Stone Age Metalworking?
Bulgarian archaeologists say they have found evidence of the earliest known metalworking foundry in Europe.
voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=D7E35539-7A9E-4982-8731B34AA74C0E0C
Latest News
September 1, 2003
August 31, 2003
By Ian Johnston of the Scotsman:
The number of visitors to Skara Brae on Orkney – one of the world’s leading Stone Age attractions – may have to be cut amid fears they are damaging the monument, Historic Scotland has admitted.
The heritage agency has launched an investigation to discover whether the thousands of people who visit the ancient village each year are causing serious damage to the walls of the unique dwellings.
Every year up to 55,000 tourists explore the site, which dates back to 3200BC, but numbers may now have to be limited to help preserve the buildings.
A chambered burial cairn known as Maeshowe is also being examined for potential damage as part of the study.
August 30, 2003
Jon Lowry, chairman of the Friends of the Thornborough Henges, has received a letter confirming that Tarmac Northern Ltd, which is already quarrying in other areas around the henges, “is shortly to submit a planning application for the Ladybridge Farm area.”
ripontoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=18&ArticleID=650053
August 29, 2003
A proposed skip yard near Waddon Ponds could drain the River Wandle and destroy the remains of a Bronze Age settlement, a local historian has warned.
Plans to house the storage site on derelict land on the corner of Croydon Road and the Purley Way have outraged local residents and environmentalists.
Their case was strengthened this week by local historian Raymond Hague, who said the yard would devastate the local ecology and destroy an area of archaeological value.
He warned that building work could disrupt or drain the Wandle and cause environmental damage to the Waddon Ponds beauty spot...
A holiday-maker has stumbled upon elaborate carvings believed to date back to the Bronze Age on a large granite stone at Gorleston beach.
The man spotted the markings, which were gouged deep into a rock used as part of the sea defence to protect the promenade and sea wall, and reported his findings to the Norfolk Archaeological Unit.
Archaeological enthusiasts from the unit visited Gorleston beach to carry out further analysis of the stone carvings and were extremely excited by the revelation....
Scottish Archaeology Month
September is Scottish Archaeology month. Check out the on-line programme of events at;
scottisharchaeology.org.uk/
Tons n tons of stuff to see n do...
August 28, 2003
As the deadline for raising objections to the Government’s road development plans for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site approaches, experts have been airing their opinions on the controversial scheme.
Read more here.... 24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh/ART17921.html
August 26, 2003
Rich Finds in Macedonia
Recent finds at the ancient settlement of Archontiko, near Pella in northern Greece, have shed further light on the wealth, heroic culture, commerce and burial rituals of ancient Macedonians, following the discovery of 396 unlooted tombs and 5,000 objects, dating between the 7th and 4th centuries BC.
ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=33279
3rd Century BC Bone Workshop Found In Bulgaria
A unique ancient workshop for bone articles which had no parallel in antique Thrace was unearthed in the vicinity of village Sveshtari in northeast Bulgaria which is famous for the royal tomb discovered there a few years ago.
novinite.com/newsletter/print.php?id=25465
August 24, 2003
A Bronze Age Village Has Been Excavated in Israel:
Bronze Age village uncovered in highway dig near Kiryat Gat
An archeological excavation ahead of advancing
highway construction crews in southern Israel
turned up an 8,000-year-old Bronze Age settlement
and the remains of a first century C.E. Jewish
homestead, the Israel Antiquities Authority said
yesterday.
The submerged ancient port of Agrigento (possibly with temple) found
August 22, 2003
7,000 year old clay figure found.
An ancient clay figure of the lower half of a male body believed to date back to the Stone Age has been discovered in eastern Germany, archeologists said Thursday
The figure, which details a male body from the waist to the calves, is the first such representation of a man to be found in the area, believed to date from 5,000 B.C., Oexle said. Previous finds have been representations of women.
YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER NEW SITES
A group of young people on an archaeological holiday in Cornwall with the Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC)(1) have discovered two previously unrecorded oblong, grave-shaped stone mounds (2) on Minions Moor, part of Bodmin Moor.(3)
Since this discovery in June, experts have examined the sites, which could date back to the Bronze Age. Local archaeologists had no idea these stone cairns were there and are planning to undertake further research in November, when summer vegetation has died down.
As Holiday Leader Tony Blackman explained, “The group literally stumbled over these finds and were quick to assess their context within the ancient prehistoric landscape of this area.”
These are not the first Prehistoric monuments discovered by youngsters on a YAC holiday on Bodmin Moor.
The Young Archaeologists’ Club, which is run by the Council for British Archaeology,(4) has a UK network of 70 branches and its members regularly make new archaeological discoveries.
“Many of our Branches work in close contact with local archaeologists and the results can be amazing,” said Alison Bodley, Co-ordinator of the Club. “For example our North Downs Branch recently found a previously unknown Iron Age enclosure whilst field-walking near Maidstone. The area was to form part of a country park, and the plans for the design of the park were subsequently altered in order to preserve the site”.
Branches of the Young Archaeologists’ Club run a programme of varied activities including recording graveyards, excavating sites and preparing museum exhibitions.
The Director of the Council for British Archaeology, George Lambrick said, “Young people are sharp-eyed and open-minded – key attributes for making interesting new discoveries. YAC gives them a hands-on experience of what archaeology is all about – and they can make a real contribution to our knowledge of the past.”
-Ends-
For further details:
For Cairns found by YAC Cornwall Holiday members, contact Tony Blackman 01872 572725 [email protected]
For images, Young Archaeologists’ Club and YAC Branches, contact Alison Bodley 01904 671417/ 0788 4444675 [email protected]
Archaeologists were called in to investigate the site near Llandysul after workmen clearing farmland for a new Welsh Development Agency industrial estate noticed dark circles in the soil.
Cambria Archaeology workers then identified several large circular graves from the Bronze Age.
And about 200 yards away they found the foundations of a farmyard wall which could have been built 5,000 years ago.
August 21, 2003
'Incredible' Bronze Age finds in Ulster
From the mid-Ulster Mail, 21 August 2003ce
WHILE 20 diggers and dump trucks shifted soil on a 35-acre site at Loughry near Cookstown on Friday they couldn’t drown out the noise of a trowel scraping.
As bulldozers prepared the ground for the new £1.9m Mid-Ulster Sport Academy at Tullywiggan Road, a team of archaeologists – with more modest shovels – were delving deep into Mid-Ulster’s past on the edge of the site.
Sports fans may be excited at the prospect of the new complex but their enthusiasm is surpassed by the archaeologist heading up the Loughry dig – Galway man Robert Chapple.
Mr Chapple, site director of excavations for Northern Archaeological Consultancy, said that the amount of material uncovered is “phenomenal”.
There are two sites being investigated and Mr Chapple said he was hoping that one of these – to the north – could turn out to show evidence of a Bronze Age (2000-1500BC) house. The more southerly site is giving an amazing insight into the burial customs of our ancestors.
An ancient British , used to stamp a horse design on Iron Age gold coins, has been found near Alton in Hampshire.
A member of the public handed it in at the Curtis Museum where it caused huge excitement, with curator, Tony Cross, describing it as “the most significant find in Alton since the discovery of the Alton Buckle some 40 years ago”.
So rare is the die that the British Museum has only ever seen one before.
The Megalithic Yard
In the mid 17th century the architect Inigo Jones was instructed to survey Stonehenge. He declared the ruins too sophisticated to have been built by the barbaric Druids and proposed a Roman origin.
Almost a century later, the antiquarian William Stukeley overturned Jones’ theory, noting the site’s ancient age and astronomical alignments. Stukeley also suggested the ruins shared a uniform system of measurement. Whoever they were, our ancient monument builders were no barbarians.
Read on here
August 20, 2003
Secrets of the Ancients Revealed
Secrets of the ancients revealed Aug 20 2003
By Mike Hornby, Daily Post
AN independent archaeological dig on the Welsh border has
emerged as one of Britain’s most important excavations.
Experts working on farmland alongside the Duke of Westminster’s
Eaton estate, have discovered evidence of human activity dating
back 9,000 years.
They have unearthed five Bronze Age burial mounds, two Roman
buildings and a medieval chapel and cemetery, unique in the UK.
The series of remarkable discoveries was made during excavations to
find the lost Abbey of Poulton which once stood on the site near Pulford.
For the past eight years archaeologist Mike Emery and his team
of volunteers have unearthed the evidence.
Full story here
Six members of the Pogmore family are spending a week living in a Bronze Age roundhouse.
The experiment, organised by Carlton Television, is taking place at the Flag Fen Bronze Age visitor’s centre.
The Pogmores are dad Phil (38), mum Vickie (35), Keeley (19), Gavin (17), Phil (15), Claire (14), and 12-year-old twins Steven and Brendan.
They are living and sleeping in a roundhouse typical of the age.
August 19, 2003
Iron Age find is oldest brass
THE old northern motto “Where there’s muck there’s brass” has proved to be literally true down South as well: an Iron Age sword found in the Thames mud near Syon Park turns out to be decorated with the oldest brass in Britain.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, and was widely used by the Romans: the sword was at first thought to be Saxon, until Ian Stead of the British Museum identified its stamped decoration as dating to the Iron Age in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. Then Paul Cradock at the museum analysed the gold-coloured foil that covered the decorated areas, using X-ray fluorescence, and showed that it was not gold, but an 80:20 alloy of copper and zinc, the precise formula for brass.
Six other swords from this period have a similar “gold”-covered stamped ornament, which has been interpreted as either a maker’s or an owner’s mark. The mystery is, where did the brass come from?
It is difficult to make because of the volatility of zinc, but was used in Anatolia by the 3rd century BC for coins. One possibility is that one or more coins made their way from Turkey to Western Europe and were melted down, beaten into thin foil, and used by a Gaulish or even British swordsmith to enliven his creations.
From ‘The Times’ online, 19/8/03
August 18, 2003
A 2,000-year-old spoon, used for scooping out shellfish, has been discovered at the site of a Celtic village.
The tiny, copper alloy metal Romano British spoon, the handle of which is missing, was found by workmen at the Chysauster site, which is just three miles from Mounts Bay, near Penzance, Cornwall.
A similar spoon was found during recent excavations in Newquay, north Cornwall.
Cornwall County Council archaeologist Charlie Johns said the spoons would have had long, prong like handles to open shellfish.
“They are the only two such spoons to have been found in Cornwall, and could have been of local manufacture,” he said.
The Chysauster settlement of eight stone walled homesteads is one of the oldest in Britain.
Story filed Monday 18 August 2003 by Ananova
August 17, 2003
Ancient forger’s coin die found – The coin die was used to make Iron Age coins
An ancient British coin die – used to create the design on gold coins in the Iron Age – has been found in Hampshire.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/dorset/3156829.stm
August 15, 2003
If the link’s still working you can see them: do they have beaky faces like the Uffington horse? They’re facing the right way. Though horses do have to face one way or the other, I admit.
Hoard of golden coins found at dig site
August 14, 2003 08:20
By any stretch of the imagination, it is an unusual moneybox. But some 2000 years ago, this mud-filled end of a cow’s leg bone became the storage place for a hoard of Gallo Belgic Es gold coins, or staters, which date from around 60-50 BC.It has come to light just a few days before the end of the eighth season of the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP), which aims ultimately to build up a full history of the village, near Hunstanton.
Each summer sees a continuation of an extensive excavation of a Saxon cemetery in the valley of the Heacham River, which has so far unearthed around 200 skeletons and evidence of an Iron Age settlement.The discovery of the hoard by metal detectorist Kevin Woodward is being hailed as the most significant find in the dig’s history and is expected to generate considerable interest in the archaeological world.
“It was in a pit which we had followed down over several years, knowing we might get to something. It was underneath a whole mixture of later gullies cut during the medieval and Saxon periods, bearing in mind it’s in the area of our Saxon cemetery.“"They are in newly minted condition – they really look superb.”
also see the SHARP site:
sharp.org.uk/ironage/hoard.htm
August 14, 2003
Great.
From thisisoxfordshire.co.uk
Arsonists have destroyed the site headquarters of a major archeological dig in Oxfordshire.
The temporary building was set up next to Castle Hill, the site of an Iron Age fort at Wittenham Clumps -- where archaeologists are carrying out the first excavation of one of the two beech-capped hills at Little Wittenham.
Hugo Lamdin-Whymark, an Oxford Archaeology project officer, said the cabin was mainly used as a tea room and office for archaeologists and volunteers, who are excavating trenches at the hill fort site.
The fire happened between 5pm on Tuesday and 8am on August 13, when the smouldering remains of the building were discovered by a warden at the Northmoor Trust, which owns the Clumps.
Firefighters from Didcot attended. Ian Rowland-Hill, chief executive of the Northmoor Trust, described the fires as “wanton vandalism”.
August 13, 2003
Oetzi, the bronze age 'Ice man' reveals more secrets
The world’s oldest ice mummy has been hiding a violent and bloody secret that was only teased out of him by detective work on evidence 5,300 years old.
Read more here:
guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1017263,00.html
and here:
news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=433095
and here:
reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=3271231§ion=news
and also here:
portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/14/wotz14.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/14/ixworld.html