Engraved stones found on Jersey 'an art form of 15,000 years ago'
Discovery of marked plaquettes at Les Varines points to earliest evidence of human art in British Isles
They are small, flat and covered in what appear to be chaotic scratches, but 10 engraved stone fragments unearthed on Jersey, researchers say, could be the earliest evidence of human art in the British Isles... continues...
This news item appeared in Saturday's Times and was passed to me today. Regret Times online link is only available by subscription so will have to make do with this one. http://www.dailymail.co... continues...
A COLLECTION of stones has been unearthed by a team of UK archaeologists investigating fields in St Clement earmarked for a new estate of 200 affordable homes... continues...
Ice Age engravings found at Jersey archaeological site
"A dig in Jersey has yielded a stash of hunter-gatherer artefacts from the end of the last Ice Age, including stone pieces criss-crossed by carved lines."
Archaeologists in Jersey find solid gold torc hidden in Celtic coin hoard
Archaeologists in Jersey find solid gold torc hidden in Celtic coin hoard
By Richard Moss
A Celtic coin hoard discovered on Jersey has been offering up its secrets and astounding archaeologists with a series of golden treasure finds... continues...
"Did Neanderthal hunters drive mammoth herds over cliffs in mass kills? Excavations at La Cotte de St Brelade in the 1960s and 1970s uncovered heaps of mammoth bones, interpreted as evidence of intentional hunting drives... continues...
Neanderthal survival story revealed in Jersey caves
By Becky Evans
Digging For Britain
New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.
Neanderthals survived in Europe through a number of ice ages and died out only about 30,000 years ago.
The island of Jersey is well endowed with megalithic sites. Here, you're never far from something of interest. However, if you want to see all of the major sites you'll need some form of transport.
I flew in to St Helier airport and collected a hire car from there. The hire car company gave me a map; it was crap. Be sure to get the free map from the airport with "Jersey recommended" on the front. You may need good eyesight or a magnifying glass to see it, but it has got all of the main sites marked and named on it.
I drove directly to La Hougue Bie. There's a small museum there, so, even though I had done some research, I thought they may have a guide to the other sites on the island. There were two useful and complementary free leaflets. "Where to find the dolmens of Jersey" and "The spiritual landscape". On Jersey, they call all of their prehistoric burial chambers "dolmens".
Entrance to La Hougue Bie (the only megalithic site at which you have to pay) is £6.50 in 2008.
Most of the roads are narrow and parking is difficult everywhere unless you can find a car park. Luckily, there was always a nearby car park or a handy, flat field boundary whenever I needed to stop.
The study of the history, the archaeology, the natural history, the language and many other subjects of interest in the Island of Jersey
(Searching 'archaeology' in the photo archive throws up some interesting stuff).
La Hougue de Vinde dolmen near Noirmont has been seriously damaged after someone dug holes all over the 5,000 year old historical site.
A man was seen illegally using a metal detector and a trowel on the ancient site, prompting the island’s heritage organisations to appeal to the public to help protect them.
After an islander reported the incident, Olga Finch, Jersey Heritage’s Curator ofArchaeology, inspected the site. She confirmed that it had been seriously damaged, finding 'backfilled' metal detecting holes in the centre of the chamber, and targeted digging all over the dolmen, particularly in the earthen banks and at the base of the orthostats (upright stones).
ISLANDERS are being warned to keep away from the site of an ancient tomb in St Martin that has been damaged by a large fallen tree.
Robert Waterhouse (46), the field archaeologist for the Société Jersiaise, which is dedicated to preserving Jersey’s history and culture, said the 5,000-year-old Le Couperon dolmen, near Saie Harbour, had been hit by a 40-ft Monterey pine during a storm earlier this month.
The fallen tree, which broke the western capstone – a flat stone on top of the tomb – is due to be cut up and removed this week.
Any damage to the dolmen can then be properly assessed.
Jersey is probably best known for its sun-kissed beaches, new potatoes, the doe-eyed, fawn-coated cattle which produce those creamy dairy products, and the hit 1980s TV series Bergerac.
Most of Jersey's holiday attractions are therefore firmly out-of-doors, and it claims in its advertising to be the UK's warmest spot. But I discovered a much darker, hidden side to the famous holiday island just 14 miles off the Normandy coast on a recent visit.
Underground Jersey offers a far more enigmatic glimpse into the island's turbulent ancient and not-so-ancient history, but one which repays exploration.
And the one site which encapsulates Jersey's amazing continuity of history extending over an astonishing 6,000 years is the enigmatic Neolithic passage grave of La Hougue Bie, near Grouville in the south east of the island.
Jersey certainly didn't rank among the nation's hotspots on the day I visited La Hougue Bie (pronounced La Hoog Bee).
Stinging showers of icy rain were lashing down as I crept, bent double, into the claustrophobic space of the four feet high and three feet wide stone-lined passageway. The cramped corridor led 30 feet into the echoing darkness of the huge, grass-covered mound.
As my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I could make out the smoothly carved granite of the columns which lined the tunnel and, looking back, light streamed in, illuminating the pebbled floor.
It was only in 1996 that reconstruction archaeologists saw for the first time in five millennia that at the spring equinox, the sun's rays extended the length of the passage and onto the back wall of the inner sanctum in the heart of the mound.
Reaching the 6½-foot-high oval central chamber, I could at last stand upright and look around what had been the holy of holies – the centre of the unknowable ritual activities which took place here.
It was a moving, slightly spooky, experience and I'm sure that the chill which ran down my spine was not caused solely by the weather.
Outside again, I climbed the winding, spiral pathway to the top of the mound, where the simple apsed chapel of Notre Dame de Clarte was built in the 12th century – probably in an attempt to reclaim the ancient pagan site for Christianity.
A small sepulchre was built into the mound by the mystic Dean Richard Mabon in the 16th century, designed to replicate the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and he apparently regularly performed 'miracles' there.
Then in 1792, Phillipe d'Auvergne built a mock medieval castle known as The Prince's Tower over the chapel, and it became a major tourist attraction and pleasure ground for visitors in the 19th century, complete with hotel, summer house and screaming peacocks. But the Tower fell into disrepair and was finally demolished in 1924.
However, the long story of La Hougue Bie doesn't end there. Following the German occupation of the island in 1940, soldiers of the 319 Infantry Division built their eastern command bunker into the western side of the mound. Over the next two years around 70 trenches were dug in Phillipe d'Auvergne's pleasure grounds, no doubt causing even more archaeological damage........