News Items by Kammer

Art to raise Ridgeway's profile

A campaign to raise public awareness of a historic countryside area to safeguard it for the future is to be launched next month.

The campaign is to use a range of arts to get people interested in and to understand the history of the South Dorset Ridgeway, north of Weymouth.

Photography and painting competitions are among the ways organisers hope to raise awareness of the area.

Roman [sic] lead industry found in bog

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Roman lead smelting site in a peat bog in Ceredigion.

Dating back about 2,000 years, Cambria Archaeology said mines in the Borth area could have supplied the heavy, bluish-grey metal for production.

Mining hope [sic] for Bronze Age site

Mining for copper and zinc could return to Anglesey's Parys Mountain mine after an absence of almost 100 years.

As a result of recent increases in world metal prices, owners Anglesey Mining plc are starting exploratory drilling work.

Finance director Ian Cuthbertson said they were confident of "significant reserves" at the site, which has been mined since the Bronze Age.

Road Dig Reveals Iron Age Remains

Archaeologists have discovered iron age remains under the route of a new bypass around the village of Leybourne.

In a dig before the construction work, ditches containing pottery, burnt daub, charcoal and animal bone were found.

Kent County Council archaeologist, John Williams, said the remains suggested there were Iron Age farming settlements in the area more than 2,000 years ago.

Early hominid 'cared for elderly'

Ancient hominids from the Caucasus may have fed and cared for their elderly, a new fossil find has indicated.
The 1.77 million-year-old specimen, which is described in Nature magazine, was completely toothless and well over 40; a grand old age at the time.

This may suggest that the creature lived in a complex society which was capable of showing compassion.

These hominids - like humans - may also have valued the old for their years of acquired knowledge, researchers think.

Pigs Domesticated 'Many Times'

Pigs were domesticated independently at least seven times around the globe, a new study has found.

The discovery was made by linking the DNA of tame porkers with their wild relatives, Science magazine reports.

Researchers found farmed pigs in several locations were closely related to wild boar in the same region, suggesting local domestication.

This challenges the notion that boar were tamed just twice before being transported throughout the world.

Ancient Chariot Excites Experts

A chariot burial site uncovered in West Yorkshire could be the final resting place of one of Britain's ancient tribal leaders, archaeologists say.
The well-preserved remains, found by road contractors near Ferrybridge, are thought to be about 2,400 years old.

But evidence suggests that people were still visiting the grave during Roman times - 500 years after his burial.

Experts believe that native Britons may have used the site as a shrine to re-assert their national identity.

Archaeologist Angela Boyle said the site, uncovered during the £245m upgrade of the A1, was "one of the most significant Iron Age burials ever found".

Ice Age Axes Taken by Car Thieves

An archaeologist's car containing two axes from the Ice Age has been stolen from outside a Birmingham hotel.

Mark Olly, of Warrington, Cheshire, was giving a lecture on druids at the Wellington Hotel in Bromsgrove Street, when the vehicle was taken on Tuesday.

A replica of a 750BC bronze sword, with a distinctive brass discoloration on the blade, was also taken, along with electrical goods worth nearly £5,000.

Anyone with information about the theft is asked to contact West Midlands Police at Steelhouse Lane police station or the Wellington Hotel direct.

New Zealand Unveils Stonehenge Replica

Nestled into the verdant hills of the New Zealand region of the Wairarapa is the world's newest "Stonehenge" but this henge is no mere pastiche.

Instead, Stonehenge Aotearoa, which opened this weekend, is a full-scale adaptation of its Salisbury Plain ancestor, built to work for the Antipodes.

The aim of the Kiwi Stonehenge is to help people rediscover the basics of astronomy.

"You can read as much as you like in a book how the sun and the moon work, how people use stars to navigate by, or to foretell the seasons," says Richard Hall, president of the Phoenix Astronomical Society which built the henge.

"You stand here amongst the henge and you show people exactly how it works. Somehow it simplifies it and it becomes that much more easy to understand," he said.

The Icy Truth Behind Neanderthals

In 1848, a strange skull was discovered on the military outpost of Gibraltar.

The remains were named Homo neanderthalensis - or Neanderthal Man - an ancient and primitive form of human.

But was Neanderthal really the brutish ape-man of legend, or an effective rival to our own species? And how exactly had he been driven to extinction?

This week's Horizon programme brings together a team of leading experts to see just what we could find out about this remarkable creature, from the bones themselves. But to begin we needed a skeleton, and no complete Neanderthal has ever been found.

However, Gary Sawyer, a reconstruction expert at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, US, realised that enough partial skeletons existed to create an entire composite skeleton from casts of the fragments.

Burial Mound Preserved For Future

A burial ground on a Wiltshire farm has been protected from plough damage by an agreement between the farmer and Defra.

Bourton Manor Farm, north west of Devizes has 28 Scheduled Monuments of national importance.

These include 10 barrows which are thought to be either Neolithic or early Bronze Age.

Plough damage is being prevented by returning the surrounding area to grassland using funding under Defra's Countryside Stewardship Scheme.

Bronze Age finds to go on display

Skeletons from the Bronze Age that were found in an archaeological dig in Kent and said to be among the best preserved from that time, are to go on show.

VIPs are being given the chance to see what was found on Thursday.

The exhibits are to go on display at Westgate-on-Sea although some have been taken elsewhere in England to be looked at by other experts.

Bronze Age Skeletons Found in Dig

Archaeologists have unearthed a unique site in Kent which they claim contains the best preserved examples of Bronze Age skeletons.

The discovery was made in a six-month excavation of a plot of land in Ramsgate, which is due to be the site of a new housing development.

The location has not been revealed because of its national importance.

Archaeologist Darren Godden said the find would help explain what happened to human remains during the Bronze Age.

Film Studio Plan Withdrawn

Ancient Rock Carvings go Online

Archaeologists have discovered more than 250 new examples of prehistoric rock carvings, it has been revealed.

The panels were unearthed during a two-and-a-half year search of the moorlands of Northumberland by Newcastle University archaeologists.

They will feature on a new website featuring 6,000 images, which is thought to be the most comprehensive of its kind in the world.

The carvings are thought to have been made between 3,500 and 6,000 years ago.

Among the new discoveries is a collection at Goatstones, near Wark, where 14 carved stones were recorded for the first time.

Iron Age Fort Defended From Raiding Rabbits

During the Iron Age it stood up to marauders, protecting the people of ancient Leicestershire against anyone that might do them harm. But a couple of thousand years later Burrough-on-the-Hill was in need of a little defending of its own.

They might not sound as fearsome as a neighbouring tribe, or even the might of the Roman Empire, but the ancient hill fort has recently been under attack from the local rabbit population.

However, under the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affair's Countryside Stewardship Scheme, farmer and Country Park Ranger, Tim Maydwell, has been fighting back.

Unique Rock Find Amongst Archaeology Yielded by Moorland Fire

Archaeologists are pondering one of the most intriguing archaeological discoveries for some years after a fire revealed a unique carved stone thought to be 4,000 years old.

The find came to light after a blaze in 2003 at Fylingdales near Whitby consumed two and a half square kilometres of heather moorland before being brought under control by hundreds of fire fighters and a water-dumping helicopter.

However, in the fire's aftermath archaeologists were astonished to find a vast array of archaeological remains – uncovered by the intensity of the blaze, which burnt away much of the peat.

"The fire had a devastating impact, but it also revealed an astonishing archaeological landscape," said Neil Redfern, English Heritage Inspector of Ancient Monuments.

500,000 Year Old Axe Find in Quarry

A Stone Age hand axe dating back 500,000 years has been discovered at a quarry in Warwickshire.

The tool was found at the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm, near Coventry, which has already produced evidence of some of the earliest known human occupants of the UK.

It was uncovered in gravel by quarry manager John Green who took it to be identified by archaeologists at the University of Birmingham.

"We are very excited about this discovery," enthused Professor David Keen of the university's Archaeology Field Unit.

Modern Art - Ancient Inspiration

Written in Stone?, on show at the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle until January 8 2005, presents a series of colourful contemporary cast glass sculptures on display alongside fragments of ancient rock carvings.

Taking their inspiration from their Northumbrian ancestors, the modern work was created by a group of young people from Greenfield School, Newton Aycliffe.

"This is a really unusual project which has reaped enormous benefits, both for the schoolchildren and for the museum," explained Lindsay Allason-Jones, Director of Archaeological Museums at Newcastle University.

"We jumped at the opportunity to get involved, because we saw this as a way of engaging people all around the region with our collections, and it has also enabled us to creatively display this exciting new work alongside our existing exhibits, giving them a new dimension too."

Motorbike Ban on Prehistoric Road

Motorbikes and 4x4 vehicles which were damaging one of Britain's oldest roads have been banned from the area.

The temporary order has been imposed by a number of district councils on parts of the Ridgeway National Trail in south Oxfordshire during winter months.

In previous years the 6,000-year-old trail has been churned up by trail bikers and off-road riders.