Latest News

From an article published on the BBC News web site on 2nd February 2005:

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.

Read the full article...

From ‘Isle of Wight Today’ by Martin Neville.
iwcp.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1252&ArticleID=936045

A crumpled piece of metal found in a field in the Newchurch parish turned out to be an extremely rare Bronze Age decorative ring of national importance.A treasure trove inquest was told how it was unearthed by illustrator Alan Rowe, of Alvington Road, Carisbrooke, while out metal detecting last summer.

Experts believe the ring, known as a composite ring and which comprises of three ribs fused together, may have hung from a twisted torc worn around the neck or from a bracelet.

Frank Basford, county archaeologist, said the piece, which weighs 3.57 grams and is 82 per cent gold, probably dated back to the middle Bronze Age period, making it around 3,500 years old.“There is very little Bronze Age gold work around, making this a very significant and important find in a national and Island context,” he said.

...Island coroner John Matthews declared the ring treasure following last week’s inquest.
The treasury valuation committee at the British Museum will set a value on the item and Newport’s Guildhall Museum has already expressed a wish to buy it.

Photo and drawing on the link.

Excerpts from an article published on the BBC News web site on 3rd February 2005:

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.

Read the full article...

From

From an article published on the BBC News web site on 28th January 2005:

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.

Read the full article...

Eco-Warriors who have camped for five years at a Peak quarry say they are planning to leave now victory is in sight.
The protesters have been campaigning to save the quarries from further workings, because of their proximity to the historic Nine Ladies Stone Circle.
A deal between Stancliffe Stone and the Peak District National Park Authority to indefinitely adjourn a bid to reopen Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries means the firm will investigate other options for supply.
Now protesters say that as soon as the future of the site is guaranteed they will pack their bags and leave.
Veteran campaigner Malcolm Dixon, 36, said: “Obviously it is good news. We are looking for assurances that Stancliffe Stone won’t quarry here. If we get a positive outcome we will be packing up.”
Robin Nash, 24, who has occupied the site for two years, said: “Initially it sounds like a very positive thing. If we get confirmation it is really great news.”
Last year Matlock company Stancliffe Stone had been told if it wanted to reopen the quarries it would have to meet certain conditions. The company was set to challenge the decision at the Court of Appeal in March.
Now the deal with the national park will delay the court action if work can be found for the firm’s 68-strong workforce.
Chair of the Peak Park Authority Tony Hams said if the court was happy with the deal, it would give both parties breathing space.
He added: “It means we have more time to consider any other options that come up but in no way does it preclude going back to the court or any other options we might be considering for those quarries.”
Stancliffe Stone general manager Mike Jones said: “If the Court of Appeal grants the proposed adjournment we will work closely with the Peak Park and the local community to explore a viable alternative to quarrying at Endcliffe and Lees Cross.”
The campaigners have built tree houses on the 32-acre site and dug a complex of deep tunnels and defences in stone cavities.
If the future of the quarries is guaranteed, they face the prospect of leaving the place they have called home for the past five years.
“We will spend some time taking the site down,” said Mr Nash. “We will leave it as a natural place of beauty as it originally was.
“It is a bit of a shell-shock. But if the news is for real then it is brilliant.”

By Tim Cunningham
matlockmercury.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=749&ArticleID=929874

According to Perth and Kinross Council, plans for 312 hectares of film studio and housing have now been withdrawn. That’s good news for the Belhie stone and anything else that may lay hidden in the surrounding countryside!

yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=921180

The half life-size boat was paddled off down the Humber yesterday, crewed by members of Hull University Boat Club. The article includes a photograph of the boat passing the Humber Bridge.

Previous information at:
themodernantiquarian.com/post/33764

An online petition is avaliable for anyone wishing to object to the proposed development surrounding Tara.

If you want to sign it the address is
petitiononline.com/Temair/petition.html

They have approx 5000 sigs so far.

From an article published on the BBC News web site on 14th January 2005:

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.

Read the full article...

From the ‘this is Berwick‘ website

A new partnership looks set to safeguard two of north Northumberland’s ancient monuments.

Duddo Tower and Duddo Four Stones, both designated scheduled ancient monuments on the Duddo Estate, are being protected with funding from both Defra’s Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) and English Heritage.
The aim is to create a network of grass margins, new hedgerows, cover for wild birds and a programme of over-wintered stubbles on the 2000-acre estate. These measures will help local wildlife and fauna.

Duddo Four Stones is a prehistoric stone circle, situated within an arable field, which has now been protected by a buffer of grassland reversion, to prevent damage by ploughing or drilling.

In addition to the environmental work, CSS will also pay for new permissive access to the stones, allowing public access for the first time, hopefully to be completed early this year .

more at berwicktoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=970&ArticleID=918436

If you’re wondering about the Four Stones/ Five Stones thing – apparently the fifth was reerrected in 1903. That’s only a century to get used to the new name.

Heritage campaigners have delivered 2,000 submissions to the Oireachtas Transport Committee opposing plans to build a motorway through the historic landscape surrounding the Hill of Tara in Co Meath.

The submissions were collected by the Save Tara-Skryne Valley group at various locations throughout Ireland over the weekend.

The group is campaigning for a re-routing of the M3 motorway away from the Tara-Skryne Valley, which is rich with archaeology dating back to the Stone Age.

Vincent Salafia, a spokesman for the Save Tara-Skryne Valley group, said the argument against the current route of the motorway was based on economics as well as archaeological protection.

He said lengthy court battles and painstaking excavations mean the M3, in its current form, could not be completed before 2015.

“It would actually be cheaper and delivered quicker if they re-routed the motorway now,” he added.

From breakingnews.ie

A Derbyshire museum has been given £4.26m to expand its facilities.
The money will be spent on building a centre of excellence at Creswell Crags, a limestone gorge which contains the country’s oldest cave art.
The grant has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund and will pay for a new museum and education centre telling the story of the Ice Age.
Plans are now being drawn up, and if approved, work could start next year, with the centre opening in 2007.

Ancient land
The trust which runs the site will have to find £1m towards the project.
The carvings include a 12,000-year-old representation of bison, horse and birds.
They are the only examples of Palaeolithic cave art in the UK, and the artists who made them would have witnessed a British landscape still being shaped by glaciers.
A local road will also be re-routed to protect the site.

From the BBCi-Derbyshire website. A similar article featured on www.24hourmuseum.co.uk

More than 60 druids gathered on the top of the flat hill to the west of the Long Man crest at 2pm.
They took part in a rite to mark the ‘feast of the unforgotten sun’ where their activities were watched with enthusiasm by dozens of Sunday walkers.

The ceremony took the form of a mummer’s play with actors wearing masks depicting the sun, moon and earth. At one point watchers were asked to close their eyes when the mask was taken off a man and put on to a child, depicting the rebirth of a new year.

The next Long Man ceremony is to mark Imbolc – the first celebration of Spring – anyone who wants to find out more is encouraged to look at: bardicarts.com

reduced from the article at ‘Lewes Today‘
lewestoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=509&ArticleID=916225

Campaigners fighting further quarrying near a site of historical interest will demonstrate at a museum at the weekend.

Members of Heritage Action, angry at plans by Tarmac Northern to extend its Nosterfield Quarry close to Thornborough Henges, near Masham, North Yorkshire, will protest outside the Buried Treasures exhibition staged at Manchester Museum. They are unhappy at Tarmac Northern’s sponsorship of the event.

Heritage Action spokesman George Chaplin said: “This is a marvellous exhibition and we hope as many people as possible will see it, but we want them to also reflect on who is sponsoring it and why.

“Tarmac Northern are applying to quarry the surroundings of Thornborough Henges, in North Yorkshire, and the buried archaeology there is treasure as well. We find Tarmac’s behaviour breathtakingly hypocritical.”

Tarmac chief executive officer Robbie Robertson said he was saddened and surprised that Heritage Action should want to picket the exhibition.

“Careful investigation, recovery and recording of artefacts is an on-going feature of our quarrying operations,” he said. “Through working with professional archaeologists, we believe that we have added significantly to knowledge and understanding at Nosterfield and other sites across the UK. At Nosterfield alone, we have spent in excess of £400,000 on detailed archaeological work covering more than 100 acres of land.”

He said this included intensive field work, geophysical surveys, trial excavations, sieving and sampling, radio carbon dating and logging of all finds on a website that people could view.

From ‘This is the North East‘
thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/NEWS12.html

By David Holmes, Chester Chronicle

Wiltshire may have Stonehenge but now Cheshire has a wooden henge after archaeologists made the discovery near Chester.

Researchers working at Poulton, on the Duke of Westminster’s land, were amazed to find the Bronze Age burials they had been investigating were preceded by a much earlier ‘ritual’ presence.

A circle of holes indicated the existence of the wooden henge together with a large hole in the centre which was potentially a form of ‘totem pole’.

Now Durham University is to undertake both soil analysis and the dating of wood fragments.

Site director Mike Emery said: ‘This will firmly place the burial ground and the timber circle in their proper historical context, as well as providing valuable environmental evidence, which will help to recreate what life was like thousands of years ago.‘

Mr Emery said examples of such circles were more commonly located in the south, and had been interpreted as ritual monuments that were the precursors of more famous monuments, such as Stonehenge.

He added: ‘The uncovering of the site of a timber circle, possibly a ‘henge’ monument, is of great and rare importance in the north-west.‘

Mr Emery said this earliest phase was currently under excavation and a more detailed report would be given in 2005. ‘What can be stated is that the Poulton site was part of a ritual/religious landscape that was established some 5000 years ago,’ he commented.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence of human activity at the site from several periods of human history. And the 2004 excavations have proved to be the most successful to date.

Work on the Bronze Age Burial Ground (1600-1000BC) is now complete. Cremated human bone has been found along with coarse, hand-made pottery and animal bone fragments.

The causeway into the area is aligned to the position of Orion’s Belt in the summer sky. It also aims, unerringly, for a gap in the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge.

It is now evident that the ring-ditch is one of several, others being located close by.

Mr Emery says the importance of the Poulton Bronze Age ‘barrow’ group cannot be underestimated. ‘The existence of such a burial group opens up the unique and exciting prospect of locating a Bronze Age village, nearby,’ he said. ‘Such settlements are rare.‘

Within the medieval graveyard (1153-1600 AD) 63 complete, or partial, skeletons were excavated to the west of the Chapel Tower. One group of burials was particularly poignant. This consisted almost entirely of children, two of whom had their hands clasped together.

Further evidence of the Romans (90-410AD) was unearthed consisting of a mass of pottery and building material.

Mr Emery said test-trenches suggested the remains of a substantial Roman building lies ‘tantalisingly close by’. A planned programme of more extensive geophysical survey will aim to pinpoint the focus of Roman activity.

From the ic Cheshire online website.

“The chairman of Swansea’s tourism association is backing an campaign to secure the return to Wales of the Red Lady of Paviland. The remains have been on show for decades at the Oxford University Natural History Museum.

Earlier this year, Swansea councillor Ioan Richard began a campaign to have the Red Lady returned to Wales. Now, Geoff Haden, chairman of Tourism Swansea, wants to step up the pressure on the Oxford museum.

He said the rainy summer this year emphasised what a great wet weather draw the Red Lady could be. He said, “We are suggesting an interpretive visitor centre near Paviland Cave or possibly at the Gower Heritage Centre, which would be a wet weather and an all- year-round attraction. This is something we must follow up.”

The Gower Society is behind the campaign to have the Red Lady returned. The bones date back to 24,000 BC, pre-dating Stonehenge by 20,000 years.

The skeleton was taken from Wales and never returned within a year of being found. Mr Richard said, “Just like the Elgin Marbles were taken from Greece this very important piece of history was taken from us by the English.”

The Red Lady of Paviland was excavated by the Reverend William Buckland, who was the first Professor of Geology at Oxford University at the time. As a result the skeleton was taken to Oxford.

There is a dispute about how well the Red Lady’s remains are displayed. David Laws of Oxwich, Gower, visited the exhibit and found it “in a dusty cabinet”. He labelled the display “pathetic”. But Professor Jim Kennedy, the director of the museum, said the Red Lady was being kept in a “beautiful, hardwood cabinet”.

Museum administrator Wendy Shepherd said there was “not a chance” of bringing the remains back to South Wales. “This goes back to the days when the archaeologists who made finds had the final say on where they should be exhibited.”

From the article by Robin Turner, in the Western Mail (icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/).

[Perhaps she didn’t say it ‘quite’ like it’s reported – but when I imagined Ms Shepherd snapping “not a chance” it made my blood boil. What’s the point in the bones being in Oxford? Wales and England are both supposed to be part of the UK. What’s wrong with ‘lending’ the bones for a display on the Gower?]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4125955.stm

Article about two children who found a strange-shaped flint on Arthur’s Seat over Christmas and took it to the museum of Scotland.

(Reads slightly like an advert for responsibly handing stuff over, but fair enough).

Society wants Moors stone to go on display – taken from the article by Julie Hemmings in Yorkshire Post Today
yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=912795

One of the country’s last surviving literary and philosophical societies may challenge the decision to deny it the chance to display an important archaeological discovery.

Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, which runs the town’s museum, was disappointed to miss out on a significant carved stone, more than 4,000 years old, which was found on the North York Moors near Fylingdales.

The stone was one of thousands of archaeological remains exposed by a major fire on the moors last year and archaeologists believe it is of national importance.

Since the fire in September last year, conservationists have been working to restore the landscape to its original condition. As well as preserving the ecology of the area, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, the work is intended to protect the artefacts and earthworks from erosion by the weather. These efforts will continue for some months but the carved stone already has been returned to the earth where it was found. Before this was done archaeologists laser-scanned and photographed it.

Neil Redfern, English Heritage’s inspector of ancient monuments, said the stone had been reburied as it “belongs on the Moors”, adding that putting it in a glass case in a museum would not have made it any more accessible to the public. He said the image scanned from the stone might serve in the making of a replica, which could be touched, unlike the precious original.

However, some historians are arguing the stone should have been put on on public display and are disappointed not to have been consulted about its future. Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society chairman Fred Payne is meeting members next week to discuss the matter. “We feel it should be exposed, rather than buried again,” said Mr Payne.
“It should be on display, and in Yorkshire, if not in Whitby then at the Yorkshire Museum in York.
“To my knowledge, no-one locally was consulted.”

Peter Barfoot, the authority’s head of advisory services, said the laser-scanned image showed more detail on the stone than could be seen with the naked eye.

CONTROVERSIAL plans to turn fields near Coate Water into houses and a university campus have taken a huge step forward.

A Government report published this week by an independent panel has given the go-ahead to the divisive development.

It says that the development of the new campus for the University of Bath in Swindon along with 1,800 new house on land between the Great Western hospital and Coate Water is appropriate and provides a good basis for development over the plan period of 1996-2016.

Full story

Nb: Apparently any development has to keep the circle but presumably will change its surroundings completely.

How the powers of avarice move unseen . . . hadn’t realised that the British Camp had been under threat from the Coca-Cola conglomerate; happily the Environment Agency and English Nature have prevented them from destoying the Malverns (so far). Interestingly, they were attempting to use a Celtic well for extended production . . . more at:

avantgo.thetimes.co.uk/services/avantgo/article/0,,1419014,00.html

The axe found at Bubbenhall Quarry is to be displayed at Warwickshire Museum’s Market Hall site in Warwick.

It’s made of andesite – which must have come from the lake district or north wales, according to the museum’s curator.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/4117227.stm

icteesside.icnetwork.co.uk/thejournal/news/tm_objectid=14996465%26method=full%26siteid=50081-name_page.html

From an article by David Prudames, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 20th December 2004:

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.

Read the full article...

From an article by Richard Moss, published on www.24hourmuseum.org.uk on 20th December 2004:

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.

Read the full article on the 24 Hour Museum web site or see the BBC article about the same news item.