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Extracts from an article published in the Independent on 29th August 2006:

The discovery of European corpses thousands of miles away suggests a hitherto unknown connection between East and West in the Bronze Age.

Solid as a warrior of the Caledonii tribe, the man’s hair is reddish brown flecked with grey, framing high cheekbones, a long nose, full lips and a ginger beard. When he lived three thousand years ago, he stood six feet tall, and was buried wearing a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. He looks like a Bronze Age European. In fact, he’s every inch a Celt. Even his DNA says so.

But this is no early Celt from central Scotland. This is the mummified corpse of Cherchen Man, unearthed from the scorched sands of the Taklamakan Desert in the far-flung region of Xinjiang in western China, and now housed in a new museum in the provincial capital of Urumqi.

Read the full article...

The Prime Minister is being urged to step in to decide on the future of traffic around Stonehenge.
The RAC has written to Tony Blair, asking him to get personally involved after a series of u-turns and delay.

The motoring foundation favours putting the A303 through a 1.3-mile tunnel, bored into the Wiltshire countryside.

The scheme was recommended after a public inquiry, but was put on hold by the Department for Transport when its costs rose to £510m.

In his letter to Mr Blair, RAC Foundation chairman David Holmes said: “Only you have the authority to cut through departmental inertia and get some action.”

A long-awaited visitor centre and rail link for the ancient site cannot go ahead until the government has sanctioned the road improvements.

Mr Holmes added: “Because the cost estimate for the scheme rose to £510m, the Department for Transport insisted on re-examining some of the options which the public inquiry ruled out.

“This is a backwards step, as any of these alternatives would have to be the subject of further consultation and full public inquiries. None could start for a decade or more.”

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/5284486.stm

From an article published on the BBC News web site on 24th August 2006:

Archaeologists working on a gas pipeline near Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire have unearthed what they believe to be a 3,400-year-old canoe.

Work has stopped on a section of the pipeline near St Botolphs to allow the Bronze Age oak relic to be recovered.

It is the first such discovery in Wales and only 150 exist across Europe.

Read the full article...

In adjunct to Rhiannon’s post below, some details of Dr Pettitt and his team’s discoveries in the paleolithic strata of Creswell Crags, are availble from the 24hr museum here

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/5270594.stm

A heatwave has revealed fleeting traces of early settlements to historians taking a bird’s eye view of Scotland. The conditions this summer have proved ideal for aerial archaeologists who document the buried sites, which appear in ripening crops or scorched grass. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland said it was one of the best in its 30 years.

Discoveries have included various prehistoric settlements and much more detail at two major Roman forts. Dave Cowley, the aerial survey manager at the RCAHMS, said the findings, across the Scottish lowlands, were significant and helped build a picture of where people had lived. “We’ve been finding archaeological sites that haven’t been productive in the past and that’s because of the extreme conditions,” he said.

Crops that lie directly above buried features ripen at a different rate from the rest of the field when it is dry, producing “crop marks”. Similar markings also form in grass as it parches in the sun.

Mr Cowley said: “Bits of the Borders, some of the Cheviot foothills, parts of Fife and the Moray Plain have produced previously unknown sites. Town Yetholm through to Morebattle have been producing material, which is parched out in grass. We have seen various types of prehistoric settlements usually as circular or rectangular enclosures and burial sites.”

According to Mr Cowley, the aerial archaeologists have also been able to see patterns across the whole expanse of the Roman forts at Newstead in the Borders and Carpow in Fife. This has helped to build on the knowledge gained from small, detailed excavations.

“The sites that have been absolutely spectacular visually are two of our Roman forts,” he said. “Newstead Roman Fort has shown better this year than it’s shown since the 1940s. The line of the fort wall, the ditches and even details like the towers on either side of one of the gateways can be seen. You can also see the arrangement of all the internal roads inside the fort, the possible positions of bread ovens and other internal features. And at Carpow you’re seeing raised pits and internal features.”

The RCAHMS aerial survey has undertaken about 1,000 flights, using a four-seater Cessna aircraft from its base in Edinburgh, and it has produced more than 100,000 images of the country since 1976. The pictures have significantly improved the historical information about areas where thousands of years of agriculture have levelled and hidden the remains of earlier settlements. The information can also prove crucial to planners when considering sites for new developments such as housing or major pipe routes.

.. extra features are now under discussion following news of the £65,000 grant, part of a national £4m payout for museum improvements by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Wolfson Foundation.

Area museums officer Robin Hanley said there were hopes of setting up a replica of the original structure, which was built in the spring or early summer of 2049BC.

“Obviously we are going to display about half of the original timbers but we felt it was important that people had a way to actually feel what it would have been like to walk into the circle,” he explained. “What survives is only very fragmented.

“The current plan is to have, effectively, a complete circle in the centre of the gallery, one half of which will be the original timbers and the other will be a full-size replica.”

A audio-visual display will show the dramatic change in the landscape around Seahenge from the Bronze Age, when it formed part of an inland farming community, to the shifting sands which revealed it to the world as the 20th century drew to a close.

There are also plans for an interactive interpretation, particularly aimed at children, charting the step-by-step progress of the timbers from their harvest in a local wood to their assembly into the circle, and to provide a resource centre offering a range of in-depth additional information about the Seahenge story as a whole.

“It’s obviously very good news that we got this additional funding,” said Dr Hanley. “While the core funding for the display is already there in terms of of the grant we obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the funding we have received from Norfolk County Council, this additional funding will enable us to provide some extra resources in the gallery, which will help people get the most from their visit.

The Seahenge display, which will form part of a wider exhibition about the history of West Norfolk, is due to open to the public next summer.

“Although we’ve only got temporary exhibitions for this year, we’ve been hugely encouraged by the levels of people coming through,” said Dr Hanley.

The museum is offering free admission this year.

Taken from the article at the EDP
snipurl.com/v4iq

gazettelive.co.uk/news/news/tm_objectid=17559391%26method=full%26siteid=109975-name_page.html

“Scottish Archaeology Month is CSA’s flagship public initiative that celebrates Scotland’s rich archaeological heritage through a diverse programme of free events staged locally. Held every September, it aims to make archaeology more accessible to the wider public and encourage awareness, understanding and appreciation of Scotland’s archeology, as well as providing a focus for local and national archaeology.”

Scottish Archaeology Month

We are all African:

news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1218427.ece

Sheffield archaeologists are working with the British museum at Creswell Crags for the next two weeks, in the first major investigation at the site since the 1920s. Church Hole was excavated in the 1870s – the archaeologists will be examining the Victorian spoil heap outside the cave entrance, which will be full of vital clues to the lives of the people and animals that used the cave during the Ice Age. The museum will be running a series of activities including regular tours to the site.

summarised from the article at
sheffieldtoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=58&ArticleID=1682947

Interesting excavations have been made at Two-Mile-Borris, near the river behind Black Castle. A large central structure with surrounding huts has been discovered – houses for a chieftain and his family? There also seems to be evidence of some Iron Age technology – a water irrigation system. There are also fulachta fia, wood-lined cooking pits which are usually found near water. A cremation area and graves have also been unearthed.

The settlement has been revealed as part of excavation on the Thurles link road, part of the N8 Cullohill to Cashel motorway project. But of course, the road must prevail and although local Dail deputy, Michael Lowry, said the find “is of huge important historical and archaeological significance for the area” he then added that it would not “in any way hinder progress on the link road”. What a relief, eh.

Landowner Pierce Duggan was suitably amazed and said he was “certainly not aware that a find of such significance was on his doorstep”.

But since the announcements, another archaeologist has disputed there’s anything exciting there at all, as you can read at
tipperarytoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=3162&ArticleID=1698822

Summarised from the article at
tipperarytoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=3162&ArticleID=1685756

From an item published on the BBC News web site on 8th August 2006:

Hot weather has produced parched landscapes which have allowed experts to detect the outlines of some of Wales’ earliest buildings...

See the aerial photos, including an image of the newly discovered circular enclosure and barrow near Aberystwyth.

From an article published on the BBC News web site on 6th August 2006:

Archaeologists excavating an Iron Age farmstead in west Wales say the site may have been home to “several families” as early as 200 BC.

After two weeks’ digging at the 2,000-year-old plot, the team have uncovered the remains of a circular house together with pits and postholes.

Other buildings found last year appear to have been surrounded by two large protective ditches and banks.

The site, near Tremain, Ceredigion, is open to the public on Sunday 6 August.

Read the full article...

The actions of a domestic cat have thrown up a new theory about ancient stone burial cairns in Caithness.
Archaeologists built a mock-up of the structures as part of an experiment.

Emma Sanderson, of Caithness Archaeology Trust, said it was found that a dead rabbit had been left in the replica by a cat.

She said it could mean that animal bones found in real cairns were not the remains of ceremonial offerings, as thought, but left by other creatures.

Archaeologists built reconstructions of burial cairns and ancient towers called brochs as part of a series of research projects and excavations carried out in Caithness over the summer.

Prince Charles, who is on holiday at Castle of Mey, visited the ruins of a broch near Keiss this week.

A team from Nottingham University also dived to a number of wrecks off the Caithness coast, including one thought to be a World War I German warship.

The archaeologists are now analysing their field work, including new insights into cairns.

“One day a couple of weeks ago a dead rabbit was laid out in the cairn. It had been placed there by a cat,” said Ms Sanderson.

She said it was previously thought that animal remains found in actual cairns were left as ceremonial offerings.

However, the cat’s dead rabbit has provided a new theory that they had been killed by other animals years after the cairn had fallen into disrepair.

Another theory about cairns may also have been exploded after archaeologists knocked down their mock-up.

It was noted that the stones collapsed in a pattern previously thought to be evidence of ceremonial closing of the cairn.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/5245956.stm

A Neolithic cairn discovered on Lewis could force a controversial wind-farm plan to be redrawn.

Leisure tycoon Nicholas Oppenheim plans to build a 53- turbine wind farm at his Eisgein Estate on the island, but the presence of the cairn could help prove the site was “sacred land” to the prehistoric people who built the famous Callanish standing stones about 12 miles away.

The site lies on a range of hills within the proposed development area known as Cailleach na Mointeach (the Old Woman of the Moors) because the skyline resembles the profile of a woman when viewed from Callanish.

Every 18 and a half years, the Moon rises from her knees – as if being “born” – and then sets at a point framed by the 4,000-year-old stones. Several of the 53 turbines planned by Mr Oppenheim’s Beinn Mhor Power company would interrupt this skyline.

Ian McHardy, an archaeologist, said his discovery of the cairn near the Old Woman’s knees meant the site should be protected. “There’s a five-metre diameter cairn with a curve round the edge of it, which is of typical neolithic construction,” he said.

Mr Oppenheim said: “If there is something, it would be fascinating and the scheme would be amended. But I’d like to hear more about what it is.”

This article: news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1123522006

Sigurd’s report on the latest doings (including a house contemporary with the Knap of Howar) with twa photos orkneyjar.com/archaeology/knowes2006.htm

C14 dates for burials at the Knowe of Skea (HY44SW 2) on the edge of Berst Ness [HY44SW 3] push back the age of these from Viking to 200BCE-400ACE. Many of them (mostly children) consisted of bagged bodies dropped vertically into spaces created by removing material from the structures’ walls. Article with photo on Sigurd’s site orkneyjar.com/archaeology/knoweskea2006.htm

Evidence of a prehistoric causeway has been uncovered during flood defence work on the marshes of Suffolk.
Contractors working on the Environment Agency’s excavation of a new dyke on Beccles town marshes found timber remains which had been hand-sculpted.

Archaeologists said the wooden causeway was used from the Bronze Age in about 1000BC, through the Iron Age to Roman times and the 4th century AD.

The site will now be analysed and dated with the results published this year.

Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham and Suffolk County Council Archaeological Field Services Team were called in to investigate the find.

Results suggest the more than 2,624ft (800m) long wooden causeway may have run from dry land on the edge of Beccles, across a swamp to a spot on the River Waveney.

A 98ft-long (30m) section of the causeway has been recorded with more than 40 in-situ timber posts uncovered.

The 16ft-wide (5m) causeway would have carried carts and was the Bronze Age equivalent of a motorway.

The wet conditions of the site mean that organic material such as wood has been well preserved.

Jane Sidell, from English Heritage, said: “This is the first such structure to have been discovered within Suffolk, and is one of only a few in Britain, and as such is a nationally important find.

“It gives us an excellent opportunity to examine ancient, possibly ritual, use of the marshland, and how the marshes have developed over time.”

Dr Henry Chapman, from the University of Birmingham, said: “You have got a causeway which has been used for a tremendous amount of time, which is unique – we haven’t got something like that.

“It has been added to over time to preserve it, which shows its importance to early Beccles.”

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/5241084.stm

Rain grounded an airborne celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of the first aerial photographs of Stonehenge.
A balloon carrying photographers was due to fly over the ancient Wiltshire landmark to recapture images taken in 1906 by Lieutenant Philip Henry Sharpe.

But the poor weather on Salisbury Plain on Tuesday forced the balloon to remain grounded.

English Heritage later provided aerial pictures taken from a balloon over Stonehenge earlier this year.

Archaeological benefits

Lt Sharpe was a member of the Royal Engineers’ Balloon Section – precursor to the Royal Flying Corps and later the RAF – when he took the first aerial shots.

The images helped with the discovery of other earthworks around the stones.

Stonehenge’s chief archaeologist Dave Batchelor said: “Aerial photography is most useful in helping us understand the human use and development of the landscape around Stonehenge.”

Aerial views of Stonehenge taken 100 years ago are on display at Stonehenge until 7 August.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/5234914.stm

Raising the stakes

TARMAC Northern’s submission of a revised planning application to quarry land near the Thornborough henges ancient monument site increases the stakes in this long-running saga.

The company has already appealed against North Yorkshire County Council’s refusal of the original application to quarry 45 hectares. This new application – for 31 hectares – is Tarmac’s tactical fall-back position. If it can’t have the whole site, seeking permission for a lesser area may be a means of dealing with some of the conservation/archaeological objections. It perhaps is also a signal of the company’s intention to take this battle to the next stage – a legal one – should the Government planning inspector dismiss Tarmac’s appeal.

The pressure is unquestionably stepped up on the county council, which will in due course decide whether to grant the revised application permission. That process will once more concentrate minds on the status of the setting of the henges and to what extent it is critical to the henge complex as a whole. Does the removal of 14
hectares of farmland closest to one of the three henges make a difference to archaeologists who say the monuments are more than the three circular earthworks and that the surrounding landscape is just as important if we are to understand their significance?
continued...

Our understanding of the concerns of the county council and English Heritage is that those 14 hectares will not make a great deal of difference to the conservation argument which, taken to its limit, suggests that an even wider area, including the Devil’s Arrows at Boroughbridge, is a vast landscape of prehistoric significance.

It is a fiendishly difficult issue for the county council to deal with. The conservationists have already demonstrated how important it is in their eyes. The issue’s importance to Tarmac Northern is now also underlined.

12:20pm Friday 28th July 2006
darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/commentopinion/display.var.856025.0.raising_the_stakes.php

From the Courier
thecourier.co.uk/output/2006/07/29/newsstory8595566t0.asp

Archaeologists have been working this week on a 30ft long Bronze age log boat, which is in the tidal mudflats of the Tay near Abernethy. A radiocarbon test has dated it to 1000BC, so it is among the oldest ever found in Scotland. It was probably used for fishing and wildfowling.

It will be lifted by a floating cradle and transported to the National Museum of Scotland, where it will be conserved over three years before display.

(edit) there’s a picture of the boat, in the mud, here:
heritage.scotsman.com/places.cfm?id=1111362006

(For those with transport) Sunday July 30th there are guided tours from one o’clock till five, including the ongoing excavation of an ‘early’ Neolithic structure with central hearth.

From The Weston & Somerset Mercury:

A TEAM of archaeologists will begin a four year hunt for hidden treasures on the Mendip Hills soon.

A dozen English Heritage specialists will use the latest aerial scanning technology as well as field surveys and other traditional archaeological techniques to look for new finds.

The project will cost about £100,000 and will end up with an illustrated book of results aimed at a wide audience, as well as technical reports.

English Heritage’s senior archaeological investigator Mark Bowden said: “We are confident that there are rich finds to be had on the Mendips. We know there’s lots of evidence there, it’s an area with huge potential.

“What we learn there will also be of relevance to surrounding lowland areas which were connected to what was going on in the hills. We will be trying to identify previously unrecorded sites and revisit the well known sites with a fresh eye and re-evaluate and interpret what has been discovered in the past.

“We hope to achieve a more complete map of the archaeological remains of the Mendips. We will use aerial photos and ground scans, field surveys, maybe geo-physics and a small amount of excavation and we want to assist local amateur archaeologists by bringing in our own experts and equipment.

“Examples of the things we hope to find include ritual monuments from the prehistoric period like barrows, Priddy Circles and henges.

“A certain number of enclosures have recently been discovered, possibly prehistoric or early medieval. We are hoping we might find more of these banks and ditches or get a clearer idea of how old they are and what their purpose was.”

From 24Hour Museum:
Timbers unearthed during flood defence work on the Norfolk-Suffolk border have been dated to between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, archaeologists have revealed.

The very well preserved finds are the first of their kind in the region – it is thought they may have belonged to a walkway across the marshland in the Iron Age.

“This is the first such structure to have been discovered within Suffolk and is one of only a few in Britain,” said Jane Sidell, English Heritage Archaeological Science Advisor, “and as such is a nationally important find.” ,,,,continues....

“The World Heritage Committee sitting at its 30th session in Vilnius, Lithuania, has approved the inscription of the Stone Circles of the Senegambia in the World Heritage List....
The stone circles complex is a trans-border phenomena which extends/radiates from the River Gambia north to the River Saloum in Senegal. In December 2004 the National Council for Arts and Culture spearheaded a workshop which brought together Gambian and Senegalese heritage officials with a view to harmonizing/synchronizing a World Heritage Nomination dossier and developing a management plan for the circles. From the workshop the most representative sites in Gambia (Wassu and Kerbatch) and Senegal (Sine Ngayen and Wanar) were identified for nomination. These are the sites that have now been inscribed in the World Heritage List.”

more....

UNESCO’s brief description of the site

“World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.” – UNESCO