Image credit: Chance - Aug 2012
Images
Image credit: Maule & Co. Coventry
Articles
Just out from Historic England:
“A collection of Second World War aerial photography has been made accessible to the public for the first time.
The photographs were taken by the United States Army Air Forces Photographic Reconnaissance units stationed around England in 1943 and 1944.”
historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/photographs/usaaf-collection/
Worth a look to spot ye antiquities, A quick look at the South Wonston area near Winchester (including Worthy Down camp, at the time occupied by the Royal Navy Air Service with Laurence Olivier among the staff) shows some nice marks for two of the cluster of four long barrows in the area, one of which was subsequently much reduced by the plough.
“More than half a million aerial images of historical sites in England have been used for a new mapping tool.
Photographs and 3D laser scans have been taken over the past 30 years to uncover “hidden archaeological landscapes”, Historic England said.
Sites include 6,000-year-old long barrows, Roman camps such as those on Hadrian’s Wall and 20th Century areas linked to the world wars.
The map covers more than half of the country.”
More here (BBC website):
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-58817448.amp
Those zany National Truss People really had me going then.
“From September 2015 all our LIDAR data will become Open Data and everyone will be able to use it for free.”
Although primarily used for flood risk assessment, there will be lots of archaeology to see.
environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/06/16/free-mapping-data-will-elevate-flood-risk-knowledge/
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.
English Heritage and the British Museum are so alarmed they have commissioned a £100,000 study into the practice. It could lead to new legislation to combat offenders.
Spotted at:
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/08/nmetal108.xml
Some information that may be of use to TMA-ers looking at OS maps of England and Wales, from “Field Archaeology – Some Notes For Beginners Issued by the Ordnance Survey” (1963 – Fourth edition), chapter entitled “Tumuli”:
“Today the term tumulus is reserved for those earthen mounds either known or presumed to be covering burials. Formerly a class of larger mounds, now known to belong to early medieval castles also received this name in error ..., but now are given their correct technical description or are described as ‘Mound’ in the appropriate type. All piles of stones are called cairns whether their funerary character is known or not, but the use of an ‘antiquity’ type will mean that the Survey believes it to be sepulchral. In some very lofty situations it will be obvious that they are not graves. Where a mound has a local name which clearly indicates the belief that it is a burial place the descriptive name tumulus is not added.”
Stone Free: a quarter of scheduled monuments off-limits in England
Lovely piece from Texlahoma in TGO following up the BBC article from the other week.
Ancient craft is dedicated to the archaeology of primitive crafts and technologies that encompass the three prehistoric ages: STONE; BRONZE and IRON. This includes working with materials such as stone (also known as “flintknapping”), wood, bone, horn, leather, metals and cloth (plant fibres, and wools).
Follow Ancient Craft on Facebook facebook.com/AncientCraftUK
“The Scheme’s database holds records of artefacts and coins found by the public, whilst pursuing a wide range of activities (the majority from metal detecting). We do not record details of objects found by archaeologists, and these data can be found within the local Historic Environment Office.”
“The half a million objects recorded mark was reached on March 21st 2010.”
A Lecture given to the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, at Hereford, September, 1921, by Alfred Watkins
Download complete book in pdf format
Grave-mounds and their contents
a manual of archaeology, as exemplified in the burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon periods
by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt
Published in 1870, Groombridge (London)
Download the complete book in pdf format
