An Iron Age hillfort hidden under trees and foliage has been discovered with the help of “citizen scientists”.
Members of the Beacons of the Past group identified the site, in the Chiltern Hills, from digital survey images last year and the hillfort was verified on 6 August.
It is thought the circular site dates from the early Iron Age in England, between 800BC and 500BC.
Work will take place to preserve the site.
A metal detectorist was left “shaking with happiness” after discovering a hoard of Bronze Age artefacts in the Scottish Borders.
More info :
David Nash and his team of researchers believe the sarsens come from West Woods, south west of Marlborough, and 25km from the circle. They’ve geochemically matched the site using a chip from Stonehenge that was taken during a restoration project in the 1950s. Two of the fifty remaining stones at Stonehenge don’t match the West Woods site though...
Article on today’s Guardian website.
The research paper can be read here in Science Advances.
Five-thousand-year-old Neolithic tombs in Co Sligo are suffering damage and vandalism “on a scale never seen before” and will not survive unless action is taken immediately, archaeological experts have warned.
There are 75 passage tombs in Co Sligo, almost one-third of the estimated 240 in the State, according to the Sligo Neolithic Landscapes Group, which is pressing for the county’s Neolithic heritage to be deemed a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
Research teams believe they have found evidence of “absolutely huge” religious structures at Navan Fort outside Armagh city.
More info :
Snails have shown an ancient naked figure sculpted into a chalk hillside is unlikely to be prehistoric as hoped, archaeologists have said.
Tests of soil samples extracted from Dorset’s Cerne Abbas Giant to determine its exact age have been delayed by the coronavirus epidemic.
They are not due until later in the year.
However, land snail shells found in the samples suggest it may date to medieval times, separate tests have found.
Take an archaeologist, a bored schoolgirl living through coronavirus lockdown, and a shared interest in exploring ancient tombs.
More info :
Archaeologists have discovered a ring of prehistoric shafts, dug thousands of years ago near Stonehenge.
Fieldwork has revealed evidence of a 1.2 mile (2km) wide circle of large shafts measuring more than 10m in diameter and 5m in depth.
They surround the ancient settlement of Durrington Walls, two miles (3km) from Stonehenge.
Tests suggest the ground works are Neolithic and were excavated more than 4,500 years ago.
Experts believe the 20 or more shafts may have served as a boundary to a sacred area connected to the henge.
A team of academics from the universities of St Andrews, Birmingham, Warwick, Glasgow and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David worked on the project
A survey of ancient Irish genomes has found evidence that the parents of an adult male buried in the heart of the Newgrange passage tomb were first-degree relatives.
The research of the male’s genome suggests that he was among a ruling social elite which is similar to the inbred Inca god-kings and Egyptian pharaohs.
The study, which was led by archaeologists and geneticists from Trinity College Dublin, focused on the earliest periods of Ireland’s human history.
The team conducted a painstaking genetic analysis of the ancient bones of 44 individuals recovered from all the major Irish burial traditions court tombs, portal tombs, passage tombs and other natural sites.
Famous for the annual winter solstice, little is known about who was buried in the heart of the Newgrange passage tomb which was built over 5,000 years ago.
“Serious” damage to a scheduled ancient monument in Derbyshire is being investigated by police.
The prehistoric Doll Tor stone circle, near Birchover in the Peak District, was targeted some time in the past few days.
Sam Grimshaw, who discovered the damage, said he was “very angry” when he found some smaller stones had been moved and several fires had been set.
Historic England has appealed to anyone with information to contact police.
Mr Grimshaw said he found stones had been moved to build a fire pit and for a seat, while other fires had been set.............
Nice piece on the excavations at another major Pictish site
It will come as no surprise – car parks, Red Lion and all facilities will be closed and over the Solstice. For anyone wanting a solitary walk, the 49 bus from Swindon and Devizes is still running a 2 hourly service (face masks and hand sanitizer not supplied).
heritageaction.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/avebury-closed-for-summer-solstice/
Also applies to Stonehenge.
A hillfort in Aberdeenshire is one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland, researchers have said.
More info :
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-52660032
Conference hears many more discoveries could be made at archaelogical site
An underwater archaeological reconnaissance of the bed of the River Boyne near the Brú na Bóinne complex in Co Meath has revealed features that may represent log boats or man-made quays, a research conference was told on Saturday.
The sonar study, carried out by Annalisa Christie of University College Dublin and Dr Kieran Westley of University of Ulster, surveyed 10km of the river from Oldbridge to a weir 1.8km east of Slane Bridge.
Christie told the conference, titled The Pleasant Boyne and organised by the UCD school of archaeology as part of its world heritage programme, that it was likely that for the first visitors to this landscape, the river provided the easiest way to travel, offering an accessible route through a largely wooded landscape. As such, it represented a major communications artery, not just for local visitors but also connecting communities in the area to those from farther afield, such as Wales or even Orkney.
The once monumental final resting place of a probable prehistoric chieftain and, potentially, his shaman has been discovered in southwest England.
It’s one of the most fascinating archaeological discoveries in southern Britain in recent years. Significantly, the duo formed part of a remarkable social and political process which changed human history – and still shapes our world today.
The probable chieftain or prestigious leader – a man in his thirties or forties – had been interred underneath the centre of a large funerary mound which had been constructed specifically for him inside his own personal 20m diameter ditched enclosure.
Note: It would be interesting to pinpoint this site near a confluence of four rivers..
By Michael Le Page
A piece of 50,000-year-old string found in a cave in France is the oldest ever discovered. It suggests that Neanderthals knew how to twist fibres together to make cords – and, if so, they might have been able to craft ropes, clothes, bags and nets.
“None can be done without that initial step,” says Bruce Hardy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. “Twisted fibres are a foundational technology.”
His team has been excavating the Abri du Maras caves in south-east France where Neanderthals lived for long periods. Three metres below today’s surface, in a layer that is between 52,000 and 41,000 years old, it found a stone flake, a sharp piece of rock used as an early stone tool.
Examining the flake under a microscope revealed that a tiny piece of string (pictured top right), just 6 millimetres long and 0.5 millimetres wide, was stuck to its underside. It was made by twisting a bundle of fibres in an anticlockwise direction, known as an S-twist. Three bundles were twisted together in a clockwise direction – a Z-twist – to make a 3-ply cord.
“It is exactly what you would see if you picked up a piece of string today,” says Hardy. The string wasn’t necessarily used to attach the stone tool to a handle. It could have been part of a bag or net, the team speculates.
Plans to dig a two-mile (3.2km) road tunnel near Stonehenge have been given the go ahead by the chancellor.
The A303, which often suffers from severe congestion, currently passes within a few hundred metres of the ancient monument.
The plan is to build a dual carriageway alternative out of sight of the World Heritage site but it is opposed by some archaeologists and environmentalists.
Rishi Sunak told the commons: “This government’s going to get it done.”
... Rogue 4x4 drivers are blamed.
AVEBURY is leading the charge to get damaged byways fixed and protected.
Routes around the village, and the nearby ancient historic site of Windmill Hill are now so badly damaged that they have become impassable.
Rogue 4 x 4 enthusiasts – some who travel from as far afield as Germany to drive some of Wiltshire’s 695km of by ways – are being blamed for the damage.
The campaign is being supported by the countryside charity CPRE. Anne Henshaw, the Wiltshire representative said:
“I am trying to form a charity/community not for profit group of parishes and other interested parties to set up something similar to the Cotswold Warden scheme,” she said.
This could see some of the byways closed to traffic at certain times of the year to protect them from heavy traffic use.
Stephen Stacey, chairman of Avebury Parish Council said:
“These by ways are for everyone’s use, but the actions of a few selfish people have made them inaccessible.
“We would like interested parties like ramblers, horse and bike riders and other local authorities to work together, and perhaps work with Wiltshire Council to see if we can come up with a solution between us.”
Some of the byways are so badly damaged that tree roots are exposed, and the ruts are more than two feet deep in places.
Solutions, he said, could include a volunteer force using council equipment and materials to make repairs as he says cut backs at Wiltshire Council are to blame for the disrepair.
Contd.
Chauvet Cave: a 36,000-year-old art gallery, normally closed to the public, opens to everyone through immersive tech
Gold bulla is described as one of the most important bronze age finds of the last century
The British Museum has acquired a shimmering 3,000-year-old gold sun pendant heralded as one of the most important bronze age finds of the last century.
The astonishingly well-preserved pendant, or bulla, was discovered by a metal detector enthusiast in Shropshire in 2018.
Neil Wilkin, the museum’s bronze age curator, recalled dropping everything when he first saw it. “I was absolutely flabbergasted, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. “To me it is the most important object from this period, the first age of metal, that has come up in about 100 years.”
The pendant has been purchased for £250,000 using money from the Art Fund and the American Friends of the British Museum.
More: theguardian.com/culture/2020/mar/04/british-museum-acquires-3000-year-old-shropshire-sun-pendant
By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
Researchers have described the first “articulated” remains of a Neanderthal to be discovered in a decade.
An articulated skeleton is one where the bones are still arranged in their original positions.
The new specimen was uncovered at Shanidar Cave in Iraq and consists of the upper torso and crushed skull of a middle-aged to older adult.
Excavations at Shanidar in the 1950s and 60s unearthed partial remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women and children.
During these earlier excavations, archaeologists found that some of the burials were clustered together, with clumps of pollen surrounding one of the skeletons.
The researcher who led those original investigations, Ralph Solecki from Columbia University in New York, claimed it was evidence that Neanderthals had buried their dead with flowers.
This “flower burial” captured the imagination of the public and kicked off a decades-long controversy. The floral interpretation suggested our evolutionary relatives were capable of cultural sophistication, challenging the view – prevalent at the time – that Neanderthals were unintelligent and animalistic.
Martin Bushell spotted the 5,600-year-old skull fragment digging in the muddy banks of the Thames
A human skull from the Neolithic era has been put on display at the Museum of London.
But the incredibly rare specimen wasn’t found in some elaborate archaeological dig. The skull was unearthed by a sharp-eyed mudlarker strolling the banks of the River Thames.
“When I first saw it, I thought it was a pot that might have been upside down — like a ceramic pot,” Martin Bushell told As It Happens host Carol Off. “It looked more like a crab shell.”
Mudlarkers are amateur archeologists who scour the banks of the Thames at low tide for treasure and historic artifacts. The tradition dates back to the Victorian era.
Archaeologists are planning an ambitious survey of part of the seabed off Jersey where Neanderthals once lived.
The site is part-exposed during spring low tide, giving the team a four-hour window to dig while the sea is out.
Stone tools and mammoth remains have been recovered from the Violet Bank over the years.
