Chichester Roman houses found under Priory Park

Ground-penetrating scans of a park have revealed three near-complete Roman buildings in Chichester.

Archaeologists, who were left stunned by the degree of preservation, have said the only reason they survived was because Priory Park was never built on.

Two houses and a third building were found. Moving images from a scan show the shapes of two buildings emerge.

It is thought the houses in Noviomagus Reginorum - the Roman name for the town - were owned by people of importance.

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Scientists divided over whether 'Furku.Al' rock inscription is genuinely the work of Vikings

When a resident on the Isle of Eigg decided to clean his drains, he had no idea that he would stumble upon a mystery that would baffle archaeologists around the world.

The islander’s discovery of a boulder with the letters “Furku.Al” scratched into its surface has sparked a lively debate among experts as to whether it is a genuine runic inscription.

The resident alerted Camille Dressler, chair of the Eigg History Society, about his potentially significant find, and she sent a photograph to Historic Environment Scotland (HES).

“It looks quite ancient. We are intrigued by it,” Ms Dressler told The Daily Telegraph. “We just hope it is a genuine Norse inscription as that would highlight the Norse heritage of the island.”

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Museum of London gets £180m towards its new home

Plans for a new Museum of London on the site of derelict Smithfield market buildings have received a £180m boost by the City and the mayor.

The City of London Corporation announced it would give £110m towards the project’s £250m cost. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also pledged £70m.

Khan said the museum would be a jewel in London’s crown. “From the outset of my mayoralty, I pledged to make culture a core priority and I’m proud that this is the biggest ever cultural investment made by any mayor of London to date,” he said.

“The world’s greatest city deserves the world’s greatest museum, which is why I’m delighted to announce £70m of funding for the new Museum of London.”

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Bringing Vikings Back to the East Midlands

The Centre for the Study of the Viking Age is pleased to report that we have been awarded a substantial grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council Follow-On Fund for a project called Bringing Vikings Back to the East Midlands. The project will fund a variety of initiatives and events related to the British Museum/York Museums Trust travelling exhibition on the Vikings which will be on at Lakeside from November 2017 to March 2018. CSVA alumnus Dr Roderick Dale will start as Cultural Engagement Fellow on the project on 1st February. More details to follow.

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Les Temps mérovingiens

Les Temps mérovingiens

Musée de Cluny, Paris

Du 26 octobre 2016 au 13 février 2017

Le début du Moyen Âge est marqué par des formes d'expression originales, mais peu connues. L'exposition Les Temps mérovingiens éclaire cette période foisonnante, de trois cents ans (de la bataille des Champs catalauniques en 451 à la fin du règne des « rois fainéants » en 751), entre influence de l'empire romain et mise en place de nouvelles formes de pouvoir loin de l’image de « barbarie » qui leur était autrefois attachée. 

Dans un dialogue inédit, manuscrits des VIIe et VIIIe siècles provenant notamment du département des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, des bibliothèques de Laon et d’Autun, de la bibliothèque apostolique vaticane ou des Archives nationales de France entrent en résonance avec les collections du musée de Cluny et les prêts du musée d’Archéologie nationale de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, du British Museum, du musée jurassien d’art et d’histoire de Delémont ou encore du musée Alfred-Bonno de Chelles.

Les Temps mérovingiens est présentée dans le cadre majestueux du frigidarium des thermes gallo-romains.

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'Highly important' Anglo-Saxon village remains discovered in Cambridge housing site

Rare Anglo-Saxon artefacts have been unearthed during the excavation of a housing site in Coldham's Lane. Archeology by Weston Homes.

Rare Anglo-Saxon artefacts once worn and treasured by nobles between 501 and 600 AD have been unearthed during the excavation of a housing site in Cambridge .

Oxford Archaeology East uncovered the Ango-Saxon village on the corner of Hatherdene Close and Coldham's Lane on behalf of archaeology specialists, CgMs and housebuilder Weston Homes.

The findings include precious jewellery such as fine brooches, multi-coloured glass and amber beads, rings and hairpins dating back to the sixth century AD, as well as remnants of an original village-style settlement.

Utilitarian tools such as small knives and weaponry were also among the findings on the site which provides a fascinating insight into the lifestyle and clothing of the ancient Anglo-Saxon era.

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Neolithic hoard discovered during St Andrews University energy centre work

Pottery and flint tools buried for 4,000 years were uncovered during excavations for St Andrews University’s new energy centre.

The ancient artefacts were dug up at Kincaple as engineers laid pipework.

Archaeologist Alastair Rees from consultancy firm ARCHAS Ltd said the find, which included flint tools believed to be from Norfolk or Yorkshire, provided more evidence of trade links across the UK.

“These finds provide yet another piece in the jigsaw to help us reconstruct the mundane, as well as the more interesting, aspects of how societies interacted and travelled in ancient Britain,” he said.

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The Caves That Prove Neanderthals Were Cannibals

Deep in the caves of Goyet in Belgium researchers have found the grisly evidence that the Neanderthals did not just feast on horses or reindeer, but also on each other.

Belgian archaeologist Christian Casseyas shows the latest explored area as he gives a tour of the Goyet cave, where 96 bones and three teeth from five Neanderthal individuals were found 

[Credit: Emmanuel Dunand, AFP]

Human bones from a newborn, a child and four adults or teenagers who lived around 40,000 years ago show clear signs of cutting and of fractures to extract the marrow within, they say.

"It is irrefutable, cannibalism was practised here," says Belgian archaeologist Christian Casseyas as he looks inside a cave halfway up a valley in this site in the Ardennes forest.

The bones in Goyet date from when Neanderthals were nearing the end of their time on earth before being replaced by Homo sapiens, with whom they also interbred.

Once regarded as primitive cavemen driven to extinction by smarter modern humans, studies have found that Neanderthals were actually sophisticated beings who took care of the bodies of the deceased and held burial rituals.

But there is a growing body of proof that they also ate their dead.

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UNE NÉCROPOLE DE LA FIN DE L’ANTIQUITÉ À BOUC-BEL-AIR (BOUCHES-DU-RHÔNE)

Dans un secteur de plaine de la commune de Bouc-Bel-Air (Bouches-du-Rhône), des archéologues de l’Inrap sont actuellement à l’œuvre pour dégager les dernières sépultures d’une nécropole antique. Ils interviennent depuis le 19 septembre sur prescription de l’État (Service régional de l’Archéologie / Drac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), en amont de l’aménagement d’un ensemble d’habitations privées et collectives. Après avoir mis au jour des vestiges datant du Néolithique, les chercheurs se sont concentrés sur plus de 300 tombes, installées à partir de la fin de l’Antiquité. La fouille, d’une superficie totale de 21 900 m², s’achèvera à la fin du mois de janvier.

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Archäologen entdecken weitere Teile eines 5.000 Jahre alten Wagens

Erfolgreicher Abschluss der öffentlich zugänglichen Grabung von Olzreute-Enzisholz (Landkreis Biberach)

Kurz vor Weihnachten 2016 wurden die Arbeiten auf der Ausgrabung in Olzreute-Enzisholz (Landkreis Biberach) beendet. Archäologen des Landesamtes für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart untersuchten dort eine fast 5.000 Jahre alte Siedlung der Jungsteinzeit. In den vergangenen Jahren waren dort schon einige hölzerne Wagenräder zum Vorschein gekommen. Nun fanden die Forscher kurz vor dem Ende der Geländearbeiten einen weiteren Beleg für die steinzeitliche Mobilität: ein Achsenfragment aus Holz.

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Austrasie, le royaume mérovingien oublié

Au moment où s’installe la nouvelle région Grand Est, l’Agglomération de Saint-Dizier organise du 16 septembre 2016 au 26 mars 2017 une exposition dédiée au royaume des Francs de l’Est, Austrasie, Le Royaume Mérovingien Oublié. Il s’agit de la première exposition consacrée à l’Austrasie, berceau de la dynastie mérovingienne, qui a connu un fort rayonnement entre 511 et 717, alors que la Neustrie et la Burgondie ont déjà fait l’objet de grandes expositions dans les années 1980.

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Dressed up with bling stolen in Viking raids

When a female Norwegian Viking died some time during the 9th century, she was buried wearing a status symbol: a beautiful piece of bronze jewellery worn on her traditional Norse dress.

In the summer of 2016, 1200 years after her death, the piece of jewellery was found by chance at Agdenes farm, at the outermost part of the Trondheim Fjord in mid-Norway. The well-preserved object is an ornament with a bird figure that has fish- or dolphin-like patterns on both "wings."

The decorations suggest that the jewellery was made in a Celtic workshop, most likely in Ireland, in the 8th or 9th century. It was originally used as a fitting for a horse's harness, but holes at the bottom and traces of rust from a needle on the back show that it had probably been turned into a brooch at a later stage.

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Europe's Earliest Humans Did Not Use Fire

New research conducted by scientists at the University of York and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona reveals for the first time that Europe's earliest humans did not use fire for cooking, but had a balanced diet of meat and plants - all eaten raw.

Studying dental plaque from a 1.2 million year old hominin (early human species), recovered by the Atapuerca Research Team in 2007 in Sima del Elefante in northern Spain, archaeologists extracted microfossils to find the earliest direct evidence of food eaten by early humans.

These microfossils included traces of raw animal tissue, uncooked starch granules indicating consumption of grasses, pollen grains from a species of pine, insect fragments and a possible fragment of a toothpick.

All detected fibres were uncharred, and there was also no evidence showing inhalation of microcharcoal - normally a clear indicator of proximity to fire.

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Archäologen entdecken erste befestigte Flachland-Siedlung der Eisenzeit in Westfalen

Werne (lwl). Wo der Versandhandelsriese Amazon aktuell künftige Geschenke für das Weihnachtsfest lagert, deponierten die Menschen schon vor über 2.000 Jahren in Speichern und Gruben Lebensmittel und Ernten. Mit Siedlungsspuren aus dem ersten Jahrhundert vor Christi Geburt rechneten die Archäologen des Landschaftsverbandes Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) durchaus, als die Untersuchungen auf dem Gelände des neuen Logistikzentrums des Versandhändlers in Werne begannen. Dass zusätzlich eine gewaltige Befestigungsanlage bei den Bauarbeiten im neuen Gewerbegebiet Wahrbrink II zum Vorschein kam, war eine Überraschung. Die Archäologen dokumentierten hier die Spuren der ersten Siedlung der Eisenzeit in Westfalen abseits der Gebirgsregionen, die mit einem riesigen Graben gesichert war. 

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Archaeology in schools: promoting archaeology as a key learning tool within the national curricula

Other than a few pockets of good examples, around the world archaeology is almost always absent from formal education until one makes it to University. History will be taught and archaeology gets a mention as part of that e.g. ‘archaeologists tell us blah, blah’ but actually archaeology is almost never taught. There was a session at the CIfA conference that looked at archaeology in the classroom, mainly primary age. We video recorded it and you can see the videos below.

Session Abstract: There are thousands of primary schools in the UK, all actively delivering curriculum-based learning in regard to popular archaeological themes such as Ancient Egypt, the Romans in Britain, the Picts or the Vikings. Archaeological evidence plays a role, as do visits to historic sites and museums. This session will first focus on existing and potential knowledge exchange between the archaeological and teaching communities. It will showcase some of the initiatives that specialist archaeological educators have taken to engage with teachers and teaching of the primary history curriculum alongside the work of commercial, community, curatorial and academic archaeologists. We will then aim to identify the various challenges faced and to share solutions and best practice that can be easily replicated by others. The key question is how best to promote archaeology as a key learning tool within the national curricula across all countries in the UK? The session (and resulting discussions) will aim to guide the creation of ‘Archaeology in schools: top ten tips for success’ (with a first draft to be supplied beforehand).

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Neanderthals visited seaside cave in England for 180,000 years

SAINT HELIER, Jersey, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Neanderthals may have taken vacations, or at least they liked the view from the granite cliffs of Jersey. New evidence suggests Neanderthals visited La Cotte de St Brelade, a prehistoric site on the island of Jersey, for at least 180,000 years.

Previous surveys of La Cotte de St Brelade have been limited in scope, focused mostly on concentrations of mammoth remains within the cave. The latest effort involved a wide-angle approach.

Researchers re-examined stone artifacts unearthed in the 1970s to better understand how they were made and where materials were sourced from. The survey helped archaeologists get a better sense of how visitors to La Cotte de St Brelade utilized local resources and the surrounding landscape. The analysis also revealed where Neanderthals were visiting from.

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Archaeologists Discover Unknown Ancient City In Greece

Archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have begun exploring a previously unknown ancient city at a village called Vlochós, five hours north of Athens. The archaeological remains are scattered on and around the Strongilovoúni hill on the great Thessaliska plains and can be dated to several historical periods.

"What used to be considered remains of some irrelevant settlement on a hill can now be upgraded to remains of a city of higher significance than previously thought, and this after only one digging season", says Robin Rönnlund, PhD student in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Gothenburg and leader of the fieldwork.

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LE GRAND PARIS EXPRESS, LIGNE 15 SUD : ARCHÉOLOGIE EN GARE DE VITRY CENTRE

La fouille du Parc du Coteau à Vitry-sur-Seine est située en bordure de la RD 605, héritière de la voie romaine qui reliait Paris à Sens. La première construction est un édifice ostentatoire élevé au cours du Haut-Empire. À la fin du IIIe siècle ou au début du siècle suivant, un espace funéraire enclos de fossés est établi en périphérie de cet édifice, ce qui oriente l’interprétation au bénéfice d’un mausolée. La nécropole, organisée en petits groupes de tombes, est fréquentée jusqu’à la fin du haut Moyen Âge, probablement jusqu’au début du XIe siècle. Abandonnée dans un premier temps, la zone est réoccupée aux XIIe-XIIIe siècles par des carrières d’extraction de limon sableux, probablement à destination des tuileries installées de l’autre côté de la voie et dont la mémoire est conservée dans la toponymie. Certaines salles des carrières sont ensuite transformées en caves et ont conservé cette fonction jusqu’à nos jours.

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Large Roman settlement remains found near Cambridge

Artefacts discovered during the excavation of land off Tunbridge Lane in Bottisham, where Bloor Homes is building its De Havilland Orchard development

"Absolutely fascinating" archaeological remains from a large Roman settlement have been uncovered on the site of a new housing development in Bottisham.

The discovery was made during an excavation of the site off Tunbridge Lane before Bloor Homes began work on the 24-home De Havilland Orchard development.

The three-month excavation, carried out by Pre-Construct Archaeology under the direction of CgMs Consulting, was commissioned by the developer due to the archaeological significance of previous finds made in the area.

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Sex of prehistoric hand-stencil artists can be determined forensic analysis

"This geometric approach is very powerful as it allows us to look at the palm and fingers independently," researcher Patrick Randolph-Quinney said.

Researchers built a model cave wall to test their ability to determine the sex of hand stencil artists in the lab. Photo by University of Liverpool

Attempts to determine the sex of prehistoric hand-stencil artists have turned up contradicting conclusions. Researchers in England and South Africa suggest focusing on hand size and finger length is unreliable.

To solve the problem, scientists adopted a forensics technique to yield more definitive results. Scientists believe the new analysis strategy can sex 40,000-year-old hand stencils with 90 percent accuracy.

"The problem with focussing on hand size and finger length is that two different shaped hands can have identical linear dimensions and ratios," Patrick Randolph-Quinney, a forensic anthropologist at the universities of Central Lancashire and Witwatersrand, said in a news release. "To capture shape, we applied geometric morphometrics, a technique used in forensic studies that had never been tested on hand stencils before."

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