieval priests’ teeth. ( Telegraph & Argus )

The ‘Bradford Tooth Fairy,’ a dentist turned forensic archaeologist, created a new method to discover details of ancient diets, just by looking at people’s teeth. She’s now applied her innovative technique to discover the secrets held within a collection of 800-year-old bones and teeth, providing a ‘startling history’ on the lives of Medieval priests.

The Only Human Remains Found at St Stephen’s Chapel

The ‘Beaumont Method,’ named after its creator, Dr. Julia Beaumont (the Bradford Tooth Fairy), enabled the former dentist of 30 years to solve a puzzle surrounding mismatched bone fragments from nine individuals - the only human remains to have been recovered from St Stephen’s Chapel, which lies beneath  the Palace of Westminster. 

A University of Bradford  press release  states that Dr. Beaumont re-examined “two shoebox-sized collections” of mismatched bones which have been sitting on a shelf at the Museum of London since 1992. The human remains were discovered under the Palace of Westminster in 1992 by the Museum of London Archaeology Services (MoLAS), now called Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA). According to the university’s press release, Dr. Beaumont has created a ‘startling history’ of the stories behind the bones.

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Time Team to dig for Roman villa at Fiennes’ castle

The nation’s favourite history programme Time Team is back on digital platforms - and the first dig will be an enormous Roman villa on the Broughton Estate near Banbury.

The hands-on team of expert archaeologists will be unearthing a building thought to be as large as Buckingham Palace.

There may be mosaics, a bath house and even temples. It is thought it could be one of the biggest discovered in recent times.

The Broughton Estate is owned by Martin Fiennes – a cousin of actors Joseph and Ralph – who coincidentally played archaeologist Basil Brown in the recent Netflix movie The Dig.

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Archaeologists shell-shocked by Iron Age party

The Cairns site, at South Ronaldsay.
Supplied by Martin Carruthers, Lecturer in Archaeology at the Archaeology Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands in Orkney

As celebratory feasts go, the menu choices do seem to have been rather limited. 

However, new research into an Orkney Iron Age site suggests it was the scene of a massive prehistoric party, which saw the guests tuck into an astonishing amount of limpets and periwinkles. 

More than 18,600 shells were found in a pit at The Cairns site, at South Ronaldsay. 

Now radiocarbon dating technology has shown the pit was used in the fifth or sixth century AD, apparently to cook the shellfish before they were handed out to hungry guests. The shells – all 18,637 of them - were then put carefully back into the pit, perhaps as cooks and guests tidied up after their get-together.

Experts believe the shellfish supper was a single event, presumably attracting a high number of invitees with a hearty appetite for limpets and periwinkles.

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The Ancient Diolkos Of Corinth Undergoing Restoration

The Ancient Diolkos of Corinth, one of the greatest technical works of antiquity, is being restored. Over the last year, the Corinth Ephorate of Antiquities is conducting works of enhancement and protection on the ancient stone paved road on which ships were transported overland from the Corinthian Gulf to the Saronic Gulf and vice versa. Once completed and when allowed by the pandemic situation, the iconic monument will be ready to welcome the general public through on-site tours being planned.

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Gesellschaften im Gleichgewicht

Steinmonumente geben Aufschluss über Sozialstrukturen

Monumente aus Steinen, die von Archäologinnen und Archäologen auch als Megalithen oder Steinsetzungen bezeichnet werden, sind ein in vielen prähistorischen und historischen Perioden und Kulturen verbreitetes Phänomen. Sie begeistern die Öffentlichkeit und Fachleute gleichermaßen, werfen aber auch viele Fragen hinsichtlich ihrer Bedeutung innerhalb der prähistorischen Gesellschaften auf. Die archäologische Forschung geht häufig davon aus, dass die Errichtung der Monumente mit bestimmten sozialen Strukturen verbunden war. Mit der Identifizierung der sozialen Bedeutung der steinernen Monumente in Nordindien befasste sich ein ethnoarchäologisches Forschungsprojekt des Sonderforschungsbereichs (SFB) 1266 "TransformationsDimensionen" an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU). Die erlangten Forschungsergebnisse werfen ein neues Licht auf die Interpretation der Steinmonumente und wurden kürzlich veröffentlicht.

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BAD OMEN World’s 1st cities COLLAPSED due to overpopulation and climate change 4,000 years ago, research shows

The ancient people of Mesopotamia built the world's first cities Credit: Alamy

The cities, now buried in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon in the ancient region of Mesopotamia, were also struck by plummeting temperatures.

Their inhabitants, an advanced people known as the Mesopotamians, were forced to either abandon their homes or starve to death, researchers write in the journal PLOS One.

Previous studies into the cities, which collapsed around 2100BC, have hinted that a well-documented change in climate was entirely to blame for their downfall.

Dan Lawrence, lead author of the new study and an associate professor in near-Eastern archaeology at Durham University, says otherwise.

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Long read | The man at Sutton Hoo

Note: This long read was written in 2015. Professor Campbell died in 2016 and his article is published posthumously with full permission and in cooperation with his estate

In 1926 a Colonel and Mrs Pretty bought a big modern house in Suffolk. It stood near Woodbridge on a 100ft bluff, beside the river Deben, with a wide view over the town. A feature of the estate was a group of some (as then appeared) dozen mounds. Mrs Pretty was interested in the possibility of their being burial mounds, and reinforced this plausible supposition by psychic inquiry. In 1938 – by then a widow – she sought the advice of the curator of the Ipswich museum. He put her on to someone who did part-time archaeological work for them, a Mr Basil Brown. Learning owes a lot to Mr Brown. Nowadays there are not so many people like him: with not much of formal education, self-taught, very able, a natural archaeologist. His humble status shows in the terms on which Mrs Pretty employed him: 30 shillings weekly, sleeping accommodation in her chauffeur’s house, the assistance of two labourers. In 1938 Brown set carefully to work on three of the mounds. All three had previously been robbed and damaged. But what he found was interesting indeed: not least the remains of a ship 65 feet long, human and horse remains, and strange things, for example part of a Byzantine plaque of a ‘winged victory’. In 1939 Brown began to dig up the most conspicuous mound. He most carefully felt his way into the discovery of the remains of a ship, a big one, some 90 feet long. Midships were the remains of what he rightly took to be a burial chamber. The great importance of his discoveries became known. In July more professional, academic, archaeologists took over. When the excavation concluded, a week before the Second World War broke out, an astounding burial deposit had been unearthed.

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Roman highway uncovered between Antwerp and West Flanders

Archaeological excavations in Adegem near Maldegem, West Flanders, have uncovered traces of a Roman road linking Antwerp to an important Roman camp. The existence of the road was known, but now for the first time there is archaeological evidence.

The Roman road between Antwerp and the West Flemish municipality of Oudenburg has been discovered during archaeological excavations carried out as part of the construction of a supermarket. The archaeologists started last week and soon found traces of the ancient highway. "The site is right next to the N9 route and we expected to find something here,” said archaeologist Johan Hoorne. “The fact that it really is there is very cool."

"It was one of the most important routes in the wider region," Hoorne continued. "It was a dirt road to Antwerp that ran over the sandy ridge of Oudenburg." In Adegem, two important Roman roads cross. There was the north-south connection that runs from Kerkhove, just over the provincial border in West Flanders, to Aardenburg in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. And there was also the road between Oudenburg and Antwerp that has now been uncovered. "The Roman roads in the sandy region are not well known because they were not laid out in stone. But that doesn't mean they weren't important," added Hoorne.

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Greek bull figurine unearthed after heavy downpour

The small bull statuette is believed to have been offered to the god Zeus during a sacrifice

REUTERS

A bronze figurine of a bull believed to be at least 2,500 years old has been unearthed in Greece following heavy rain near the ancient site of Olympia.

Burn marks on the statuette suggest it may have been one of thousands of offerings to the Greek god Zeus.

The discovery of the small, intact item was made by archaeologists near a temple, Greece's culture ministry said.

An archaeologist spotted one of the bull's horns sticking out of the mud after a downpour, it added.

The item was immediately transferred to a laboratory for examination.

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Stone anchors found in River Wear could reveal Roman port

The five stone anchors found in the river suggest the vessels could have been part of a trading network

KEITH COCKERILL

A trove of Roman artefacts has been uncovered in the River Wear which could cast "significant" new light on life in the area nearly 2,000 years ago.

The find, in North Hylton, Sunderland, includes five stone anchors, thought to be the first time they have been discovered in a river.

One theory still to be examined is that it may have been home to a small port.

Underwater archaeologist Gary Bankhead said he could not "over-emphasize" the importance of the discovery.

Although a dam is known to have existed in the area since the Victorian times, if theories are confirmed it would be only the second such port ever discovered in Britain.

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Experts Say First Pre-Human Lived in Northern Greece-Balkan Area

7.2 million-year-old tooth from “Graecopithecus,” found in Azmaka, Bulgaria. Credit: Jochen Fuss, Nikolai Spassov, David R. Begun, Madelaine Böhme/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0

Researchers have found evidence that the link in the lineage of the great apes and humans took place in the Eastern Mediterranean — not in Africa — and that the first pre-human, or hominin, walked in the Northern Greece-Balkans area, according to research published in the scientific journal PLoS One and ScienceDaily.

Up until the time researchers made the discovery, in 2017, scientists had assumed that the lineages diverged five to seven million years ago and that the first pre-humans developed in Africa.

However, an international research team from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, France and Australia, headed by Professor Madelaine Bohme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tubingen and Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, believe that human history began a few centuries earlier — and in the general area of the Balkans

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Scientists Have Unlocked the Secrets of the Ancient 'Antikythera Mechanism'

IMAGE: WIKIMEDIA (LEFT), © 2020 TONY FREETH (RIGHT)

A digital model has revealed a complex planetarium on the ancient device's face. “Unless it's from outer space, we have to find a way in which the Greeks could have made it,” researchers say.

In the early 1900s, divers hunting for sponges off the coast of Antikythera, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, discovered a Roman-era shipwreck that contained an artifact destined to dramatically alter our understanding of the ancient world.

Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, the object is a highly sophisticated astronomical calculator that dates back more than 2,000 years. Since its recovery from the shipwreck in 1901, generations of researchers have marveled over its stunning complexity and inscrutable workings, earning it a reputation as the world’s first known analog computer.

The device’s gears and displays cumulatively demonstrated the motions of the planets and the Sun, the phases of the lunar calendar, the position of Zodiac constellations, and even the timing of athletic events such as the ancient Olympic Games. The device also reflects a very ancient idea of the cosmos, with Earth at the center.

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Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism recreated by scientists

New model reveals display of 2,000 year-old mechanical device used by the ancient Greeks to predict astronomical events (Tony Freeth/UCL/PA)

An ancient Greek hand-powered mechanical device for predicting astronomical events has been recreated, offering a fresh understanding of how it worked.

The 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism is considered the world’s first analogue computer, used to forecast positions of the sun, moon and the planets, as well as lunar and solar eclipses.

It was first discovered in a Roman-era shipwreck in 1901 by Greek sponge divers near the Mediterranean island of Antikythera.

Only 82 fragments have survived – about a third of the entire astronomical calculator – leaving researchers baffled about its true form and capabilities

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Swedish Viking hoard: how the discovery of single Norman coin expands our knowledge of French history

In the autumn of 2020, I was contacted by the field archaeology unit of the Swedish National Historical Museums, who are also known as the Archaeologists. They were excavating at a Viking-age settlement at Viggbyholm just north of Stockholm. During routine metal detecting of the site, they had located a very exciting find: eight silver necklaces and other silver jewellery along with 12 coins, everything delicately wrapped up in a cloth and deposited in a pot. In other words, a genuine Viking silver hoard.

As a professor in numismatics, the study of currency, I have spent my life becoming an expert in coins, so was called to help them learn more about this exciting discovery. It turned out to be a very interesting find. Most of the coins were the types that we usually see in Sweden: English, Bavarian, Bohemian (Czech) and Islamic coins as well as imitations of Islamic coins. But one of the coins was unusual.

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Gloucester: Experts to study Roman wall found in city centre

Further work is due to take place at the site to uncover any further details about the "really interesting structure" GLOUCESTER CITY COUNCIL

Archaeologists preparing for a revamp of part of Gloucester city centre have uncovered a Roman wall.

The limestone structure was found 2.1m (6.8ft) below ground level as part of work for the King's Square redevelopment.

Experts say that it is aligned 45 degrees to the city's Roman walls and that it was probably an internal corner tower.

Further work is due to take place at the site to excavate further.

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When unfolded, these ancient gold foil figures reveal embracing couples

Here, the best preserved of the gold foil figures that were recently found at the site of Aska in Sweden. All the figures show couples embracing.
(Image credit: Björn Falkevik)

Archaeologists in Sweden have discovered nearly two dozen gold foil figures that have engravings of couples embracing each other. 

The figures, which date back about 1,300 years, were found in the remains of a great hall on a platform mound, a human-made structure, at the site of Aska in Sweden. The researchers are still trying to piece together the broken figures to uncover more about them.

"Our best estimate is that we have 22 foil figures. The exact number is not quite clear because most are fragmented, and there is some uncertainty as to which fragments go together," Martin Rundkvist, an archaeology professor at the University of Lodz in Poland, wrote in a report recently uploaded to academia.edu, a site where researchers can upload papers. The report has not been published in a peer reviewed journal. 

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Prehistoric Tombs Discovered in Southern Poland

KRAKOW, POLAND—According to a report in The First News, a megalithic cemetery has been discovered by archaeologist Jan Bulas, who first spotted the outlines of an early medieval ditch in satellite images of a cultivated field in southeastern Poland. He and colleague Marcin M. Przybyła then mapped the field with magnetometers and discovered a row of megalithic barrows dating to some 5,500 years ago. They think the site could contain traces of as many as 12 stone-lined tombs measuring between 130 and 165 feet long.

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These Bronze Age women were more powerful than we thought

The Almoloya archaeological site is in southeastern Spain.

Archaeologists working at an ancient complex in southeastern Spain say women probably held political power in the Bronze Age society that ruled the area 4,000 years ago -- a sharp contrast with earlier views of the civilization.

Researchers said women of the ruling class may have been important in governing the El Argar society, the Research Group in Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona said in a news release published Thursday.

The team analyzed grave goods found in a princely tomb in the La Almoloya site, in what is now Murcia.

The tomb, known as Grave 38, contained the remains of two individuals -- a man between the ages of 35 and 40 and a woman between 25 and 30 -- alongside around 30 valuable items, many of which were made from silver.

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East wing Hurst Castle that dates back to Henry VIII collapses into the sea after being battered by heavy seas one week before work was due to begin to strengthen its defences

A section of a 16th Century castle built by Henry VIII dramatically collapsed into the sea following bad weather, just days before remedial work was due to start.

Part of the east wing of Hurst Castle near Milford-on-Sea, Lymington, crumbled away on Friday after the sea weakened its foundations, according to English Heritage, which owns the historic tourist spot.

The incident occurred just days before planned works to stabilise the foundations.

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Archaeologists baffled by 'mystery cult' discovery at ancient UK Vindolanda site

Archaeology: The mystery cult was discovered within the ancient Vindolanda fort (Image: GETTY)

The Roman conquest of Britain began almost 2,000 years ago under the leadership of Emperor Claudius. Soldiers from present-day Italy, Spain and France travelled from the continent and piled onto the island. They brought with them a whole range of foreign foodstuffs, culture, music, religion, as well as art.

Much of this has since left the UK.

Some historical residue of the Romans does remain, mostly in the form of ancient forts and structures.

Perhaps the best-known relic from the Empire's time in Britain is Hadrian's Wall.

A mammoth 73 miles long, it spans from the banks of the River Tyne near the North Sea, to the Solway Firth near the Irish Sea.

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Pottery Residues Offer Clues to Malta’s Prehistoric Menu

(Courtesy Davide Tanasi)

RABAT, MALTA—The Times of Malta reports that researchers led by Davide Tanasi of the University of South Florida analyzed residues and traces of proteins found in pottery dated to between 2500 and 700 B.C. at Il-Qlejgha tal-Bahrija, a prehistoric site in Malta’s Northern Region. The study suggests that the residents of Il-Qlejgha tal-Bahrija consumed a porridge made of cow’s milk and cereals such as wheat and barley. Traces of grains were also found in large storage jars similar to those found in Sicily.

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Hominid Footprints on Crete Could Change Evolutionary Theory For Good

Hominid footprints in the stone of Crete could change evolutionary theory altogether. Credit: The Conversation.

He was not looking for hominid footprints from the prehistoric past. Paleontologist Gerhard Gierlinski, from Warsaw, Poland, was just trying to get away from it all in the summer of 2002 and enjoy the warm seas and soft sands on the Greek island of Crete with his girlfriend.

A researcher at the Polish Geological Institute, he was always ready to take samples of interesting things he spied on vacations, and he traveled with a hammer, a camera and a GPS for just such occasions.

What he discovered along the Mediterranean shores of the town of Trachilos would rock his world and send some researchers who were convinced that humans evolved solely in Africa, into angry denial, resulting in many of them casting aspersions on his jaw-dropping find.

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Volunteer researchers wanted for Orkney trade project

The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute is looking for volunteers to take part in a new project researching early trade in Orkney.

The research is part of the international Looking in from the Edge (LIFTE) project, which is looking at the Northern Isles’ place in European trade networks of the 15th to 18th centuries. The Hanseatic League — an organisation of German merchants that expanded into the North Atlantic in the 15th century – was at the forefront of these networks and although its influence in Shetland has been extensively documented, less is known about the league’s interests in Orkney. And this is where the volunteer researchers come in.

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Revive the map: 4D building reconstruction with machine learning

A research team from Skoltech and FBK (Italy) presented a methodology to derive 4D building models using historical maps and machine learning. The implemented method relies on the geometric, neighbourhood, and categorical attributes to predict building heights. The method is useful for understanding urban phenomena and changes contributing to defining our cities' actual shapes. The results were published in the MDPI Applied Sciences journal.

Historical maps are the most powerful source used to analyze changes in urban development. Nevertheless, maps represent the 3D world in the 2D space, which describes the main features of the urban environment but fails to incorporate other spatial information, such as building heights. In 3D/4D city modeling applications based on historical data, the lack of building heights is a major obstacle for accurate space representation, analysis, visualization, or simulations.

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Rare Bronze Age spearhead discovered intact in Jersey

The piece was dated from the remains of the wood shaft it was attached to
JERSEY HERITAGE

A rare and complete metal spearhead dating back thousands of years to the Bronze Age has gone on display in Jersey after being found on the island.

It was discovered on the beach at Gorey by a metal detectorist in August.

Carbon dating on the remains of the wood shaft it was attached to confirmed it was from between 1207BC and 1004BC, Jersey Heritage said.

The "really exciting find" was also "thought to be unique to the Channel Islands and a rare find", it added.

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The World’s Oldest Woman Doesn’t Look Like You’ve Been Told

Almost 50 years ago, on a Sunday morning in late November 1974, a team of archaeologists in Ethiopia unearthed a 3 million-year-old skeleton of an ancient early human. The remains would turn out to be one of the most important fossils ever discovered. That night Donald Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who discovered the fossilized remains, played a cassette tape of the Beatles and as the group listened to the sound of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” reverberate through the campsite a colleague suggested that he name the female hominin Lucy. She represented a new species—Australopithecus afarensis—and a visit to almost any major natural history museum in the world will give you the opportunity to see an artist’s rendition of how she appeared in her own time.

Visit more than one natural history museum or flip through a handful of scientific textbooks, however, and you’ll quickly notice how much disagreement there is about Lucy’s physical appearance. No one can agree on what Lucy or “AL 288-1” looked like. Why is that? In a new article on “Visual Depictions of Our Evolutionary Past,” published this week in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, a team of scientists from the University of Adelaide, Arizona State, the University of Zurich, and Howard University set out to discover why this is and to compile their own, scientifically grounded, reconstruction.

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The story of Warwickshire's lost villages

Wolfhampcote Church (Image: Wikipaedia/G-Man)

The span of a human life doesn’t seem like much in the course of history, but you may feel that the villages, towns and cities we inhabit have longer memories.

However that’s not always the case, and, down the centuries, many villages have been abandoned as people move on, forcibly or voluntarily.

You may even have heard of some of these ‘lost’ villages.

In Warwickshire, one famous example is Wolfhampcote which is remembered today only through its surviving church that stands solitary in the middle of a field.

But lost villages are everywhere – there’s an astonishing 128 in Warwickshire alone – and they offer a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people alive hundreds of years ago.

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Archaeologists Uncover First Recorded Tier List in Ancient Rome

ROME — After reconstructing an ancient piece of pottery featuring various Roman gladiators categorized by their perceived strength, ability, and matchup spread, a team of archaeologists in Italy determined that they had unearthed the earliest example of a recorded tier list.

“It’s generally accepted that gladiator fights existed mostly to distract and placate the Roman citizens,” said lead archaeologist David Bradford. “Our discoveries this week suggest this distraction extended far beyond the coliseum, with some Romans wasting hours upon days debating whether such-and-such fighter was top 5 or just top 10. It’s incredible how much energy these ancient Romans wasted on these debates when they could have been working on improving their skills instead.”

Bradford’s team also discovered a series of broken tablets etched with the discussions and debates that lead to the creation of this tier list, which they have come to refer to as “the Smashed Boards.” Thanks to modern reconstruction techniques, many of these comments were able to be translated and preserved in a digital archive.

“There is no way Pollentius is A tier,” read one Smashed Board comment. “His spear’s range gives him the edge against heavy fighters, but he has a losing matchup against faster gladiators like Audacius, or Mordax the Swift. He’s B tier at best.”

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Pompeii: Archaeologists unveil ceremonial chariot discovery

Experts believe the chariot may have been used in ceremonies such as weddings HANDOUT VIA EPA

Archaeologists in Italy have unveiled a ceremonial chariot they discovered near the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

The four-wheeled carriage was found near a stable where three horses were uncovered back in 2018.

Experts believe it was likely used in festivities and parades, with the find described as "exceptional" and "in an excellent state of preservation".

Pompeii, engulfed by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius in AD79, is an archaeological treasure trove.

The volcanic eruption buried the city in a thick layer of ash, preserving many of its residents and buildings.

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Archaeologists find unique ceremonial vehicle near Pompeii

A detail of the decoration of a chariot, with its iron elements, bronze decorations and mineralised wooden remains, that was found in Civita Giuliana, north of Pompeii. Photograph: AP

Archaeologists have unearthed a unique Roman ceremonial carriage from a villa just outside Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD.

The almost perfectly preserved four-wheeled carriage, made of iron, bronze and tin, was found near the stables of an ancient villa at Civita Giuliana, about 700 metres north of the walls of ancient Pompeii and close to where the remains of three horses were unearthed in 2018, including one still in its harness.

Massimo Osanna, the outgoing director of the Pompeii archaeological site, said the carriage was the first of its kind discovered in the area, which had so far yielded functional vehicles used for transport and work, but not for ceremonies.

“This is an extraordinary discovery that advances our understanding of the ancient world,” Osanna said, adding that the carriage would have accompanied festive moments for the community, such as parades and processions.

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Romanian Authorities Recover ‘Unique’ Stolen Viking Helmet

Romanian police specialising in heritage crimes on February 7 recovered a medieval helmet “of Viking origin” that disappeared a decade ago, and which they called “unique in Romania” and very rare in the rest of Europe in an announcement issued on Friday.

A Romanian expert in historical illustration, Radu Oltean, said the helmet dated from the 11th century. It was first discovered in 2010 during refurbishment work on the river Siret, in northeast Romania, but it was never handed over to the state preservation services and the authorities lost track of it.

The investigation that led to the recovery of the precious item started in December 2020, when police officers got information about its whereabouts.

The helmet “can be dated to between the 11th and the 13 centuries and represents a type of helmet most often found in the Baltics and Kiev Rus,” the police said, offering no additional information on how the helmet disappeared, or where it was kept.

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From skeletons to secret gardens - most amazing finds from Birmingham archaeological digs

 View from space in 2020: The 1837 roundhouse off Curzon Street pictured next to the railway lines out of New Street Station (Image: Google Maps) 

They are the ancient discoveries that have made headlines around the world - and they are right here on our doorstop.

Archaeology used to be seen as a dry profession, perhaps only briefly sexed up by the Raiders of the Lost Ark film series.

Yet interest is booming again after some amazing finds in Birmingham and West Midlands - many sparked by the ground work on building the HS2 line.

So come with us on a quick journey of murder, mystery, markets and more as we reveal the best of the secrets uncovered in recent years. 

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Viking Warriors in Poland: Overcoming Identity Crisis

Viking Warriors in Poland: Overcoming Identity Crisis

Paper by Leszek Gardeła

Given at the 2019 European Association of Archeologists conference in Bern, in September 2019

Abstract: Since the discovery of a richly furnished Viking Age weapon grave in the cemetery at Ciepłe in Pomerania in the year 1900, there has been an uncritical tendency among many Polish archaeologists to consider male graves with opulent goods and military equipment as belonging to Scandinavian warriors. To this day, numerous scholars are convinced that the people buried with lavishly decorated spurs and horse tack in the cemetery at Lutomiersk in Central Poland also came from Northern Europe or at least that they had strong connections with Scandinavia or Rus. The same conviction pertains to rich weapon graves from places like Luboń and Łubowo in Greater Poland.

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