Stone Age carved wooden post found at Rhondda Wind Farm ..
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23349783
Latest News
July 17, 2013
July 15, 2013
Mesolithic calendar discovered in Aberdeenshire field
July 9, 2013
New discoveries of cave art in the Caribbean
Jago Cooper, curator, British Museum
At the end of May, I returned to the British Museum from an exploratory research visit to an uninhabited national park on the island of Mona in Puerto Rico. My colleague Dr Alice Samson, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and I had found more than we planned or expected when we flew to the Caribbean two weeks earlier.
blog.britishmuseum.org/2013/07/09/new-discoveries-of-cave-art-in-the-caribbean/
July 8, 2013
Volunteer army drafted to map every ancient hill fort
Archaeologists are drafting a volunteer army to help map every ancient hill fort across Britain and Ireland.
It is part of a project to create an online atlas of around 5,000 of these Iron Age monuments.
Prehistory enthusiasts are being asked to identify and record features such as ramparts, ditches and entrances.
Prof Ian Lock, of Oxford University, said: “We want to shed new light on why they were created and how they were used.”
Despite their large numbers there has been little academic work on hill forts, how they were used and how they varied across Britain and Ireland, the researchers say.
Prof Lock, who has studied and excavated a number of the forts in England, said that despite their name archaeological evidence suggests they were not primarily used for military purposes.
“We have found pottery, metalwork and evidence of domestic activities like spinning and weaving, also of agriculture, crops like wheat and barley and of keeping pigs, sheep and cattle,” he told BBC News.
Researchers believe they may have been meeting places for religious festivals or market days.
The oldest hill forts are in Ireland and Wales and are up to 3,000 years old. Many were abandoned after the Romans arrived in Britain, but in areas that the Romans did not occupy they were used for longer.
The research team want information not only on well-preserved forts but also on sites where only crop marks indicate their existence. The idea is to build a free online database.
“We are hoping that local archaeology societies will get involved,” said Prof Lock.
Citizen science
“Rather than going to a hill fort on your own, it would be better, with a group of people, to talk about what you are looking at, which should make it easier to identify the various details,” he said.
Segsbury Camp hill fort Segsbury Camp, in Oxfordshire, has large ramparts around it but others only exist as crop marks
Dr Jon Murden, director of the Dorset museum in Dorchester, which is owned and run by the county’s natural history and archaeological society, told BBC News: “We would love to be involved.
“There are at least 50 hill forts to explore and understand on the South Dorset Ridgeway alone.”
Volunteers will be able to feed information on their local hill fort into an online form on the Atlas of Hillforts project website from Monday.
“We are keen to see what the citizen science approach may reveal,” said Prof Ian Ralston, of Edinburgh University, the project co-director.
“We hope that the public, including archaeological societies, will get behind this project as it should lead to the discovery of new sites and new information about sites that are considered to be well known. We expect the results of this project to change our vision of these iconic monuments.”
The four-year project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The maps will be freely available to the public, searchable by region and linked to Google Earth to show the hillforts in the context of the landscape.
July 6, 2013
continues 10 July with Rock Art Writ Large – 4 wednesdays in July – 17 July 3D icons – 24 July Ogham in 3D.
Visitor Centre, Hill of Tara, Meath – start 8pm
Free admission
June 28, 2013
English Heritage has been given £80m in the government’s Spending Review as part of plans for the organisation to become a charity. Some of the £80m awarded by the government will help to set up the charity so it will be fully operational by March 2015.
Plans have been unveiled for another Stonehenge stone circle to be built in Wiltshire using different-coloured stones from around the world.
June 27, 2013
Vandals who daubed a Bronze Age stone in the Brecon Beacons National Park with a smiley face have been criticised.
The 3.7m (12ft) Maen Llia standing stone is recognised as a site of national archaeological importance.
It is likely that the stone was erected in the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age between 2500 and 1800BC.
The graffiti is being removed from the stone which is situated between Heol Senni and Ystradfellte.
Removal will be carried out between the national park authority, landowners and the Welsh government’s historic environment service Cadw.
Natalie Ward, heritage officer for Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, said: “The heritage of the national park is the legacy left to us by our ancestors and it contains a wealth of information about past peoples and their lives.
Causing damage to a scheduled ancient monument is a criminal offence, and the graffiti at Maen Llia has been reported to Dyfed-Powys Police
June 24, 2013
Work to permanently close a main road running alongside Stonehenge has started.
June 15, 2013
Thursday 5th September 2013 2.15 pm
Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham SN15 3QN
An insight into two of the richest archaeological sites in the country. This talk will help you explore these ancient landscapes and celebrate their contribution to our understanding of our prehistoric ancestors. Limited 30 people
Admission £3.50 (concessions £2.50). Spaces are limited so please buy your ticket in advance. Telephone 01249 705500 or visit our Help Desk at the History Centre. (Payment by credit/debit card or cheque available for the purchase of 2 or more tickets).
Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham SN15 3QN
Ever wondered what the county archaeology team based in the History Centre does?
Curious to take a tour of the Conservation Labs upstairs?
Maybe you would like to find out about recent excavations, hoards and the work of local archaeology field units?
The Archaeology and Conservation Fair on Sunday 14th July at the History Centre is a fantastic FREE event with stands from 20 local archaeological organisations and a programme of free 10 minute talks that will tell you all about archaeology in the county.
Open from 11am to 4pm, the fair includes stands from Wiltshire’s museums, Wessex archaeology, the National Trust and English Heritage. There will be plenty to interest visitors of all ages, including information on courses, volunteering, and fieldwork. Younger visitors will enjoy making their own Stonehenge, trying out a sandpit dig, handling a range of real objects and finding out about the Young Archaeologists clubs running in Wiltshire and Swindon. The ten minute talks’ programme will run throughout the day and includes talks on the First World War project, Finding the Forgotten, the conservation of a large Romano-British pot found in Highworth, recent surveys, excavations and the discovery of 2 important early iron age hoards. Please see the full talks programme for times of individual talks. Tours of the conservation labs will run all day and you can visit the county archaeology service to find out about their work and see the Historic Environment Register demonstrated.
For further information on this event see the History Centre events page
June 8, 2013
William Stukeley, Saviour of Stonehenge exhibition, opens tomorrow (9 June) at Hartland Abbey, Hartland, Bideford, North Devon and runs until 6 October.
Details here – hartlandabbey.co.uk/exhibition.htm and here – thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/exhibition-William-Stukeley-goes-display-Hartland/story-19271727-detail/story.html#axzz2WArN9bxi
June 4, 2013
This site is about two miles from Flag Fen and it is where the boats will end up for conservation work. Probably ties up with Rhiannon’s news. (Most news is old news)
3,000-year-old fleet discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough
A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough.
The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. One is covered inside and out with decorative carving described by conservator Ian Panter as looking “as if they’d been playing noughts and crosses all over it”. Another has handles carved from the oak tree trunk for lifting it out of the water. One still floated after 3,000 years and one has traces of fires lit on the wide flat deck on which the catch was evidently cooked.
Several had ancient repairs, including clay patches and an extra section shaped and pinned in where a branch was cut away. They were preserved by the waterlogged silt in the bed of a long-dried-up creek, a tributary of the river Nene, which buried them deep below the ground.
“There was huge excitement over the first boat, and then they were phoning the office saying they’d found another, and another, and another, until finally we were thinking, ‘Come on now, you’re just being greedy,’” Panter said.
The boats were deliberately sunk into the creek, as several still had slots for transoms – boards closing the stern of the boat – which had been removed.
Archaeologists are struggling to understand the significance of the find. Whatever the custom meant to the bronze age fishermen and hunters who lived in the nearby settlement, it continued for centuries. The team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit is still waiting for the results of carbon 14 dating tests, but believes the oldest boats date from around 1,600 BC and the most recent 600 years later.
They already knew the creek had great significance – probably as a rich source of fish and eels – as in previous seasons at the Much Farm site they had found ritual deposits of metalwork, including spears.
The boats themselves may have been ritual offerings, or may have been sunk for more pragmatic reasons, to keep the timber waterlogged and prevent it from drying out and splitting when not in use – but in that case it seems strange that such precious objects were never retrieved.
Some of the boats were made from huge timbers, including one from an oak which must have had a metre-thick trunk and stood up to 20 metres tall. This would have been a rare specimen as sea levels rose and the terrain became more waterlogged, creating the Fenland landscape of marshes, creeks and islands of gravel.
“Either this was the Bermuda Triangle for bronze age boats, or there is something going on here that we don’t yet understand,” Panter said.
Kerry Murrell, the site director, said: “Some show signs of long use and repair – but others are in such good condition they look as if you could just drop the transom board back in and paddle away.”
The boats were all nicknamed by the team, including Debbie – made of lime wood, and therefore deemed a blonde – and French Albert the Fifth Musketeer, the fifth boat found. Murrell’s favourite is Vivienne, a superb piece of craftsmanship where the solid oak was planed down with bronze tools to the thickness of a finger, still so light and buoyant that when their trench filled with rainwater, they floated it into its cradle for lifting and transportation.
Because the boats were in such striking condition, they have been lifted intact and transported two miles, in cradles of scaffolding poles and planks, for conservation work at the Flag Fen archaeology site – where a famous timber causeway contemporary with the boats was built up over centuries until it stretched foralmost a mile across the fens.
“My first thought was to deal with them in the usual way, by chopping them into more manageably sized chunks, but when I actually saw them they just looked so nice, I thought we had to find another way,” Panter, an expert on waterlogged timber from York Archaeological Trust, said. “I think if I’d arrived on the site with a chainsaw, the team would have strung me up.”
Must Farm, now a quarry owned by Hanson UK, which has funded the excavation, has already yielded a wealth of evidence of prehistoric life, including a settlement built on a platform partly supported by stilts in the water, where artefacts including fabrics woven from wool, flax and nettles were found. Instead of living as dry-land hunters and farmers, the people had become experts at fishing: one eel trap found near the boats is identical to those still used by Peter Carter, the last traditional eel fisherman in the region.
The boats will be on display from Wednesday at Flag Fen, viewed through windows in a container chilled to below 5c – funded with a £100,000 grant from English Heritage which regards their discovery as of outstanding importance – built within a barn at the site. At the moment conservation technician Emma Turvey, dressed in layers of winter clothes, is spending up to eight hours a day spraying the timbers to keep them waterlogged and remove any potentially decaying impurities. They will then be impregnated with a synthetic wax, polyethylene glycol, before being gradually dried out over the next two years for permanent display.
Murrell is convinced there is more to be found down in the silt.
“The creek continued outside the boundaries of the quarry, so it’s off our site – but the next person who gets a chance to investigate will find more boats, I can almost guarantee it.”
guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/04/eight-prehistoric-boats-bronze-age
June 1, 2013
A 235ft (72m) chalk carving cut into the hillside near Eastbourne in East Sussex is to be restored by scouts.
May 20, 2013
Ancient skeletons have been found on a Mansell house-building site near Stonehenge in Wiltshire.
“Six Saxon skeletons dating back more than 1,000 years and round barrows dating back to the Bronze Age 4,000 years ago have been discovered on a brownfield development site in Amesbury”
theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/skeletons-found-on-mansell-site
May 10, 2013
Human remains and seven earthen vessels dating back to the Bronze Age Beaker settlers were uncovered by Scottish Water at Duns Law.
More info :
May 8, 2013
A druid leader is calling for fake, rather than real, human remains to be put on display at Stonehenge.
May 7, 2013
Megalithomania next Weekend 18th-19th May
Megalithomania Conference, May 18th – 19th 2013, Glastonbury, UK – What were the ancients up to? Grab the last few tickets now at megalithomania.co.uk
- Featuring Robert Schoch Ph.D, Andrew Collins, Euan MacKie, Hugh Newman, Maria Wheatley & many more
- Five days of tours to sacred sites, including private access to Stonehenge
- After the conference on the Sunday night is the ‘Bardic Chair of Ynys Witrin’ Finals
- Extra Monday night lecture with Robert Schoch
- ‘Mystic Rose’ sacred geometry art exhibition by Stephen Meakin
- Join us for seven days, or just the weekend conference, or pop in for individual talks
- Experience the beautiful, mystical town of Glastonbury, the Abbey, the Tor and much more.
“So was Megalithomania worth the trip? Too right it was! Once again Hugh and his crew gave us a weekend of education, re-evaluation and entertainment.”
“As ever, the Megalithomania conference, proved to be a high-quality presentation of the latest research into alternative archaeology, archeoastronomy, sacred geography and magical mindscapes. Nothing less than a paradigm-shifting experience.”
May 6, 2013
Three Neolithic-style huts have been built at Old Sarum to learn more about how the builders of Stonehenge lived:-
April 26, 2013
Roy Goutte writes -
“On the 16th April I joined a working party from TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) of Cornwall to clear some of the gorse off the banked enclosure known as King Arthur’s Hall on King Arthur’s Down, a part of Bodmin Moor. Always a fascinating place to visit, the day turned out to be far more exciting than I ever imagined!”
More here – theheritagetrust.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/king-arthurs-hall-a-new-discovery/
April 24, 2013
THE new Stonehenge visitor centre is taking shape, and Wiltshire residents are being invited to take a tour of the site at Airman’s Corner
salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/10370784.Chance_to_tour_Stonehenge_visitor_centre/
Archaeology: A Secret History
Archaeology: A Secret History. Episode one: In the Beginning.
Reviewing in the 27 April-3 May edition of The Radio Times, Gill Crawford writes -
“Archaeology isn’t a new, rigidly scientific discipline. According to Dr Richard Miles (presenter of 2010’s Ancient Worlds), the first person to set out to dig up the past was the Emperor Constantine’s aged mother Helena, who searched the Near East in the early fourth century for physical evidence of the life and death of Christ.
“Richard Miles charts the history of archaeological breakthroughs in a mission to understand the ancient past. In the first programme [the first of three], he explores how the profession began by trying to prove a biblical truth.”
The series begins Tuesday, 30 April from 9:00-10pm on BBC4 television. More here radiotimes.com/episode/wfnkr/archaeology-a-secret-history--series-1---1-in-the-beginning
April 23, 2013
Making of Europe unlocked by DNA
DNA sequenced from nearly 40 ancient skeletons has shed light on the complex prehistoric events that shaped modern European populations.
More...
A geophysics image produced for an investigation at Redland in the parish of Firth of a site occupied ~3300-2000BCE clearly shows a boundary around round houses, and this wall/ditch has been compared by those concerned with the Great Wall at the Ness of Brodgar in the parish of Stenness.
orkneyarchaeologysociety.org.uk/index.php/features/redlands-investigtion
April 19, 2013
Bravo! Great work by David Jacques and his team.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-22183130
telegraph.co.uk/history/10004598/Stonehenge-occupied-5000-years-earlier-than-previously-thought.html