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Medieval Cambridge monks were riddled with worms, study finds

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Medieval Cambridge monks were riddled with worms, study finds

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A manuscript left to Peterhouse College by local doctor John Stockton, who died in 1361, believed the worms were generated by various forms of mucus and prescribed "bitter medicinal plants" such as aloe and wormwood to sufferers.

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Medieval Cambridge monks were riddled with worms, study finds

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A manuscript left to Peterhouse College by local doctor John Stockton, who died in 1361, believed the worms were generated by various forms of mucus and prescribed "bitter medicinal plants" such as aloe and wormwood to sufferers.

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Anglo-Saxon burial ground unearthed at HS2 site - BBC News

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Anglo-Saxon burial ground unearthed at HS2 site in Buckinghamshire

6 hours ago

Image source, PA Media

Image caption,
It is one of the largest Anglo-Saxon burial grounds ever uncovered in Britain

An Anglo-Saxon burial ground with 138 graves found along the route of HS2 is one of the largest ever uncovered in the UK, experts have said.

A skeleton with a weapon embedded in it, jewellery and weapons were among the finds in Wendover, Buckinghamshire.

Evidence of Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman activity was also found.

Archaeologist Rachel Wood said the site's significance for the "historical and archaeological understanding" of Anglo-Saxon Britain was "huge".

The site contained 141 regular burials and five cremation burials. The male skeleton was found with a sharp iron object embedded into its spine, which experts believe may have caused or factored into his death.

Other items unearthed in the excavation last year include 89 brooches, more than 2,000 amber beads, 51 knives, 40 buckles and 15 spearheads.

Image source, HS2

Image caption,
An iron spear point was found embedded into the spine of the skeleton of a man thought to be aged between 17-24

A number of objects likely to have been used for grooming were also found, including toiletry sets with ear wax removers and toothpicks, tweezers, combs and even a cosmetic tube that might have been used as eyeliner or similar.

The discoveries have been filmed for historian Dan Snow's streaming service History Hit.

Anglo-Saxon church found at HS2 excavation site

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Speaking on his podcast, the presenter said: "This stunning set of discoveries on the HS2 route can tell us more about how our predecessors lived, fought and ultimately died.

"It is one of the best and most revealing post Roman sites in the country and it was thrilling to join the team as they uncovered their wonderful finds."

Image source, PA Media

Image caption,
A set of copper alloy small sqaure headed brooches from the 5th or 6th Century were uncovered

A female body was found buried with an array of high quality goods such as a complete ornate glass bowl made of pale green glass, multiple rings made of copper alloy, a silver "zoomorphic" ring, brooches, discs, iron belt fittings and objects made of ivory.

A team of about 30 field archaeologists from INFRA JV, working on behalf of HS2's contractor Fusion JV, completed field work at the site in 2021.

Analysis: By Jo Black, BBC News

The high speed rail line is a divisive project but away from the politics and debates, the programme is revealing secrets about Britain's past.

For the last five years, more than 1,000 archaeologists have excavated more than 60 sites.

This latest find is being described as rare and of national significance - it's being compared to that of Sutton Hoo, where an Anglo-Saxon ship was found in 1939 and thought to be the final resting place of the 7th Century King Raedwalk.

For some - even important archaeological discoveries still don't justify the construction of HS2 but for others this is chance to explore periods of our hidden history.

Ms Wood, lead archaeologist for Fusion JV, said: "The significance of this site for our historical and archaeological understanding of Anglo-Saxon Britain is huge.

"It is not a site I would ever have anticipated finding - to have found one of these burials would have been astonishing, so to have found so many is quite unbelievable."

She described it as a unique find due its size and scale.

"We have 141 individuals here, that's quite a large cemetery for the time that we know about, and over 70% of them have been found with objects which is really unusual," she said.

"Normally you might find one or two individuals in a small cemetery might have a comb with them or something like that and here we have so many individuals with multiple objects from weaponry to jewellery to grooming kits."

Image source, HS2

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A set of decorated copper alloy tweezers were also discovered in the HS2 excavation

A pair of small square-headed brooches were also excavated - a miniature form of the great square-headed brooch, such as the famous Chessell Down Brooch on display at the British Museum.

Two glass cone beakers that would have been used for drinking liquids such as wine were also found and suggest those buried might have had access to fine beverages from abroad.

Mike Court, lead archaeologist for HS2 Ltd, said: "We are just at the beginning of our understanding of how the discoveries will improve our historical knowledge of Britain.

"The archaeological finds made at this site in Wendover will not only be of interest to the local community but are of national importance, providing a valuable insight into life in Anglo-Saxon Britain."

The discoveries will be featured in a programme on Dan Snow's History Hit released on Thursday.

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Anglo-Saxon burial ground unearthed at HS2 site - BBC News

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Nearly 140 graves, a skeleton with a spear point embedded in it, jewellery and weapons are among the finds.

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Secrets of Scotland's Viking Age Hoard - Archaeology Magazine

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When it comes to Viking hoards, archaeologists know to expect the unexpected. Hundreds of these caches containing tens of thousands of objects that were hidden for safekeeping and never reunited with their erstwhile owners have been found buried beneath fields throughout Scandinavia and across Great Britain and Ireland. While many Viking hoards share similar characteristics-notably large quantities of silver-no two are identical. Thus, when a new trove is unearthed, what it might yield is endlessly unpredictable.

Almost from the very moment it was discovered eight years ago in southwestern Scotland, in the region of Galloway, a particularly enigmatic collection of early medieval objects has evoked the sense of finding something truly unexpected. Discovered near Balmaghie, in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire, the assemblage, now known as the Galloway Hoard, dates to about A.D. 900. Numbering around 100 artifacts, it is the richest, most diverse, and most curious collection of Viking Age (ca. A.D. 793-1066) artifacts ever unearthed in Great Britain or Ireland. While it consists of no less than 10 pounds of Viking silver, it also boasts Anglo-Saxon jewelry, religious relics, precious heirlooms, and the largest collection of Viking Age gold objects found anywhere in the British Isles. These artifacts, which span the pagan and ecclesiastical and the Viking and Anglo-Saxon worlds, continue to astonish the researchers who are still trying to understand the hoard's unprecedented elements. "Anything that you look at in this hoard has something unusual about it," says Martin Goldberg, principal curator of medieval archaeology and history at National Museums Scotland. "There's a whole range of things that we have never seen before."

In 2014, an amateur metal detectorist surveying Church of Scotland land located a number of silver artifacts buried in a shallow pit. He notified local authorities, and an archaeological team was dispatched to the site, where they subsequently unearthed 22 ancient silver objects. The collection seemed to have all the markings of a Viking hoard. "The Vikings had an insatiable demand for silver," says University of Oxford archaeologist Jane Kershaw. "They used it in lots of different ways-for display purposes, as a statement of wealth, and as currency."

In the 400 years between the decline of the Roman presence in Britain and the Vikings' arrival in the late eighth century A.D., silver had been relatively scarce on the island. But when the Scandinavians began to permanently settle in the British Isles and take over land formerly belonging to Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, they brought huge quantities of silver with them, often acquired through trade with the Islamic caliphates to the east. "New sources of silver were coming into Britain, which is why the Viking Age is sometimes referred to as the Silver Age," says Goldberg. People often buried their silver at this unsettled time as a way of safeguarding their wealth, creating subterranean bank deposits that could be added to over time, or of hiding their valuables in the face of roving bands of dangerous raiders. Many of these stashes were never retrieved.

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Secrets of Scotland's Viking Age Hoard - Archaeology Magazine

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When it comes to Viking hoards, archaeologists know to expect the unexpected. Hundreds of these caches containing tens of thousands of objects that were hidden for safekeeping and never reunited with their erstwhile owners have been found buried beneath fields throughout Scandinavia and across Great Britain and Ireland.

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Delays placing heritage at risk, metal detectorist warns

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"There's a lot of misconceptions around metal detecting amongst the general public so we're really keen to combat this and encourage best practice of reporting any finds discovered," the spokeswoman said.

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Delays placing heritage at risk, metal detectorist warns

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"There's a lot of misconceptions around metal detecting amongst the general public so we're really keen to combat this and encourage best practice of reporting any finds discovered," the spokeswoman said.

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Nominations open for the Family Friendly Museum Award 2022

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Nominations open for the Family Friendly Museum Award 2022

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Archaeologists have unearthed a rare Pictish stone in Angus.

The 1.7m (5.5ft) long carved monument is one of only about 200 to be found.

The discovery was made by a team from the University of Aberdeen during survey work at Aberlemno, where important Pictish finds have been made previously.

The site is near a suspected location of the Battle of Dun Nechtain, also known as the Battle of Nechtansmere. Fought in 685 AD, it saw Picts defeat an army of Northumbrian Angles.

The stone is thought to date from the 5th or 6th Centuries.

Archaeologists carrying out a geophysical survey of a field spotted anomalies below ground which looked like evidence of a settlement.

They dug a test pit and came across the carved stone.

The discovery was made in early 2020, but the Covid pandemic delayed the recovery of the stone until now.

It is to be carefully examined and the settlement where it was found is to be further excavated.

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Archaeologists have unearthed a rare Pictish stone in Angus. The 1.7m (5.5ft) long carved monument is one of only about 200 to be found. The discovery was made by a team from the University of Aberdeen during survey work at Aberlemno, where important Pictish finds have been made previously.

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New survey reveals extent of Roman villa complex found at Rutland

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New survey reveals extent of Roman villa complex found at Rutland

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In November 2021, the discovery of a large mosaic depicting Homer’s Iliad was announced by a team from the University of Leicester, working in partnership with Historic England near Luffenham in Rutland, England. - HeritageDaily - Archaeology News

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Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years

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Show caption
The site, near the Shard, is thought to have been a staging post for travellers entering or leaving Roman London on the north side of the Thames. Photograph: MOLA/Andy Chopping

The largest expanse of Roman mosaic found in London for more than half a century has been unearthed at a site believed to have been a venue for high-ranking officials to lounge in while being served food and drink.

Dating from the late second century to the early third century, the mosaic's flowers and geometric patterns were a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime find, said Antonietta Lerz, of the Museum of London Archaeology (Mola).

It was discovered about a month ago at a construction site near London Bridge. The mosaic, which is eight metres long, will be lifted later this year for preservation and conservation work, with the eventual hope of it being publicly displayed.
Roman Britain
Its main panel features large, colourful flowers surrounded by bands incorporating a twisted-rope design, set within a red tessellated floor. There are also geometric elements and lotus flowers in the main mosaic and a smaller nearby panel.

David Neal, an expert in Roman mosaic, has attributed the design of the larger panel to a team of mosaicists known as the Acanthus group, who developed a unique style. The smaller panel is a close parallel to one unearthed in Trier, Germany, suggesting that London artisans travelled abroad.

The archaeologists from Mola, who have worked at the site since last June, believe the room housing the mosaic was a triclinium, containing dining couches on which people would recline to eat and drink while admiring the decorative flooring. The walls were also richly decorated.

Archaeologists say 'once-in-a-lifetime' finds near London Bridge are from heyday of Londinium

The triclinium may have been part of a Roman mansio, effectively an upmarket motel offering accommodation, dining and stabling to state officials and couriers travelling to and from Londinium across the river. The footprint of the building is still being uncovered, but it appears to have been a large complex around a central courtyard.

The main mosaic incorporates flowers, geometric patterns and a twisted-rope design. Photograph: MOLA/Andy Chopping

Another large Roman building was also found at the site, which archaeologists say was likely to have been the private residence of a wealthy individual or family. Traces of lavishly painted walls, terrazzo and mosaic floors, coins and jewellery have been found.

A smaller panel was found that is similar to a mosaic unearthed in Trier, Germany. Photograph: MOLA/Andy Chopping

A bone hairpin, likely to have been worn by a fashionable woman of high status. Photograph: MOLA/Andy Chopping

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Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years

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The largest expanse of Roman mosaic found in London for more than half a century has been unearthed at a site believed to have been a venue for high-ranking officials to lounge in while being served food and drink.

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Climate change threatening buried UK treasures

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Climate change is threatening to destroy treasures buried in the UK as the soils that protect them dry out.

A Roman toilet seat, the world's oldest boxing glove, and the oldest handwritten letter by a woman are some of the extraordinary objects discovered in at-risk British peatlands.

It means climate change could undermine our understanding of our past, say archaeologists.

About 22,500 archaeological sites in UK may be in danger.

The problem is that changing weather patterns are drying out some peatlands - the waterlogged soils that cover about 10% of the UK.

Because peat contains very little oxygen, organic materials like wood, leather and textiles do not rot. They can survive for thousands of years, preserved by the stable anoxic chemistry of the soil.

But if the soils dry, oxygen can enter the system, kick-starting the process of decomposition. If that happens artefacts can, quite quickly, rot away.

Excavating these potentially huge sites could cost hundreds of millions of pounds and take decades, by which time they may have been badly damaged.

The trustees of Magna, a Roman fort alongside Hadrian's Wall, fear the process is already under way at the site.

The land at Magna has subsided by up to a metre in places in the past decade. It is evidence of "desiccation" - the drying of the peat layer - fears Dr Andrew Birley, the chief archaeologist at the site.

It means "an historical time capsule" is at risk, he says, because only a tiny part of the site has so far been excavated.

"This place has the potential to be quite frankly, amazing," Dr Birley believes. "Pretty much everything the Romans used here for 300 or 400 years could have been preserved in more or less the same state it was thrown away, which is an incredible opportunity."

Another fort a few miles along Hadrian's Wall gives an idea of the astonishing objects that could lie hidden at Magna.

Digs at Vindolanda have uncovered the world's oldest boxing gloves - so well-preserved that you can still see the imprint of the boxer's knuckles on one.

More Roman footwear has been discovered here than at any other site in the world.

It is also the source of the oldest handwritten message by a woman found anywhere.

In the note, Claudia Severa, the wife of the commanding officer of a nearby fort, invites her friend Lepidina to her birthday party on 11 September about 1,900 years ago.

"Oh how much I want you at my birthday party," writes Claudia. "You'll make the day so much more fun. I do so hope you can make it. Goodbye, sister, my dearest soul."

Day-to-day objects like this provide a unique connection to the lives of ordinary people in ancient times.

"This sort of stuff doesn't normally survive, " says Dr Birley, who works at both sites. "It can give us amazing insights into what life was really like here on the Northern frontier almost 2,000 years ago."

He says the priority at Magna now is to try to work out what is happening underground.

Boreholes have been dug, and electronic equipment measures the water flow and temperature every hour.

At Teesside University, Dr Gillian Taylor is analysing the chemicals in soil cores from the site to try to understand the processes at work.

It would be a "catastrophe" for any organic artefacts if the peat dries, she says. "The risk is they will disappear. We will lose our heritage if we don't look at what's occurring now."

Fearing the worst, Dr Birley is planning to dig the first test trenches at the site next year. As a small charity, it's the earliest they can start given the cost and labour needed.

He says if it looks like the condition of the peat is changing rapidly and the treasures could be lost, a full excavation may be necessary.

And changing weather patterns are not just threatening the survival of Roman remains. Experts estimate that there are about 22,500 archaeological sites in or beneath peat in the UK.

Dr Rosie Everett, of Northumbria University, is part of a team that has been assessing the effect of climate change on peatland archaeology across the UK.

She says a host of historic sites in peatlands are under threat, covering the entire sweep of the country's history.

There are Palaeolithic pathways up to 12,000 years old, and Bronze Age burial sites as well as the remains of more modern settlements and industrial activities.

"Peatlands represent such a small part of the ecology of Britain, but they have massive potential to tell us about our past," says Dr Everett.

While an archaeologist working at a "dry" site might find 10% of what was once there, at a peatland site they may find as much as 90% of the material culture of ancient communities, say archaeologists.

"The loss of peatlands would have big implications for the understanding of the country's history but also for our climatic history and our environmental history," says Dr Everett.

That's why she believes there should be greater efforts to protect them.

Dr Birley agrees. "If we lose places like this, we lose that direct connection to the people who lived in this island 2000 years ago," he says.

"We lose the chance to learn as much as we can about them. And we lose part of our own heritage and part of our own history."

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Climate change threatening buried UK treasures

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Our ability to understand Britain's history is at risk, warn archaeologists.

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Archaeologists amazed at 'totally unbroken' settlement: 'Far surpassed expectation'

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Digging for Britain: Excavation finds old Roman roads

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The Romans arrived in Britain in 43AD, and six years later they reached Somerset and the Mendip Hills. They came to Somerset to mine galena, the ore that is smelted to produce lead. Such an important industry would surely have led to thriving communities in the surrounding area. Yet little evidence has been found, until now.

In a nearby valley, trenches were being dug for new, underground electricity cables along the route of National Grid's new powerline in the Mendips.

Dozens of archaeologists scoured the ground in a two-year process, that started in 2019, after surveys revealed signs of human activity.

The team were joined by the camera crew of the BBC 's recent Digging for Britain documentary, which aired this week.

Professor Alice Roberts, the programme's presenter, said: "The archaeologists expected to find some evidence of farming communities, but what they found stunned everyone."

Mike Glyde, a lead archaeologist for the National Grid, welcomed Prof Roberts to the excavation site.
READ MORE: Archaeologists solve Cerne Abbas Giant puzzle after historic dig
He said: "This particular area was identified requiring excavation in advance of construction, and what we've found has far surpassed anything any of us could have really predicted.

"We have one and a half metres of unbroken stratigraphy dating from the late Iron Age right through to the late Saxon and medieval period.

"And we've got a totally unbroken settlement on site. So we've got a huge amount of social and economic development of a town in fine detail."

The site sits just outside Winscombe in Somerset, not far from the ancient lead mines at Charterhouse-on-Mendip.

Roman remains have been found in the immediate vicinity of the site, but nothing on a scale the National Grid teams discovered.

Mr Glyde explained: "We are looking at a completely unknown Roman town."

Romans famously took their road-building extremely seriously, and the discovery of one such road offered a stunning insight into the life they lived two thousand years ago.

Bob McIntosh is leading the archaeology team. He explained they had found four 4th Century roads, dating to Constantine's rule.
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Constantine was crowned in Britain in 306AD before conquering the rest of the Roman Empire.

The discovery, Mr McIntosh explained, fits "perfectly" with their theory that the site went from an "urban sprawl up the valley to big roads being built through, demolishing people's houses - which you can see the foundations of sticking out through the road surface".

His reign kickstarted an era of economic prosperity for Roman Britons, not least those living in this Somerset settlement.

Hundreds of coins were discovered, including several with Constantine's face etched onto them.

The settlement opens up ideas of previously unknown trade routes that the Romans might have used.

Cat Lodge, a senior archaeologist at North Somerset Council, told the documentary: "These routes are almost completely new to us.

"This roadside settlement is giving us the possibility that there was trade-off Mendip into the Bristol Channel."

The nearest major trade route for the lead mines of the Mendip hills in Roman times was the Fosse Way, which linked Exeter to Lincoln via Ilchester, Bath, Cirencester and Leicester.

The roadside settlement, however, suggests another trade route would have taken lead from the Mendips to the coast, where it was transported by ship across the rest of the Roman Empire.

Further evidence at the site proved it was a bustling community. They found evidence of a butchery and a series of partly intact wells.

Prof Roberts explained: "The mix of light industry and domestic luxury suggests this was an affluent community with this major road as its main artery."

Mr McIntosh added: "The people living here, they're not directly lead miners, they're living too well for that.

"These are merchants or accountants or some secondary industry that is making money off of those lead mines, I would assume."

According to SomersetLive, all excavations have now been completed and the underground cables are now in place.

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Archaeologists amazed at 'totally unbroken' settlement: 'Far surpassed expectation'

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Exploring Co-production in Community Heritage Research: Reflections from the Bennachie Landscapes Project

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Co-production in community heritage research 

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Co-production in community heritage research 

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The University of Aberdeen Research Portal

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Abstract

Co-production of community heritage research is in vogue. Co-production aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups. This paper
presents a reflective analysis by the university-based participants of a long-standing community heritage project focusing on the ruins of a locally celebrated crofting community in Northeast Scotland. The use of archaeological and archival techniques, the creation of an exhibition, a kitchen garden, promenade drama, a heritage app, and publications, provide both opportunities and challenges for co-production. The meaning of co-production was shaped by the nature of research activities, resulting in significantly varied levels of participation; its embedding therefore requires managing expectations. Effective relationships for co-creating knowledge are an outgrowth of building trust, which take time, patience, and commitment

Cite this

, Armstrong, J , Curtis, N 2021, ' Exploring Co-production in Community Heritage Research: Reflections from the Bennachie Landscapes Project ', Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage . https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2021.2014659

@article{03fad450b80b4823b0c13df04c834d42,

title = "Exploring Co-production in Community Heritage Research: Reflections from the Bennachie Landscapes Project",

abstract = "Co-production of community heritage research is in vogue. Co-production aims to break down barriers between {\textquoteleft}experts{\textquoteright} and the {\textquoteleft}public{\textquoteright} to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups. This paperpresents a reflective analysis by the university-based participants of a long-standing community heritage project focusing on the ruins of a locally celebrated crofting community in Northeast Scotland. The use of archaeological and archival techniques, the creation of an exhibition, a kitchen garden, promenade drama, a heritage app, and publications, provide both opportunities and challenges for co-production. The meaning of co-production was shaped by the nature of research activities, resulting in significantly varied levels of participation; its embedding therefore requires managing expectations. Effective relationships for co-creating knowledge are an outgrowth of building trust, which take time, patience, and commitment",

keywords = "Co-production, community formation, identities, power relations, trust",

author = "Jeffry Oliver and Jackson Armstrong and Elizabeth Curtis and Neil Curtis and Jo Vergunst",

note = "Acknowledgements Project funding has been generously made possible by the AHRC and Heritage Lottery Fund (now National Lottery Heritage Fund). We are grateful to the Bailies of Bennachie for their continued support, enthusiasm, and friendship over many years - may our collaboration continue! Particular thanks go to Chris Foster, Barry Foster and Colin Miller for their helpful advice on an earlier draft and to Ana Jorge for assistance with the figures. We are grateful to two external reviewers for comments that have helped to sharpen our thoughts and to Thomas Kador for editorial suggestions",

doi = "10.1080/20518196.2021.2014659",

journal = "Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage",

publisher = "Taylor & Francis",

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T1 - Exploring Co-production in Community Heritage Research

T2 - Reflections from the Bennachie Landscapes Project

AU - Oliver, Jeffry

AU - Armstrong, Jackson

AU - Curtis, Elizabeth

AU - Curtis, Neil

AU - Vergunst, Jo

N1 - Acknowledgements Project funding has been generously made possible by the AHRC and Heritage Lottery Fund (now National Lottery Heritage Fund). We are grateful to the Bailies of Bennachie for their continued support, enthusiasm, and friendship over many years - may our collaboration continue! Particular thanks go to Chris Foster, Barry Foster and Colin Miller for their helpful advice on an earlier draft and to Ana Jorge for assistance with the figures. We are grateful to two external reviewers for comments that have helped to sharpen our thoughts and to Thomas Kador for editorial suggestions

PY - 2021/12/19

Y1 - 2021/12/19

N2 - Co-production of community heritage research is in vogue. Co-production aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups. This paperpresents a reflective analysis by the university-based participants of a long-standing community heritage project focusing on the ruins of a locally celebrated crofting community in Northeast Scotland. The use of archaeological and archival techniques, the creation of an exhibition, a kitchen garden, promenade drama, a heritage app, and publications, provide both opportunities and challenges for co-production. The meaning of co-production was shaped by the nature of research activities, resulting in significantly varied levels of participation; its embedding therefore requires managing expectations. Effective relationships for co-creating knowledge are an outgrowth of building trust, which take time, patience, and commitment

AB - Co-production of community heritage research is in vogue. Co-production aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups. This paperpresents a reflective analysis by the university-based participants of a long-standing community heritage project focusing on the ruins of a locally celebrated crofting community in Northeast Scotland. The use of archaeological and archival techniques, the creation of an exhibition, a kitchen garden, promenade drama, a heritage app, and publications, provide both opportunities and challenges for co-production. The meaning of co-production was shaped by the nature of research activities, resulting in significantly varied levels of participation; its embedding therefore requires managing expectations. Effective relationships for co-creating knowledge are an outgrowth of building trust, which take time, patience, and commitment

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Exploring Co-production in Community Heritage Research: Reflections from the Bennachie Landscapes Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Co-production of community heritage research is in vogue. Co-production aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups.

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GoodGym Liverpool | Refilling an Archaeological Dig At The Albert Dock

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GoodGym Liverpool | Refilling an Archaeological Dig At The Albert Dock

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Helping to clear up the dig to protect the site

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A New Archeological Dig is Happening at the Albert Dock

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If you're a fan of Britains' Biggest Dig, then you will love what is happening down at the Albert Dock over the next few months. A team from the Museum of Liverpool's archaeology department are undertaking a dig next to the Piermaster's House in the hope of uncovering artefacts from houses that were destroyed on the site in World War 2.

Due to its tactical importance, the Albert Dock was bombed heavily during the war, resulting in most houses being damaged or destroyed. The remaining houses were eventually demolished, but the dig team hope that they will uncover some interesting artefacts such as personal objects or pottery used by the families that lived there. Vanessa Oakden, regional and community archaeology curator, explains;

"These houses were built for the dock workers, but their families as well, so we'd love to find anything relating to their stories."

The team undertaking the dig will include volunteers who will work alongside university staff. The dig will take place from 26th June until 30th July on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The area will be fenced off with a mesh fence, but passers-by are encouraged to stop and take a look at what is going on.

The dig is part of a wider waterfront research project which coincides with the 175th anniversary of the opening of the dock by Prince Albert in 1847.

If you want to find out more about the dig and its progress, you can keep up to date on social media using the hashtag #dockhousedig

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A New Archeological Dig is Happening at the Albert Dock

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If you're a fan of Britains' Biggest Dig, then you will love what is happening down at the Albert Dock over the next few months. A team from the Museum of Liverpool's archaeology department are undertaking a dig next to the Piermaster's House in the hope of uncovering artefacts from houses that were destroyed on the site in World War 2.

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Partnership puts students at heart of Albert Dock dig

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Liverpool's Albert Dock is set to be the backdrop for a high-profile LJMU archaeological dig later this month.

Students on BSc Forensic Anthropology and MSc Forensic Anthropology were invited by National Museums Liverpool to take part in a dig at Pier Masters House Green behind Liverpool Tate.

The six-week dig site will be manned from May 26 by students and city archaeologists who are inviting the public and schools to "find out about the history of one of the world's most iconic docks".

Kayleigh Hughes, 24, a Masters student from Liverpool, said: "I think it's a really good opportunity to get to know more about our local history. It will benefit my career to get some hands-on experience in archaeology - it's absolutely fantastic."
Geophysical survey completion
Kayleigh and 22-year-old Ellie Edwards, from Monmouthshire, conducted a supervised geophysical survey this week to help the Museums decide exactly where to dig.

Vanessa Oakden, curator of community archaeology at National Museums Liverpool, said: "The Pier Master's House, dating from 1852, is part of the restored dock but the Dock Master's House just behind it disappeared, so that is what we are digging for.

"The Dock Master was the more important of the two figures and probably lived there with his family, so we are interested in shedding light on the conditions of family life 175 years ago."

Ellie Edwards said: "We're using GPR radar to penetrate the soil to discover whether there is anything below the ground. With this and other technologies, we can create a map of what's down there."

"We're looking for evidence of walls or rubble. There are possibly family houses down there so maybe some items of pottery, ceramics, we don't know until we do the 'geophys' survey," added Kayleigh.
Exciting
Dr David Jordan, senior lecturer in forensic archaeology, said: "It's fantastic to be here working at one of the most iconic sites in Liverpool doing work to reveal the history of a historically-important place. It is such a privilege for us and such an exciting thing to offer our students.

"We'll be down at the site from May 26 working alongside our partners at National Museums Liverpool."

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Partnership puts students at heart of Albert Dock dig

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Liverpool's Albert Dock is set to be the backdrop for a high-profile LJMU archaeological dig later this month. Students on BSc Forensic Anthropology and MSc Forensic Anthropology were invited by National Museums Liverpool to take part in a dig at Pier Masters House Green behind Liverpool Tate.

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A fascinating archeological dig is about to start at the Albert Dock - The Guide Liverpool

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An archeological dig is happening at the Albert Dock, next to the Piermaster's House, to try and uncover foundations and artefacts from houses destroyed in the Blitz of World War 2.

A team from the Museum of Liverpool's archeology team will be joined by volunteers from next week to start a dig which will go on until the end of July.

The site, at Piermaster's Green next to the Billy Fury statue, will be surrounded by mesh fencing meaning passers-by can stop and watch what's happening and hopefully be on the spot for any historical discoveries.

The Albert Dock was a prime target for German bombing during the war which resulted in three out of four houses which had stood there since 1852 being damaged and destroyed.

They were demolished, but now the dig team is aiming to unearth what was left behind as two of the homes had basement spaces.

Vanessa Oakden, regional and community archaeology curator who is one of those involved in this dig, explains: "This is quite a recent site in terms of the land being reclaimed so we've got good records of when things happened.

"As with any archeological project, we started with an assessment and some research to put every known piece of information about the site together. We looked back at old maps to see if there was anything there for that location and if it was something of interest.

"What we realised was we had a fascinating site on our doorstep. We could see the old buildings marked on the maps - there were four houses there originally including the Piermaster's House and three others which were for the dockmasters and their families to live in.

"They were damaged beyond repair, only the Piermaster's survived, but because they were built by Mersey Docks and Harbour Board we have the original architects' plans which is very unusual. From them we can tell that two of the houses have basements so if we can find small personal objects or pottery used by people who lived in the houses then that will be brilliant."

The dig will take place from next Wednesday, May 26, until July 30, with a team on-site three days a week from Wednesday to Friday.

Although volunteer places have now all been filled by university students, waterfront residents and members of the public, Vanessa says that doesn't mean visitors can't still be a part of it.

"We'll have no more than six digging at any one time - we stuck to the rule of six because we didn't know what the restrictions would be and it's also a very small site. Three or four staff members will be there each day to support the volunteers when they're digging and talk to members of the public because we want them to come up, see what's happening, ask questions and get involved that way.

"Often when we go out and do an excavation it will be in a remote field somewhere so you don't get that chance but this one is far more accessible.

"We have had some great community digs in the past, for example one in Calderstones Park a number of years ago where loads of people came along and chatted about what we were doing, so this will be similar.

"People can just stand and watch, they don't have ask anything, but if they're curious then we're happy to chat about what's happening and what the structures in the ground are as they're revealed hopefully."

The community excavation is part of a wider waterfront research project which has received funding from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRA). It coincides with the 175 th anniversary of the opening of the Royal Albert Dock by Prince Albert in 1847.

Vanessa says the aim is to collect as many pieces as possible to feature in a display at the Museum of Liverpool alongside written and photographic records of the dig.

"The story of the docks is obviously a very male-orientated one, so we rarely hear about women who lived and worked there," she explains. "These houses were built for the dock workers but their families as well so we'd love to find anything relating to their stories.

Walk through Liverpool's @theAlbertDock ? pic.twitter.com/9mjc4u3JXR

- The Guide Liverpool (@TheGuideLpool) January 2, 2021

"We know that one of the houses had bright red tiles in the porch so ideally we'd like to have one of those, and anything like marbles that the children might have played with.

"I think when it's your local area, somewhere that you've probably walked past a thousand times not really thinking about it, it's even more interesting to have that extra detail about what happened here 100 years ago, and to feel that connection to the past."
Anyone interested in finding out more about the dig's progress can keep updated on social media using the hashtag #DockHouseDig.
You can keep up to date on Facebook with the Museum of Liverpool Archaeology team here.

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A fascinating archeological dig is about to start at the Albert Dock - The Guide Liverpool

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An archeological dig is happening at the Albert Dock, next to the Piermaster's House, to try and uncover foundations and artefacts from houses destroyed in the Blitz of World War 2. A team from the Museum of Liverpool's archeology team will be joined by volunteers from next week to start a dig which will go on until the end of July.

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Is this fund right for you?

Are you applying for funding to support a nationally important heritage asset in the UK?

Is the heritage asset at risk due to the impact of the COVID-19?

Have you explored all other sources of funding?

Will the heritage asset be publicly accessible if you secure NHMF funding?

Are you a not-for-profit organisation?

Overview

Launched in June 2021, this funding stream offers project grants to support any heritage asset which is:

of outstanding importance to the national heritage

at risk due to the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19)

A total of £40million is being distributed by NHMF, made up of two lots of £20m:

NHMF has made a commitment of £20m, which is available to applicants from across the UK.

A £20m Cultural Assets Fund has been made available by DCMS as part of the government's wider Culture Recovery Fund. This funding will safeguard nationally important heritage assets within England.

Distributing NHMF's own commitment as a single fund with the Cultural Assets Fund will ensure a UK-wide balance of funding.

This funding is available until the end of April 2023. There are no deadlines for applications.

Things you need to know

Who can apply

charities

not-for-profit organisations, for example voluntary groups, trusts, social enterprises and community interest companies

public sector organisations

Who cannot apply

private individuals

commercial and for profit businesses

What can be funded

We can support any heritage asset which is of outstanding importance to the national heritage and at risk due to the impact of COVID-19, through a project grant.

Examples include:

works of fine and decorative art

museum collections

archives

manuscripts

items of industrial, transport and maritime heritage

historic buildings and land

NHMF can fund a range of costs in order to safeguard the heritage asset which is at risk. These include:

acquisition/purchase costs, including associated professional fees

transport costs, including conservation standard handling and packing for collections or heavy lift/transport costs for large items/historic vehicles

interim storage costs and investment in new permanent storage capacity

urgent conservation work necessary due to COVID-19 impact and investment to resolve maintenance backlog/deficit, collection care costs

condition surveys, cataloguing, management and conservation planning

professional fees, including legal and other fees to support asset transfer

ownership transition costs; fixed term support to enable sustainable rehoming of heritage asset

organisational development costs to support asset transfer; skills development/capacity building, business review and business planning support

What cannot be funded

We cannot fund:

organisational costs that are eligible to be covered by other Government support, for example, furloughing (inclusive of the remaining percentage of salary costs for staff not covered by the Government's Job Retention Scheme), or any additional salary costs above the furloughing cap

redundancy costs of staff

costs that are avoidable in the short term

anything that contravenes the Governments' advice on COVID-19

recoverable VAT

Nor can we fund items that have already been purchased, or that have been secured with a down payment or deposit. So if an item has already been paid for, you cannot apply for funding to reimburse the individual or organisation that bought it.

Other funding contributions

NHMF can fund heritage projects of all sizes and there is no limit to the percentage of funding that can be applied for. We appreciate that in these challenging times it may not be possible to secure other funding contributions.

However, NHMF operates as a fund of last resort, so we ask you to show that you have explored, or are exploring, all other possible sources of funding, including your own resources.

Making an application

Application guidance pack

Refer to the application guidance pack before applying. This includes:

Full details about the application process, including how we assess applications.

What you need to do if you receive a grant.

Help notes to support you when making an application.

Download the pack:

Submit an Expression of Interest

If you wish to apply to the COVID-19 Response Fund you must first submit an Expression of Interest. This is an essential first step in the application process.

We recognise that organisations seeking support may be facing complex challenges, so we encourage you to contact us for advice before you submit an Expression of Interest form. Please contact us at NHMF_Enquiries@heritagefund.org.uk.

Use our online grants portal to submit your Expression of Interest. We will review this and ask you to move on to a full application if appropriate.

Application deadlines

There are no deadlines for applications. The fund will close at the end of April 2023.

About the Cultural Assets Fund

Funding for heritage assets within England will be provided from the Cultural Assets Fund. This £20m allocation of funding has been made by DCMS for NHMF to distribute alongside our own commitment of £20m. Distributing NHMF's own commitment as a single fund with the Cultural Assets Fund will ensure a UK wide balance of funding.

The Cultural Assets Fund comes from the Cultural Recovery Fund and has been allocated to NHMF to safeguard nationally important heritage assets within England which are at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19.

The Cultural Assets Fund will be distributed by NHMF in 2021/22 and 2022/23. We will work in close partnership with Historic England, Arts Council England and The National Archives, to ensure that nationally important heritage is safeguarded in the most appropriate way. These partners will join our NHMF Panel for discussion of Cultural Assets Fund cases and assist in the prioritisation of applications.

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Is this fund right for you? Are you applying for funding to support a nationally important heritage asset in the UK? Is the heritage asset at risk due to the impact of the COVID-19? Have you explored all other sources of funding? Will the heritage asset be publicly accessible if you secure NHMF funding?

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Roman fort on Dutch coast may have supported the invasion of Britannia

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A Roman fort discovered on the banks of the Oer-IJ in the Netherlands may have supported the invasion of Britannia, according to archaeologist Dr Arjen Bosman.

Evidence for Roman military activity was first unearthed in 1945 in Velsen, (or Flevum in Latin), in the province of North Holland in an abandoned German anti-tank trench, with ongoing excavations over the past several decades discovering the remains of two forts in what archaeologists at the time identified as mere castellum.

After piecing together the archaeological remains over the last several decades, Dr Arjen Bosman, a specialist in Roman military history suggests that the site was actually a legionary fortress, first established by Emperor Caligula during his failed attempt to send an expedition to Britannia in AD 40.

According to accounts from by the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus in the De vita Caesarum, Caligula drew his troops up in battle and faced the English Channel, apparently ordering them to gather seashells in which he referred to them as "plunder from the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palace".

In AD 41, Caligula was assassinated in a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers, but his readiness of Roman troops and the movement of provisions arguably prepared Emperor Claudius' invasion three years later.

The fort would have housed several thousand soldiers and was probably constructed to defend the frontiers against the Germanic Chauci tribe whilst preparations were underway further south for Britannia's invasion.

Dr Bosman told the Guardian: "We have found wooden planks underneath the watchtower, or the gate of the fort, and this is the phase just before the invasion of Britannia. The wooden plank has been dated in the winter of AD42/43."

"The main force came from Boulogne and Calais, but the northern flank of that attack had to be covered and it was covered by the fort in Velsen." Added Dr Bosman. Find out more

Header Image Credit : Massimo Todaro - Shutterstock

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Roman fort on Dutch coast may have supported the invasion of Britannia

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Evidence for Roman military activity was first unearthed in 1945 in Velsen, (or Flevum in Latin), in the province of North Holland in an abandoned German anti-tank trench, with ongoing excavations over the past several decades discovering the remains of two forts in what archaeologists at the time identified as mere castellum.

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New light cast on the Isle of Man's Viking era - BBC News

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The past year has seen a resurgence in interest in the Viking age on the Isle of Man after two significant finds were declared treasure.

Manx National Heritage's curator of archaeology Allison Fox said the ornate oval brooches were particularly significant, as it was previously only hypothesised that women had travelled to the island with their male Viking counterparts.

She said the brooches were the first find of their kind that provided proof women had also come from Scandinavia, filling in a "missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle" for the era.

Vikings are thought to have arrived on the Isle of Man in the early 800s, first trading and then settling on the island.

Their time on the island spanned four centuries and their direct influence only ended in AD1266 when control was handed over to the King Alexander III of Scotland.

The island's location in the Irish Sea made it a useful hub for travellers, traders and seafarers alike and Viking items in the national collections range from fishing hooks and needles to swords and hoards of silver.

Ms Fox said evidence of their arrival had been found in a boat burial that was found at Balladoole, near Castletown, in the mid-1940s.

It was the grave of a male Viking and he was found buried in a ship of "local trading size", along with "everything he might need in the afterlife", although the absence of a sword has led to the assumption that he was a trader, she said.

However, she said a grave on the north of the island reflected a more "horrific" aspect of Viking burial practices.

She said it was significant not only due to the "content and the quality of the possessions" within it, but also because it contained a skull with a "massive slash to the back of the head".

The skull is believed to have belonged to a woman, who had been laid on a layer of cremated animals within the burial mound and was possibly the victim of a human sacrifice.

She said a shield, spearheads and what is "certainly the highest quality sword", which would have taken "an awful lot of work and quite a lot of money", were also found in the grave.

"As far as swords go, the Ballateare is high quality [for the island], but it's high quality compared to other places as well," she said.

However, perhaps the most well-known Viking-era burial on the island is that of the "Pagan Lady", found on St Patrick's Isle in Peel in 1984.

The burial, which has been dated to about AD950, had been incorporated into a Christian cemetery without disturbing any of the existing graves and contained a necklace made up of 51 colourful glass, jet and amber beads, some of which dated to the 6th Century.

Ms Fox said the necklace, along with other items found in the grave, suggested she had been a "really influential person in the community", though her identity remains a mystery.

It is not just graves that have shared their stories and their riches with the island though.

There has been more Viking silver found on the Isle of Man per square kilometre than most other places in the British Isles and many of the larger finds date from about AD1,000 onwards, indicating that there was a lot of wealth on the island during the period.

The largest single discovery, known as the Ballaquayle hoard, was found in 1894 in Douglas and contained about 4.4lbs (2kg) of silver.

Ms Fox said the finds have not only enhanced understanding of Manx history, they also helped to create a clearer picture of the period elsewhere.

"Not everything that was found here was made here, so it generally fills the gaps in the knowledge of the Viking age everywhere really," she said.

Graves and silver though are not the most significant thing the Vikings left behind.

Their presence is still evident today in place names like Jurby and Snaefell, but their most notable influence is Tynwald, the parliament they founded during their rule of the island.

Its name derives from Old Norse, the language they used, and means the assembly's meeting place.

"The Vikings were responsible for introducing Tynwald," Ms Fox said.

"They decide how we go about life, what we can do and what we can't do.

"That's a pretty strong legacy."

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New light cast on the Isle of Man's Viking era - BBC News

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The past year has seen a resurgence in interest in the Viking age on the Isle of Man after two significant finds were declared treasure. Manx National Heritage's curator of archaeology Allison Fox said the ornate oval brooches were particularly significant, as it was previously only hypothesised that women had travelled to the island with their male Viking counterparts.

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World's oldest family tree created using DNA

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This family tree and the burial pattern tells a fascinating social story.

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Iñigo Olalde, from the University of the Basque Country, Spain, who was the lead geneticist for the study and its co-first author, said: "The excellent DNA preservation at the tomb and the use of the latest technologies in ancient DNA recovery and analysis allowed us to uncover the oldest family tree ever reconstructed and analyse it to understand something profound about the social structure of these ancient groups."

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World's oldest family tree created using DNA

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Scientists have created the world's oldest family tree from bones interred at a 5,700-year-old tomb.

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Largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard found in Norfolk

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Largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard found in Norfolk

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Some of the 131 coins were cast from the same die as those found at the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

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Stoke Mandeville: Roman sculptures HS2 find astounding, expert says

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Stoke Mandeville: Roman sculptures HS2 find astounding, expert says

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Stoke Mandeville: Roman sculptures HS2 find astounding, expert says

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Two complete sculptures appearing to be a man and a woman were found at a site in Buckinghamshire.

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© 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER.

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Arrest after man allegedly damaged Stonehenge

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(Image: PA)

A 30-year-old man has been arrested after reportedly using a metal detector at Stonehenge.

The man was arrested in Bradford following a request from Wiltshire Police after he visit the historic landmark between August and September.

They say he was arrested on suspicion of intentionally or recklessly damaging a protected monument; using a metal detector in a protected place without the consent of the secretary of state; removing an item of archaeological or historical interest which is discovered by the use of a metal detector in a protected place without the written consent; and possession of explosives without a valid permit.
READ MORE: Daughter of 1930s Stonehenge custodian shares her memories of historic site
The man was also cautioned by West Yorkshire Police for possession of cannabis. He has since been released under investigation.

PC Emily Thomas Heritage Crime officer in the Wiltshire Rural Crime Team said: "We are fortunate to live in a beautiful county with many heritage sites. Unfortunately, these sites occasionally attract the wrong sorts of visitors who are intent on personal gain and disregard the law.

"Our heritage assets are protected by specific criminal offences to prevent the damage caused by unlicensed alteration and thereby diminish the enjoyment of heritage sites for others.
You can stay up to date on the top news near you with WiltshireLive's FREE newsletters - enter your email address at the top of the page or sign up to our newsletters here More news from WiltshireLive:
"On this occasion the suspect was identified when posting his finds and the location on social media."

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Arrest after man allegedly damaged Stonehenge

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A 30-year-old man has been arrested after reportedly using a metal detector at Stonehenge. The man was arrested in Bradford following a request from Wiltshire Police after he visit the historic landmark between August and September.

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Ms Geake, who lives in Woolpit, Suffolk, and was involved in the Channel 4 series for more than 10 years, said there was concern a push to earmark areas for development could lose archaeological evidence.

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Time Team expert says new planning review must protect archaeology

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Ms Geake, who lives in Woolpit, Suffolk, and was involved in the Channel 4 series for more than 10 years, said there was concern a push to earmark areas for development could lose archaeological evidence.

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4,000-year-old Bronze Age log coffin was found by chance under a pond at a golf club near Grimsby (Photo: inews)

When a rare 4,000-year-old Bronze Age log coffin was found by chance under a pond at a golf club near Grimsby, archaeologists from the University of Sheffield, working on an unrelated dig nearby, were able to act quickly to preserve it.

The find made headlines across the world. Tim Allen, of Historic England, paid tribute to them saying: "It was only thanks to them being able to assist that weekend we were able to secure the coffin, axe and surviving human remains."

Incredibly, they won't be around to help in future, as the archaeology department faces closure by the university authorities.

Archaeologists at Worcester University face a similar fate while those at Chester face redundancies.

News of Sheffield's demise sparked controversy in the usually sedate corridors of academia. Digging up the past is seen as a British strong suit. UK universities are internationally recognised as among the best in the world - four of the five highest ranking courses are here - with Harvard in the US the only interloper. Sheffield is ranked seventh in the UK, 39th in the world.

Archaeology faces a "perfect storm" of university cuts, skills shortages and potential changes to planning rules which threaten to irreversibly damage the UK's world-leading reputation in the discipline, experts warn.

Across the country, men and women usually found working quietly in trenches with trowels are protesting about the state of the profession. The crisis has prompted some to ask the Monty Python-esque question: what has archaeology ever done for us?
Well... there are discoveries from Stonehenge to Skara Brae, via "Seahenge" and Sutton Hoo.

Heritage tourism - refreshed with newly unearthed discoveries - from the Mary Rose to the burial place of Richard III or the recently unearthed Prittlewell Prince - supports 350,000 jobs and contributes £20bn to UK coffers.

There are as many as 7,000 archaeological jobs in the UK. A 2019 study found archaeologists working in the planning system saved the construction industry up to £1.3bn in delay and emergency excavation work.

Far from being a dead hand on progress, archaeological concerns were cited in just 0.01 per cent of planning refusals.

Dr Hugh Willmott, senior archaeology lecturer at Sheffield, suggests he and his fellow academics suffer from an image problem.

"Too often, we are seen as 'people who play in the dirt' or very occasionally - and
fortuitously for their media outlets - 'finders of secrets' rather than serious academics."

More widely he believes archaeologists "are not shouting loud enough to our managers about the genuine value of archaeology".

"University management, in my experience, massively under-estimates the extent to which we all collaborate with other disciplines on truly innovative projects.

"We need to be telling them that archaeology's partnerships are not just with the History department, although this is important. At Sheffield we currently have active collaborations with Biomedical Science, Geography, Engineering, Mathematics, and Materials Science to name just a few."

Fellow archaeologist Dr Chloe Duckworth, at Newcastle University, points out a 2018 poll found archaeology was the UK's 11th most common career dream behind professional footballer, train driver and astronaut.

"Many more of my students hope to use the degree to gain a set of skills they can translate to other workplaces. Archaeology is really good for that. Teamwork, problem-solving, project management," she wrote in British Archaeology.

She set up Dig for Archaeology in a bid to champion the discipline and argues officials in authority undervalue the skills involved.

British archaeologists are embroiled in a diplomatic spat in Turkey
The British Institute in Ankara is responsible for important archaeological work in Turkey.
Last month, Turkish officials entered the Institute and seized its famous collection of ancient seeds. Turkey has declared all seeds/plants collected by foreign organisations the property of Turkey.

Chemist Ibrahim Saracoglu argues that they are critical to Turkey's history. He is a key player in Turkey's Ancestral Seed Project.

The collection argued that under a long-standing agreement with Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the institute served as the collection's custodian and offered to share the resource.

Mr Saracoglu said: "We do not divide. This is the property of the great Turkish nation."

Post-Brexit, the profession is now on the official skill shortage list but only after fierce lobbying. Such neglect is hard to understand. Archaeology remains popular with the public as the success of shows like Time Team and The Great British Dig demonstrate.

However, Dr Willmott suggests such shows may not always have helped the cause. The TV image of "archaeology being a three-day jolly with some colourful characters" has not helped persuade parents to "sail their children off into an archaeological career," he says.

Whether news that Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge is being tipped to replace Harrison Ford as the fictional professor of archaeology, Indiana Jones, in the Raiders of the Lost Ark franchise films, will change that perception remains to be seen. For the moment, archaeology's past remains clearer than its future.

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Archaeology could be rendered a thing of the past as multiple UK courses and jobs face the axe

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When a rare 4,000-year-old Bronze Age log coffin was found by chance under a pond at a golf club near Grimsby, archaeologists from the University of Sheffield, working on an unrelated dig nearby, were able to act quickly to preserve it. The find made headlines across the world.

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Metal detectorist's Bronze Age find on display for first time

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Jill Cook, head of the department of Britain, Europe and pre-history at the British Museum, said it was the "most wonderful thing" found in Britain since she started working for the museum in 1986.

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Metal detectorist's Bronze Age find on display for first time

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Jill Cook, head of the department of Britain, Europe and pre-history at the British Museum, said it was the "most wonderful thing" found in Britain since she started working for the museum in 1986.

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Metal detectorist's 'disbelief' at second Viking find on Isle of Man

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Kath Giles says she feels "lucky" to have unearthed two Viking hoards since taking up the hobby.

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It is believed to date from around 1899, when the city's original horse-drawn tram system was switched to being powered by cables running under the rails to pull the trams along.

The find on Leith Walk near its junction with Pilrig Street is believed to be close to the so-called "Pilrig muddle" where passengers were forced to change from Edinburgh's trams to the-then separate burgh of Leith's separate system, which was electrified in 1905.

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The wheel, which was uncovered in the past few days, is thought to have been decommissioned when the city's trams were electrified in 1922, two years after Leith became part of Edinburgh.

City archaeologist John Lawson told The Scotsman: "This is a very important and interesting discovery.

"It is part of the original cable-winding mechanism."

Mr Lawson said experts from Guard Archaeology would be investigating and recording the find over the next week.

He said: "We will then try to remove it for safekeeping."

The wheel was part of Edinburgh's cable-hauled tram network used until until 1922. Picture: ACamerumer @aljaroo1874

However, no decision has taken about whether it will put on public display.

Tram fan ACamerumer, who posted pictures of the find on Twitter, said: "I'm hoping that they could be dug up, rebuilt and put somewhere along the route, or reinforced glass put on top so people could look down and see some historical engineering."

Archaeologists are examining the wheel which was unearthed this week. Picture: ACamerumer @aljaroo1874

Paul Tetlaw, a rail expert at sustainable transport campaign body Transform Scotland, said: "It's a wonderful find, so let's hope it can be preserved as part of future tram works."

A similar wheel was discovered during non-tram excavation work around ten years ago at nearby Shrubhill, but was left in place and re-covered.

Tram fan Andy Arthur said the cables were powered by a series of stationary steam engines, including at Shrubhill, which ran at a constant 12mph, which governed the speed of the tram "cars" other than when they disengaged from the pulleys to stop.

The wheel is thought to date from 1888 and have been in use until 1922. Picture: ACamerumer @aljaroo1874

Leith Walk was part of Edinburgh's first tram route, which opened in 1871 between Leith and Haymarket.

It was also part of the last line to operate when the system was closed in 1956.

The existing Edinburgh Airport to York Place line was opened in 2014.

Work on the three-mile extension north east to Newhaven started in 2019 and is due to be completed in spring 2023.

Edinburgh City Council, which is in charge of the project, said a shortage of concrete and other building materials is not expected to extend that date.

Council transport convener Lesley Macinnes said: "The Trams to Newhaven project has uncovered numerous pieces that give a fascinating insight into Leith's long and colourful history and this tram wheel is no exception.

"Its location is significant and will help us better understand how the Edinburgh and Leith tram systems interacted with each other all those years ago.

"Leith continues to live up to its reputation as being one of the most important urban archaeology sites in Scotland.'

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Edinburgh tram cable wheel unearthed in Leith Walk nearly 100 years after last used

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It is believed to date from around 1899, when the city's original horse-drawn tram system was switched to being powered by cables running under the rails to pull the trams along.

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Part of Hadrian’s Wall found in Newcastle 

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Part of Hadrian’s Wall found in Newcastle 

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http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/bajrpress/part-of-hadrians-wall-discovered-beneath-newcastle-road/

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Pagan Roman emperor coin found in Norfolk field 'deliberately damaged'

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Pagan Roman emperor coin found in Norfolk field 'deliberately damaged'

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Emperor Julian wanted to revive pagan worship across the Empire after it officially became Christian.

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The United Kingdom's longest ancient monument has been damaged by "centuries of gradual benign neglect", says an association fighting to preserve it.

A fund has started to help preserve the 8th Century Offa's Dyke earthwork.

Offa's Dyke has "a lot of catching up to do" compared with other monuments like Hadrian's Wall and Stonehenge, according to its association chairman.

Dave McGlade said the 177 mile (285 km) monument on the Wales-England border is a "sensitive archaeological landscape."

"It is also a scheduled monument, protected by statute law, and deserves to be treated with the utmost respect," added the Offa's Dyke Association chairman.

The association has said because the scheduled monument exists largely within private land, it has fallen to landowners and local communities to keep it maintained.

It said in consultation with Welsh historic environment body Cadw, the National Trail unit and Historic England, the Offa's Dyke Rescue Fund would seek to purchase parts of the monument considered to be under threat.

A 2017 survey showed just 8.7% of Offa's Dyke was in a "favourable condition" and artist Dan Llewelyn Hall has been commissioned for an exhibition celebrating 50 years of the Offa's Dyke Path.

He said while it is a "modest little bump in the landscape", it is "hugely important to our identity of Wales", such as in preserving the language and culture.

"It embodies a border culture between England and Wales and goes beyond that but it encases communities across the border that want to preserve it," said Mr Hall, from Llanfyllin in Powys.

"For a lot of people the path can seem irrelevant or inconvenient to maintain as it runs through a lot of private land and farm yard but once you lose that significance you never retrieve it."

What is the history behind Offa's Dyke?

Offa's Dyke is named after King Offa - the king of the Mercians, a warrior tribe from central England, from AD 747 to 796.

He ordered it to be constructed in the 8th Century, probably to divide his kingdom from rival kingdoms in what is now Wales, according to National Trails. The work required thousands of men.

The earth bank in places still stands to a height of 12 feet (3.5m) and 60 ft (18m) wide.

What is the Offa's Dyke path?

The 177-mile National Trail opened in the summer of 1971 and links Sedbury Cliffs near Chepstow with the coastal town of Prestatyn on the shores of the Irish sea.

According to Visit Wales, fell-runners take an average of five days to complete it while hikers take 12 days.

It passes through eight different counties and crosses the border between England and Wales more than 20 times.

It links three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the Wye Valley, the Shropshire Hills and the Clwydian Range / Dee Valley.

'The breathtaking borderlands'

The exhibition 'Walking with Offa' will bring together art, poems and music celebrating 50 years of the path and will run through from Saturday until October, at Offa's Dyke Association and Centre in Knighton.

Mr Hall said it was a way to persevere and shed light on the "monument of fragile existence that hasn't really been explored or given so much limelight," with the fund emerging after he and the association "realised it needed attention".

"We are hoping we can press upon people the importance of the monument and hope people will engage with it and absorb the sites and love it," he said.

The Offa's Dyke Path's national trail officer Rob Dingle said the monument is important for the local economy as it attracts walkers from all over the world.

"They call it the breathtaking borderlands," he said.

"The trail itself brings walkers from all around the world to enjoy our landscapes and when they are here they are staying in Airbnb's, drinking in our pubs and spending in our shops so that money coming into the rural economy is huge."

He said because of the Covid pandemic, getting people to walk the trail and enjoy the area was "hugely important".

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Offa's Dyke: Monument damaged by 'centuries of benign neglect'

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The United Kingdom's longest ancient monument has been damaged by "centuries of gradual benign neglect", says an association fighting to preserve it. A fund has started to help preserve the 8th Century Offa's Dyke earthwork. Offa's Dyke has "a lot of catching up to do" compared with other monuments like Hadrian's Wall and Stonehenge, according to its association chairman.

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Negative watching brief reported as news for political purposes!

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A DEVELOPER is a step closer to building the next phase of a controversial housing scheme after an archaeological survey found nothing of historical significance on the green land.

Bellway Homes built the first phase, for 129 homes, at the Bowlands Hey development, after it was approved after and appeal by the Planning Inspectorate in 2017 after the council's decision to block the plans.

Similarly, the second phase, for a further 167 houses, was approved by the Planning Inspectorate last year, months after Bolton councillors unanimously rejected the bid at a planning committee meeting.

A condition, imposed by Bolton Council after the appeal decision, was for Bellway to undertake an archaeological survey of the site prior to building.

That report has now been lodged with the council after 20 trenches were dug at the site to search for any evidence of historical significance.

The report, by Archaeological Research Services Ltd, states: "The programme of archaeological trenching has highlighted the paucity of features of archaeological significance present on site and overarchingly confirmed the results of the geophysical survey.

"The limited evidence for past human activity on the site was restricted to the installation of 19th‐20th century land drains, localised ground consolidation within the southern extremity of the site and the remnants of a 19th‐20th century trackway in close proximity to the current stone built bridge which spans Pennington Brook to the east of the site."

Among items found during the dig were fragments of brown and black lead‐glazed red‐bodied earthenware representing three bowls typical of those used in a dairy and six fragments representing stoneware storage vessels, including a complete jar and a complete flagon.

The flagon was inscribed '1940 Scotts's (Bolton) Ltd Botanical Brewers Daubhill, Bolton, anyone found illegally using or retaining this bottle will be prosecuted'.

That piece was manufactured for the Bolton‐based firm of herbal brewers who were in business from the mid‐1930s to the early 1950s.

Other pottery found included earthenware plate fragments, including an early 20th century bone china plate and an early‐mid 20th century teapot, missing its spout, with Price Bros Made In England' underglazed on its base with its lid, along with fragments of another teapot lid, bowls, mugs and a teacup.

Last month, Bellway issued leaflets in the Westhouhgton area regarding phase three of the Bowlands Hey development, seeking feedback before submitting a formal planning application.

That third phase could potentially add 300 homes to the site, extending to the boundary with the railway line.

That news prompted Westhoughton South councillor, David Wilkinson to say that 'Westhoughton has traditionally been a very nice and quiet area but now it's just a constant roar of bulldozers'.

He added: "The town is losing so much of its distinctiveness with all of these developments here and in the surrounding area.

"We've always had such good green space which has been so well used during the pandemic but it feels like we are losing so much now."

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Major extension to Westhoughton estate a step closer after archaeological dig

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A DEVELOPER is a step closer to building the next phase of a controversial housing scheme after an archaeological survey found nothing of historical significance on the green land. Bellway Homes built the first phase, for 129 homes, at the Bowlands Hey development, after it was approved after and appeal by the Planning Inspectorate in 2017 after the council's decision to block the plans.

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Race against time to save prehistoric settlement from erosion - The Times and The Sunday Times

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In 1850 a storm and extreme high tide tore into the western coast of Orkney and ripped open a large grassy mound on the Bay of Skaill, revealing the outlines of buried Stone Age buildings. Excavations eventually unearthed eight dwellings with their fittings and contents intact, the buildings linked together by low covered passageways.

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"For living wearers, shackles were both a form of imprisonment and a method of punishment, a source of discomfort, pain and stigma which may have left scars even after they had been removed," said MOLA finds specialist Michael Marshall.

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Shackled skeleton find in Rutland 'evidence of Roman slavery'

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"For living wearers, shackles were both a form of imprisonment and a method of punishment, a source of discomfort, pain and stigma which may have left scars even after they had been removed," said MOLA finds specialist Michael Marshall.

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PICTURES show one of the most 'significant' historical digs underway as bemused bowlers look on.

Archaeologists began digging on Monday at the site where the first game of football is thought to have been played in a park close to Hampden Bowling Club on the Southside.

Pictures taken by the Glasgow Times' photographer show small teams at work.

Dr Paul Murtagh, of Archaeology Scotland, told the Glasgow Times earlier this week: "This is the site where the passing and running game was first played and where modern football was born.

"This site is the place where the idea of a purpose-built football ground originated, with a pavilion in the corner, a grand stand built to host spectators and the first use of turnstiles for entry."

The project has been opened to members of the public as part of Archaeology Scotland's New Audience Project which aims to include people not normally involved with history and heritage projects with a specific focus on giving access to refugees and immigrants.

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One of world's 'most important' archaeology digs gets underway in Glasgow

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PICTURES show one of the most 'significant' historical digs underway as bemused bowlers look on. Archaeologists began digging on Monday at the site where the first game of football is thought to have been played in a park close to Hampden Bowling Club on the Southside.

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y day, the tombaroli, or tomb raiders, marked out the spot. They used long, pointed tools to pierce the earth, beneath which there was a passage that would take them to Roman homes replete with treasure in Civita Giuliana, a suburb of ancient Pompeii, about 700 metres north-west of the main archaeological park.

By night, they dug a network of tunnels. Each was about 40 metres long, starting from their home or abandoned buildings in the countryside area close to the site, and connected to the passage, from where they hammered through ancient walls as they made their way into the homes to seize their loot.

For years, their cunning methods were successful, allowing the tombaroli, a father and son team, to steal artefacts from the site and sell them on for huge sums of money to art traffickers around the world. Then, in 2012, they were caught in action - by Italy's art police, the carabinieri's cultural protection unit.

A fragment of a fresco from Villa Arianna in Pompeii, recently returned to the Museo Archeologico Libero D'Orsi, in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy. Photograph: Parco Archeologico di Pompei pre/AFP/Getty

The special squad had discovered a hole covered by metal sheets, earth and crops leading to an illegal excavation, along with three frescoes destined for exportation overseas. The relics were recently returned to Pompeii's archaeological park.

"The tombaroli know their dig can either go well or badly," said Gen Roberto Riccardi, the chief of Italy's cultural heritage protection squad. "The tunnels at Civita Giuliana were found thanks to intelligence work. The tombaroli are usually people we know and have significant experience ... often there are generations of them. But this is not their only work: they usually have farming or building trade activities."

Looters have been plundering Italy's cultural sites for decades, but since 2012 their trade has not been as fruitful, owing to an intensified crackdown by Italy's art police, of whom there are 302 across the country.

In 2020, the squad found 24 illegal digs, arrested 68 thieves and recuperated 17,503 archaeological artefacts. The unit carries out controls of archaeological sites on the ground or above by helicopter. A scuba-diving team also patrols archaeological sites along the Italian coast.

Among the items retrieved last year and recently brought back to Pompeii were three other frescoes that had been sliced off the walls of Villa Arianna and Villa San Marco - homes that once belonged to noble families in Stabiae, a historical site close to the archaeological park's main excavations - in the 1970s. The relics were smuggled overseas and it is known that they were eventually bought by English, American and Swiss antique dealers in the 1990s. The items later returned to Italy, where, with the help of an archaeological expert, police were able to identify them among the private collection of a businessman in Milan. The archaeologist also noted that the frescoes had been tinkered with in order to make them more valuable.

A fragment of a fresco from the Villa San Marco in Pompeii. Photograph: Parco Archeologico di Pompei pre/AFP/Getty

"There is a whole network of people involved, starting from the tombaroli, who are in touch with dealers, who in turn agree a price with international traffickers. When there is a significant value, either artistic or historic, the traffickers act," said Riccardi.

The criminal merchants then create a fake paper trail to deceive buyers into believing that they are buying items derived legally.

In the past, looted relics have ended up in some of the world's biggest museums. In 1996, the Getty museum in Los Angeles acquired artefacts, including frescoes stolen from Pompeii, that led to the museum's curator later going on trial in Rome, accused by the Italian government of conspiring to traffic looted art, though the charges were dropped in 2007. That same year, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art gave back antiques, including statues and vases, that had been illegally excavated and smuggled out of Italy.

Most of the country's stolen relics end up with buyers in northern European countries and the US, although countries in the far east and Middle East have emerged as prominent markets, too.

A fragment of a fresco, probably from Villa Arianna in Pompeii. Photograph: Parco Archeologico di Pompei pre/AFP/Getty

Italy's cultural heritage, including artworks, has an estimated value of €986bn, making it among the preferred prey of traffickers.

The cultural heritage protection squad was established in 1969 on the basis of an article in the country's postwar constitution stating that the new Republic must protect its landscape as well as historical and artistic heritage. However, the protection and recuperation of the territory's historical riches dates back much further. In 1816 the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova negotiated with Paris to repatriate artworks stolen by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Duke of Wellington also played a major role in returning items plundered by Napoleon and his army.

The squad has a database containing about 1.3m files on stolen artworks and archaeological relics.

"The job is a big challenge," said Riccardi. "But it's about reclaiming the history and beauty which our art, in the past and present, has given to Italy."

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Plunder of Pompeii: how art police turned tide on tomb raiders

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y day, the tombaroli, or tomb raiders, marked out the spot. They used long, pointed tools to pierce the earth, beneath which there was a passage that would take them to Roman homes replete with treasure in Civita Giuliana, a suburb of ancient Pompeii, about 700 metres north-west of the main archaeological park.

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Archaeologists have hailed the discovery of an entire Roman town and main road as "massive" for their understanding of ancient Kentish development.

The 18-acre site featuring Iron Age and Roman settlements contained rare coins, pottery and jewellery dating back as early as 30 BC, and was uncovered next to a major road in Newington, near Sittingbourne.

Evidence of a 7m-wide road was also found, alongside the remains of an ancient temple, close to the A2 - which itself tracks an ancient link with Canterbury and the coast.

Experts have said the discovery is one of the most significant finds made in the region. Newington History Group said that rare iron furnaces and sunken pottery kilns were also found, while several expensive, imported smaller items demonstrated the residents' high status.

Dean Coles, chairman of the group, said: "This is very exciting. The scale of this site, with the huge number and quality of finds, changes our knowledge of Newington's development."

A team of 30 archaeologists has worked full-time for eight months on the site.

He added: "We already had evidence of a Roman burial ground and Roman occupation in the immediate vicinity and this excavation shows there was a thriving manufacturing site in the heart of our village.

"The temple and major road are massive discoveries. It proves the A2 wasn't the only Roman road through the village.

"As a group, we are keen to trace the route and destination of this new 'highway' which may have connected with another temple excavated 50 years ago on the outskirts of Newington and a villa unearthed in 1882."

The buried town was found during the development of 124 new homes.

Once they have analysed their findings and published a report, experts will cover up the ancient remains so the new housing can be completed.

Dr Paul Wilkinson, archaeological director at Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey, said: "This is one of the most important discoveries of a Roman small town in Kent for many years with the preservation of Roman buildings and artefacts exceptional."

Romans invaded Britain in AD43 and remained for almost 400 years.

Remains of their occupation have been found scattered across the UK, including Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland and the Roman Baths in Bath.

The discovery comes after an "incredibly rare" Roman-era coin was found in Cambridgeshire, minted during the two-month reign of a breakaway emperor in the third century.

And the chance find of a Celtic shield in a field in Leicestershire has changed experts' understanding of how ancient Britons fought in wars.

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Remains of entire Roman town discovered next to A-road in Kent

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Archaeologists have hailed the discovery of an entire Roman town and main road as "massive" for their understanding of ancient Kentish development. The 18-acre site featuring Iron Age and Roman settlements contained rare coins, pottery and jewellery dating back as early as 30 BC, and was uncovered next to a major road in Newington, near Sittingbourne.

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Six reasons to save archaeology from funding cuts - The Conversation UK

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The government plans to cut university subsidy for teaching archaeology by 50%, yet it's never been more relevant to society.

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Lost village dating back 700 years found next to motorway hard shoulder - The Mirror

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The remains of four buildings dating back to the medieval times have been found next to the hard shoulder of the M74 in North Lanarkshire and "remarkably" included an ancient iron dagger

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Police evacuated residents from their homes in Hampshire to remove a live World War II bomb from a house after it was listed on eBay.

A metal detectorist from Southampton was arrested after advertising the 80-year-old device online where it was spotted and reported to police.

The force, alongside the fire service and Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, evacuated homes in Swaythling, near Southampton, on Tuesday afternoon and cordoned off the area before seizing the 1kg munition.

It was then taken to a police training centre in Netley where it was destroyed in a controlled explosion, a spokesperson for Hampshire Police said.

The spokesperson added that a 51-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of possessing an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose, but was released without further action.

The bomb was reportedly listed on eBay as a "WWII Germany incendiary bomb - genuine, authentic Southampton Blitz" - although police have not confirmed if this was correct.

An eBay spokesperson told the Daily Mail: "Clearly, dangerous weapons such as unexploded bombs are not allowed to be listed on eBay. We worked closely with Hampshire Police to quickly identify and locate this seller, aiding the successful and safe disposal of the item."

Mass airstrikes were carried out on the UK by German bombers between 1940 and 1941. An estimated 12,000 metric tons of bombs were dropped during this period, mainly on London.

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Families evacuated from homes after metal detectorist tries to sell live WWII bomb on eBay

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Police evacuated residents from their homes in Hampshire to remove a live World War II bomb from a house after it was listed on eBay. A metal detectorist from Southampton was arrested after advertising the 80-year-old device online where it was spotted and reported to police.

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THE likely age of Dorset's Cerne Abbas Giant has been revealed for the first time - and it has come as a surprise to historians.

Archaeologists at the National Trust have been analysing sediment taken from the carving - considered to be Britain's largest and perhaps best-known chalk hill figure.

Generations have speculated about the age and meaning of the club-brandishing giant hewn into a Dorset hillside with some theories including it being a depiction of the legendary demi-god Hercules, an ancient fertility symbol, or even the soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell.

Another theory is that the figure was carved around the body of a giant who was slain by local people after he terrorised the countryside.

Now, after state-of-the art sediment analysis funded by the National Trust, the University of Gloucestershire, Allen Environmental Archaeology and the Pratt Bequest, National Trust archaeologists have concluded the giant was probably first constructed in the late Saxon period - ruling out theories that the giant is prehistoric or Roman.

READ MORE: For the first time ever, experts attempt to reveal mysteries of Cerne Abbas giant

While some mystery still remains, the new theory suggests that the giant was forgotten for generations before being rediscovered and re-chalked.

Independent geoarchaeologist Mike Allen, whose research is helping the Trust understand more about the landscape in which the giant was created, said the result was 'surprising'.

"This is not what was expected," he said. "Many archaeologists and historians thought the giant was prehistoric or post-medieval, but not medieval. Everyone was wrong, and that makes these results even more exciting."

Phillip Toms, Professor in Physical Geography at the University of Gloucestershire, studied the samples using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), which shows when individual grains of sand in the sediment were last exposed to sunlight.

Material taken from the deepest layer (one metre) yielded a date range of 700-1100AD which suggests the giant was first made by late Saxons.

National Trust senior archaeologist Martin Papworth said: "The archaeology on the hillside was surprisingly deep - people have been re-chalking the giant over a long period of time. The deepest sample from his elbows and feet tells us he could not have been made before 700AD, ruling out theories that he is of prehistoric or Roman origin."

He added: "This probable Saxon date places him in a dramatic part of Cerne history. Nearby Cerne Abbey was founded in 987AD and some sources think the abbey was set up to convert the locals from the worship of an early Anglo Saxon god known as 'Heil' or 'Helith'. The early part of our date range does invite the question, was the giant originally a depiction of that god?"

But other samples - taken with permission from Historic England and the Secretary of State - gave later dates of up to 1560, which presented Martin and his team with a conundrum, because the earliest documented record of the giant is a church warden's account of repairing him in 1694.

"The science suggests he could be medieval, but intriguingly, surviving documents from Cerne Abbey don't mention the giant," Martin added.

"In the 16th century it's as if the giant's not there, and John Norden's survey of 1617 makes no mention of him. And why would a rich and famous abbey - just a few yards away - commission, or sanction, a naked man carved in chalk on the hillside?"

Martin's working theory is that the giant may have been a medieval creation but then - for reasons we may never know - was neglected for several hundred years, before being rediscovered.

"I wonder whether he was created very early on, perhaps in the late Saxon period, but then became grassed over and was forgotten. But at some stage, in low sunlight, people saw that figure on the hill and decided to re-cut him again. That would explain why he doesn't appear in the abbey records or in Tudor surveys.'"

READ MORE: Cerne Giant gets a makeover from volunteers

This is consistent with Mike Allen's research, which found that microscopic snails in the sediment samples included species that were introduced into Britain in the medieval period. The archaeological fieldwork and scientific study, however, found no archaeological evidence that the giant was deliberately covered over.

Gordon Bishop, Chair of the Cerne Historical Society, said: "These results are intriguing as well as surprising. What I am personally pleased about is that the results appear to have put an end to the theory that he was created in the 17th century as an insult to Oliver Cromwell. I thought that rather demeaned the giant.

"In fact it seems highly likely that he had a religious significance, albeit a pagan one. There's obviously a lot of research for us to do over the next few years."

READ MORE: Cerne Giant gets a mask

Mike Allen added that the results had shed light more broadly on the phenomenon of chalk hill figures in Britain.

"Archaeologists have wanted to pigeonhole chalk hill figures into the same period. But carving these figures was not a particular phase - they're all individual figures, with local significance, each telling us something about that place and time."

He said the Trust's careful management of the figure, which was gifted by the Pitt-Rivers family in 1920, had enabled the giant's true age to be revealed.

READ MORE: Cerne Abbas Giant defaced to promote Borat movie

"The dating of the giant was only possible because the National Trust has preserved and maintained the figure, which otherwise might have been lost to history."

Martin Papworth continued: "To narrow down a date for him is a great thing to achieve, and we're closer now. Future research could tell us even more about how he changed over time, and whether our theory about his 'lost' years is true.

"When we began the work, some people wanted the giant's age to remain a mystery - but archaeologists want to use science to seek answers. We have nudged our understanding a little closer to the truth but he still retains many of his secrets. He still does have an air of mystery, so I think everyone's happy."

Local folklore has long held the chalk figure to be a fertility aid and the earliest recorded mention of the giant dates from 1694.

Theories have ranged from an ancient spirituality symbol or likeness of Greco-Roman hero Hercules to a caricature of Oliver Cromwell, with the club a reference to repressive rule and the phallus a mockery of his puritanism.

In 2019, the giant was refreshed for the first time in 11 years, with a team of volunteers hammering in 17 tonnes of new chalk by hand to counteract weathering and keep the giant visible for miles around.

While the sediment samples were being taken, the National Trust commissioned drone footage in order to create a 'fly-through' video, enabling people to explore the giant virtually. The video, produced by Downland Partnership, is now available on the National Trust's website.

Hannah Jefferson, General Manager for the Trust's West Dorset portfolio, concluded: "We're hugely grateful for the funding that enabled us to do deeper investigation into the giant and are always keen to hear from individuals and partners who would be interested in supporting the National Trust's work on the many ancient sites in our care. The more we learn about these special places, the better we can care for them."

More information is available on www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cerne-giant

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Mystery solved? Age of Cerne Giant revealed for the first time

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THE likely age of Dorset's Cerne Abbas Giant has been revealed for the first time - and it has come as a surprise to historians. Archaeologists at the National Trust have been analysing sediment taken from the carving - considered to be Britain's largest and perhaps best-known chalk hill figure.

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FIVE men have been fined and banned from metal detecting after committing heritage crimes at Cheshire's Beeston Castle and Roche Abbey in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

All five men, from Tameside, appeared at Chester Magistrates Court for sentencing on Friday, May 7. They had each previously pleaded guilty to removing, without written consent, objects of archaeological/historical interest found by a metal detector in a protected place.

They all appeared before District Judge Nicholas Sanders.

Curtis Barlow

Curtis Barlow, 32, of The Quadrant, Droylsden, admitted taking coins and metal artefacts from Roche Abbey between December 13-15, 2019.

Gary Flanagan

Gary Flanagan, 33, of Winton Avenue, Audenshaw, admitted taking coins and metal artefacts from Beeston Castle and Roche Abbey between December 13-30, 2019. He was also charged with taking an axe head from Beeston Castle, a charge which he denied and the prosecution therefore withdrew.

Daniel James Lloyd

Daniel James Lloyd, 33, of Beech Avenue, Droylsden, admitted taking an axe head, coins and other metal artefacts from Beeston Castle between December 13-30, 2019.

John Andrew Lorne

John Andrew Lorne, 29, of Sunnyside Road, Droylsden, admitted taking an axe head, coins and other metal artefacts from Beeston Castle between December 13-30, 2019, and removing coins and metal artefacts from Roche Abbey between December 28-30, 2019.

Francis James Ward

Francis James Ward, 32, of Dingle Drive, Droylsden, admitted taking an axe head, coins and other metal artefacts from Beeston Castle between December 13-30, 2019. He also admitted producing a small quantity of cannabis.

The five men were ordered to forfeit all artefacts and their metal detectors which have an estimated value of up to £1,000 and above.

Prosecuting, Alan Currums said police were tipped off about a series of artefacts trying to be sold to an antiques dealer, who became suspicious.

The men's illegal activities were unearthed when a number of holes were found in the grounds of Beeston Castle and Roche Abbey, both historic sites in the care of English Heritage, sparking athe investigation.

Some of the coins found by the men, seized by police

Further information led them to Ward and on New Year's Eve, officers from Cheshire executed a warrant at his Drolysden home.

This then led officers to Lorne and his home was searched during a warrant at which a number of items were seized.

Both men were arrested and interviewed while mobile phones and other devices were seized.

When analysing their phones officers discovered both men were part of a nighthawking WhatsApp group, leading to the arrest of Lloyd, Barlow and Flanagan.

Items stored included axe heads dating back to the Bronze Age, and access to the sites had been obtained by climbing over walls.

Coins and other items seized by police

Michael Gray, defending Lorne, said what was driving the defendant was "excitement", having had a very long interest in metal detecting and applying to be part of legitimate archaeological digs.

He accepted the axe heads had been taken from Beeston Castle, but there were other artefacts which police had seized which had been obtained legitimately.

He accepted that the manner in which he had obtained these items was wrong and illegal.

Lorne was fined a total of £1,600, plus a £160 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.

Mark Evans, representing Lloyd and Ward, said it was "naive enthusiasm" which had got into the group, rather than anything being more "nefarious".

Bronze Age axe heads

Lloyd, with no previous convictions, had been metal detecting for 12 months but had been using a child's metal detector, which was "useless", and had largely been the driver in the group to the sites.

Ward had been involved for "a matter of weeks" and "had just bought a metal detector".

For the cannabis charge, he had four plants which were for personal use.

Lloyd was fined £600, plus £85 court costs and a £60 victim surcharge. Ward was fined £800 for the metal detecting offences and £500 for the cannabis production. He must pay a £130 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.

Flanagan, representing himself, said he knew what he had done was wrong and had since given up metal detecting for good.

Flanagan was fined a total of £1,100 and must pay a £110 surcharge and £85 court costs.

Ellie Akhgar, representing Barlow, said Barlow did not have much interest in metal detecting and had gone along "for the adventure", and was remorseful.

Barlow was fined £520 and must pay £85 court costs and a £52 victim surcharge.

Sentencing, DJ Sanders said: "You understand, if not then, but now, how serious this offence is regarding these National heritage assets.

"They are protected. The law is there to protect them so generations to come can do research properly on the history of this country.

"By doing what you did, you had the potential to jeopardise those investigations."

He added he accepted none of the defendants had gone into what they did for "significant financial advantage", and all had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

All five defendants were handed a five-year Criminal Behaviour Order banning them from being in possession of metal detectors or any metal detecting equipment on National Heritage sites in England or historic Cadw sites in Wales.

They were also banned from doing any metal detecting on land, public or private, they don't own, other than with express written permission of the landowner who has been made aware of the CBO.

All the metal detecting equipment was to be forfeited.

PC Ashley Tether from Cheshire Police's Rural Crime Team led the investigation.

He said: "Their WhatsApp group clearly showed what they were up to and our subsequent forensic investigations alongside South Yorkshire police put them at the locations where the incidents had occurred.

"What followed was a number of months of carefully identifying and cataloguing the historic artefacts they had taken with the help of Historic England experts. The evidence we put together was such that they pleaded guilty at their first hearing.

"The theft of historic items and the damage caused to scheduled monuments and listed buildings is an assault on our history and the impact on the historic ground they have damaged should not be underestimated.

"Although no exact value can be determined for the artefacts taken, they are a piece of national history that help us to understand our past. Once these items are lost or damaged they can't be replaced and we lose the context and the story that may have helped us to understand our ancestors better.

"The items these men took for their own gain are part of our rich history and need to be protected which is why we embarked on a lengthy and complicated investigation with Historic England and South Yorkshire Police Rural Crime Team.

"These men are now barred from metal detecting near historic sites in England and Wales and if they want to do so on any other land, they need to show the land owner a copy of the CBO before conducting metal detecting activity - if you see them not adhering to this restriction you can report it to police on 101. Breaching such orders can result in a prison sentence."

Mark Harrison, Head of Heritage Crime Strategy for Historic England said: "A decade ago, we did not have the skills and techniques necessary to investigate this form of criminal behaviour.

"We have now developed the expertise, capability and partnerships to identify and prosecute the small criminal minority of nighthawks. The overwhelming majority of metal detectorists comply with the legislation and codes of practice."

Mark Harrison added: "When thieves steal artefacts from a protected archaeological site, they are stealing from all of us and damaging something which is often irreplaceable."

English Heritage Properties Curator Win Scutt, said: "Illegal metal detecting robs us of our past, and whilst this prosecution is good news, sadly the damage incidents like these cause can never be repaired.

"Beeston Castle and Roche Abbey are protected in law because of the lessons we can learn from their unique archaeology. Unlawful attacks like these can cause such insight to be lost forever. We are grateful to Cheshire Police and Historic England for their persistent and innovative approach to investigating this case, and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

"The ground beneath us is a wonderful library of our past. Holes dug by metal detectorists cut through these unread pages destroying all the information forever - just to tear out a precious trinket that will usually end up lost in a private collection. English Heritage is dedicated to preserving these nationally important archaeological sites.

"The damage incidents like these cause can never be repaired and the chance to learn about these important sites is lost for ever. We are grateful to Cheshire Police and Historic England for their persistent and innovative approach to investigating this case, and bringing the perpetrators to justice."

Catherine Dewar, Historic England's regional director for the North West, explained how significant advances in recent years, as well as partnership working between the police and Historic England, had led to the convictions.

She said: "What has change din the last 10 years has been the technological advances - there were two things that tied these five men down.

"One was analysing smartphone data, which linked all of them into a Whatsapp group where they talked about metal detecting.

"The other was we have been doing some soil analysis on the items such as the Bronze Age axe head found, and we could link that to Beeston Castle. It was a significant advantage.

"For me and my team, the partnership has been really fantastic. We have got the specialist skills and are able to identify artefacts. We can say to police 'that is a Bronze Age axe head', and the police can forensically identify who had come into contact with it."

Ms Dewar added: "The overwhelming majority of metal detecting is done legally, but these guys are outsiders, a small minority, stealing valuable history; it's unacceptable and it's illegal."

Metal detecting enthusiasts are instead encouraged to join a local group or society.

Ms Dewar said: "The last thing we want to do is say don't go out metal detecting. If you are interested, go and join a properly formed group. We love the fact people are interested about history.

"Go out and explore history - but do it the right way."

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Men who stole historical artefacts including Bronze Age axe heads from Beeston Castle sentenced

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FIVE men have been fined and banned from metal detecting after committing heritage crimes at Cheshire's Beeston Castle and Roche Abbey in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. All five men, from Tameside, appeared at Chester Magistrates Court for sentencing on Friday, May 7.

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The programme first explored the river in Castle Park where the siege took place, before heading a mile outside Colchester to where desperate Royalist forces tried to break out of the siege and cross the river.

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'Significant' English Civil War stirrup found at Colchester

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The programme first explored the river in Castle Park where the siege took place, before heading a mile outside Colchester to where desperate Royalist forces tried to break out of the siege and cross the river.

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An incredible hoard of Roman-era treasures found in a field in Ryedale have gone on public view for the first time before they are auctioned off.

Amateur metal detectorists James Spark, 40, and Mark Didlick, 44, found the 2,000-year-old collection, which is believed to have been buried as part of a Roman religious ceremony in AD160.

The artefacts include a bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was a character in the film Gladiator.

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The entire hoard has been valued at £90,000 and will go under the hammer next month at a London auction house.

The horse head knife handle

It has been named the Ryedale Rital Bronzes, and also includes a statue of the god Mars, a knife handle in the shape of a horse's head and a large bronze pendulum.

The relics will be available to view by appointment only at the Hansons Auctioneers showroom from Friday ahead of the sale on May 20.

Mr Spark and Mr Didlick reported their finds officially by handing them to York Museums Trust, and they were then declared treasure at a coronial inquest and passed to the government's Portable Antiquities Scheme for recording.

The finds were described as being in excellent condition

Hansons expert Adam Staples said: "The hoard of artefacts was probably buried as a religious offering which marked the closure of a rural shrine or the death of a priest.

"The artefacts would have formed a suite of ritual implements, to be utilised when performing religious ceremonies and for predicting the future."

Marcus Aurelius became Emperor in March of AD161 and his 19-year reign was one of relative peace and prosperity for Rome.

However, in AD165 troops returning from Mesopotamia brought with them a virus which swept across the entire Empire - the Antonine Plague.

Now believed to be an outbreak of smallpox, this ancient pandemic devastated the Roman population, with an estimated 10 per cent of the population succumbing to it.

Mr Staples added: "He (the bust) is very lucky not to have been broken by his 1,850 years spent underground. The bust has survived extremely well and is in very fine condition with a glossy green patina.

"This is a very rare opportunity to own a nationally important group of artefacts."

Viewings will also be available in York on May 11. To book email astaples@hansonsauctioneers.co.uk.

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Incredible hoard of Roman treasures discovered by amateur metal detectorists in Ryedale to be auctioned

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Amateur metal detectorists James Spark, 40, and Mark Didlick, 44, found the 2,000-year-old collection, which is believed to have been buried as part of a Roman religious ceremony in AD160. The artefacts include a bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was a character in the film Gladiator.

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But that is exactly what six-year-old Siddak Singh Jhamat found in his back garden in Walsall. Using a fossil-hunting kit he got for Christmas, "Sid" was looking for worms in his garden when he saw a rock that he thought was either a tooth or a claw. Closer inspection revealed it was actually a horn coral dating from the Palaeozoic era, a time when the landmass that was to become Britain lay underwater.

As we have broken the soil with gusto in our back gardens, the breathtaking finds have come pouring out of the ground.

In the year to December, the British Museum reports, amateur archaeologists unearthed an eye-watering 47,000 objects, a haul hailed by Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage as "brilliant".

Here are just a few examples of the wondrous items disinterred by amateur archaeologists over the last year. A 13th century lead-alloy seal matrix of the Bishop of St Andrews was discovered at Dursley, Gloucestershire, while another copper-alloy seal matrix from AD 1200-1350 was found by someone as they relocated a shrub in Whaplode, Lincolnshire.

At the same time, a copper-alloy Roman furniture fitting of the god Oceanus, dating from AD 43-200, was unearthed in Old Basing, Hampshire; eight fragments of Roman grey ware pottery were discovered in Wymeswold in Leicestershire; a Neolithic arrowhead was excavated in Chithurst, Sussex; and a post-medieval snake-shaped belt hook was found in Herefordshire. A few astounding coin hoards have also come to light.

There is indeed evidence that archaeology is a therapeutic pastime. It is soothing to lose ourselves in the past.

Alex Langlands, senior lecturer in history and heritage at Swansea University and co-presenter of Digging Up Britain's Past, explains: "Psychologists have demonstrated the positive benefits of nostalgia. Reminiscing is actually good for people. It brings social cohesion."

Another element that has prompted people to start digging up their own back gardens is the fact that it is quite possible they will come across something of genuine historical interest.

We are very fortunate to live in a country with such a treasure trove of archaeological gems buried just inches below the surface. Our history is right beneath our feet.

"History is everywhere," says Gary. "We have at least two and a half thousand years of small objects being lost, hidden or deliberately thrown away, but they're still there, just under your flower bed or that layer of soil in a ploughed field, or in the river that runs through your village. They are there just waiting to be discovered."

Archaeology is a hobby that can clearly become addictive. Alex says it is easy to become hooked on the thrill of uncovering the history on our doorstep. "Once you're in a trench and you're scratching around, you're plunged into the past trying to work out what happened. Once you dip your toe in that world, it's like a bug. The joy of discovery takes over."

Above all, archaeology promises the pure delight of an unexpected discovery.

Raksha says: "You can be in an ordinary place and you find something extraordinary. You could be digging in somebody's back garden, and you suddenly unearth a Roman villa nobody knew was there. Those eureka moments are very special."

Let's leave the final word to Vish. "I've gone from being annoyed at Sid digging up my garden to being very proud of him for the discovery he's made. I do hope it can inspire people to go out and look for fossils themselves."

So what are you waiting for? Grab a shovel, get out there and start digging. Your history is in your own backyard.

Digging Up Britain's Past is on Mondays at 8pm on Sky History 2, and River Hunters is on Mondays at 9pm on Sky History

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Amateur archeology overtakes baking as top pastime with thousands seeking buried treasures

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THE most interesting object most of us could expect to dig up in our back garden is probably an old bone buried and long ago forgotten by the family dog. We would certainly not anticipate unearthing a 488 million-year-old fossil.

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Gap in NW England!

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A unique excavation project is taking place at a Liverpool car park this week - and archaeologists are thrilled by what they have already found.

The week-long dig, in Oakes Street, has uncovered further evidence of the city's 19th century "court housing" - just a short walk from the last surviving example of such homes, in Pembroke Place.

Liverpool's blocks of court housing - cramped and claustrophobic dwellings - were once home to more than 40% of the city's population.

Now a team from the Museum of Liverpool has discovered the cellars of two houses which were part of the former Missionary Buildings, together with fascinating artefacts including the remains of a porcelain dish and a beer bottle.

Liz Stewart, project manager and curator of archaeology at National Museums Liverpool, said: "We have Pembroke Place as a surviving example, but this is our first excavation of court house remains - so it's a unique and very special site. We have now got evidence of more of Liverpool's court housing in front of our eyes and that's really exciting."

And among the detailed finds so far have been a tiny domino made out of animal bone, part of a porcelain dish with the marking 'Denon's Egypt' - and which was made by a Newcastle-based company called Maling - and part of a thick glass beer bottle with 'Liverpool' written on it.

The six-strong excavation team located the site with the help of an 1847 Ordnance Survey map.

It is believed there were 17 houses in the court housing complex - each of them home to around six residents, meaning more than 100 people may have lived there at any one time. It is thought they were built in the 1830s and inhabited for around a century.

As for the items found, Liz explains: "All of them will go to the Museum of Liverpool, although we can never make promises about what will end up going on display."

The work being carried out on Oakes Street car park is an extension of the Galkoff's and the Secret Life of Pembroke Place project being run by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) together with the Museum of Liverpool.

The famous green tiled facade of former kosher butcher's shop Galkoff's has been moved to the museum as part of the project.

It is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and aims to explore the history of Pembroke Place.

The tiles will go on display as part of an exhibition at the museum opening in late October.

Liz, meanwhile, points out there was no problem digging up the car park as it belongs to their partners - the LSTM.

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The amazing finds uncovered by archaeologists under Liverpool car park

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A unique excavation project is taking place at a Liverpool car park this week - and archaeologists are thrilled by what they have already found. The week-long dig, in Oakes Street, has uncovered further evidence of the city's 19th century "court housing" - just a short walk from the last surviving example of such homes, in Pembroke Place.

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Roman stately home unearthed in Scarborough 'potential world first'

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In order to protect the discovery housing developer, Keepmoat, has altered its plans so the remains will be conserved beneath a public open space rather than built on as originally intended.

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Roman stately home unearthed in Scarborough 'potential world first'

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In order to protect the discovery housing developer, Keepmoat, has altered its plans so the remains will be conserved beneath a public open space rather than built on as originally intended.

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Metal detectorists' Welsh finds declared treasure

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Dr Mark Redknap, from the national museum, said the silver fastener provided "new evidence for the exposure of Anglo-Saxon styles within the early Welsh kingdoms, and of the melting-pot of styles and influences from which Welsh identity was to emerge".

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Metal detectorists' Welsh finds declared treasure

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Dr Mark Redknap, from the national museum, said the silver fastener provided "new evidence for the exposure of Anglo-Saxon styles within the early Welsh kingdoms, and of the melting-pot of styles and influences from which Welsh identity was to emerge".

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Humans in the Neolithic period, around 4,000 to 5,0000 years ago, did "odd and interesting things" with bones, including removing them from burial sites for cremation or rearrangement, Dr de Jersey explained.

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Prehistoric human bones in Guernsey discovered by coastal walker

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Humans in the Neolithic period, around 4,000 to 5,0000 years ago, did "odd and interesting things" with bones, including removing them from burial sites for cremation or rearrangement, Dr de Jersey explained.

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'Exciting' stone age discoveries in the Cairngorms

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Rare clues to Mesolithic life in Scotland's mountains add to evidence previously found in Perthshire and Dumfries.

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Researchers say the various types of bird feathers used may hold symbolic significance

smithsonianmag.com

More than a millennium ago, two Iron Age warriors in Sweden's Valsgärde burial ground were sent to the afterlife in boats equipped with helmets, swords and shields. To ensure the pair's comfort, new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests, the men were also buried with luxurious feather bedding.

As Amy Woodyatt reports for CNN, the seventh-century down bedding is the oldest ever discovered in Scandinavia. Its presence could indicate that the warriors were high-status figures in their society.

Though wealthy Greeks and Romans used down bedding centuries earlier, the practice was rare among European elites prior to the medieval period, says lead author Birgitta Berglund , an archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's NTNU University Museum, in a statement.

According to Ars Technica's Kiona N. Smith, one of the men's bedding was stuffed mostly with duck and goose down, while the other's contained cushions with feathers from a large range of birds: geese, ducks, sparrows, crows, grouse, chickens, and eagle-owls-a type of large horned owl. Berglund says the mix of feathers may have been chosen for its symbolic meaning, as seen in Nordic folklore.

"For example, people believed that using feathers from domestic chickens, owls and other birds of prey, pigeons, crows and squirrels would prolong the death struggle," she explains in the statement. "In some Scandinavian areas, goose feathers were considered best to enable the soul to be released from the body."

One of the boat burials included a headless eagle-owl that was probably a hunting companion. The removal of the raptor's head may have been a way to ensure that it could not return from the dead and perhaps be used as a weapon by the dead warrior. As the researchers note in the study, the Vikings who inhabited the region after the warriors' demise sometimes laid their dead to rest with bent swords-probably to stop the deceased from using the weapons.

"We believe the beheading had a ritual significance in connection with the burial," says Berglund in the statement. "It's conceivable that the owl's head was cut off to prevent it from coming back. Maybe the owl feather in the bedding also had a similar function?"

The archaeologist adds that boat graves from the same period found in Estonia also contained two birds of prey with severed heads.

The Valsgärde burial ground was used for more than 1,000 years, up until the 11th or 12th century A.D. It's best known for the boat graves, which date to the 600s and 700s A.D. The two boats examined in the new research were each around 30 feet long, with room for two to five pairs of oars. They contained cooking tools and weapons, and animals including horses were buried nearby.

"The buried warriors appear to have been equipped to row to the underworld, but also to be able to get ashore with the help of the horses," says Berglund in the statement.

Study co-author Jørgen Rosvold, a biologist at the Norwegian Institute for Natural History (NINA), had to process the centuries-old feathers to identify which species they came from.

"It was a time consuming and challenging job for several reasons," he says in the statement. "The material is decomposed, tangled and dirty. This means that a lot of the special features that you can easily observe in fresh material has become indistinct, and you have to spend a lot more time looking for the distinctive features."

Nonetheless, Rosvold adds, he was eventually able to tell the feathers of different species apart.

"I'm still surprised at how well the feathers were preserved, despite the fact that they'd been lying in the ground for over 1,000 years," he says.

When the researchers began studying the feather bedding, they suspected that the down might have been imported as a commodity from the coastal community of Helgeland, north of the gravesite. Though this didn't turn out to be the case, the analysis did end up providing insights on how humans were connected to different kinds of birds in ancient Sweden.

"The feathers provide a source for gaining new perspectives on the relationship between humans and birds in the past," says Berglund in the statement. "Archaeological excavations rarely find traces of birds other than those that were used for food."

About Livia Gershon

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These Iron Age Swedish Warriors Were Laid to Rest on Luxurious Feather Bedding

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smithsonianmag.com More than a millennium ago, two Iron Age warriors in Sweden's Valsgärde burial ground were sent to the afterlife in boats equipped with helmets, swords and shields. To ensure the pair's comfort, new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests, the men were also buried with luxurious feather bedding.

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There are several documentary references to the Bishops of Bath and Wells carrying out major building works in Wiveliscombe, near Taunton, with Bishop Drokensford (1309-29) and Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-63) both undertaking works there.

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Wiveliscombe bishop's palace discovered during building work

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There are several documentary references to the Bishops of Bath and Wells carrying out major building works in Wiveliscombe, near Taunton, with Bishop Drokensford (1309-29) and Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-63) both undertaking works there.

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News Science Archaeology

Experts say decorative artefact could be 'indicative of current trends'

Some Iron-Age Britons may have favoured mullet haircuts, archaeologists have suggested after finding an ancient metal figurine sporting the look.

The 5cm figure is thought to have adorned the handle of a cooking tool and was dug up at the National Trust 's Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire in 2018.

Now cleaned and re-analysed, its hairstyle is clearly revealed - short on the top and sides, and long at the back. The figure is also holding a torc, a kind of decorative neck ring.

Archaeologists originally thought it represented the Celtic fertility god Cernunnos, but no longer believe this to be accurate. It may represent an unknown deity, they now think.

Shannon Hogan, a National Trust archaeologist, said: "The artefact dates to the 1st century AD, and whilst possibly of Roman manufacture, exhibits very Celtic traits such as his oval eyes.

"His hairstyle and moustache are clear, which might be indicative of current trends or perhaps 'typical' for depictions of this particular deity."

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1/50 UK news in pictures

The artefact was found in an area called Lamp Hill during a three-month excavation in 2018. The spot was found to have been a thriving settlement that had changed several times over the centuries, with evidence suggesting it had been in use from the first century BC until the first century AD.

Later agricultural use dating to the third century was also evident, experts said.

Chris Thatcher, from Oxford East Archaeology, added: "Finds such as this give a rare and fascinating insight into aesthetics and symbolism in the latest Iron Age.

"The extent to which his hairstyle is typical of contemporary styles will never be known for certain.

"However, we think the combination of him holding a torc - associated with status - and forming the handle of a spatula either used to mix medicines, or wax for writing tablets, speak of influence and power.

"The fact that he was found on a site with so much other evidence for it being a local hub is wonderful and appropriate."

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1/1 Mullets may have been fashionable in Iron Age, figurine suggests

Mullets may have been fashionable in Iron Age, figurine suggests

National Trust

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Mullets may have been fashionable in Iron Age, unearthed figurine suggests

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News Science Archaeology Experts say decorative artefact could be 'indicative of current trends' Some Iron-Age Britons may have favoured mullet haircuts, archaeologists have suggested after finding an ancient metal figurine sporting the look. The 5cm figure is thought to have adorned the handle of a cooking tool and was dug up at the National Trust 's Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire in 2018.

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Archaeological discoveries, such as two sections of a masonry wall, may change the narrative about Bailey Hill, according to Ian Grant, senior archaeologist with the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust.

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Arrowheads and human remains found in Mold restoration

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Archaeological discoveries, such as two sections of a masonry wall, may change the narrative about Bailey Hill, according to Ian Grant, senior archaeologist with the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust.

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Chipping Barnet shop reveals medieval surprise

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The wooden structure of a 14th Century building is found during refurbishment works.

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Pre-conservation pectoral cross

Previously encrusted in a millennium's worth of dirt (as shown above), months of painstaking cleaning and conservation work have revealed an intricately decorated silver cross, allowing scholars to view this detail for the first time before it is put on public display in a new exhibition, Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh (19 Feb-9 May 2021).

The silver cross is decorated in Late Anglo-Saxon style using black niello and gold-leaf. In each of the four arms of the cross are the symbols of the four evangelists who wrote the Gospels of the New Testament, Saint Matthew, Mark (Lion), Luke (Cow) and John (Eagle).

Reconsidering stereotypes

Dr Martin Goldberg, Principal Curator of Early Medieval and Viking Collections at National Museums Scotland said: 'Our approach to developing further understanding of the Galloway Hoard involves the great patience, careful examination and painstaking care of conservation, combined with wide-ranging research on the great variety of materials and objects in this outstanding hoard.

'The cross is a wonderfully visual representation of the work we have been doing to reveal new details about the Galloway Hoard. The conservation work lets us see this object clearly for the first time in over a thousand years, but it also reveals a whole new set of questions.

'Silver bullion, hacksilver and ingots, formed the upper parcel of the Galloway Hoard, but there was also this very unusual feature - a cross with a fine spiral chain - recently worn, but damaged. This one object poses many of the questions that we often start with when we are talking about the Viking Age. Was it bullion too, destined to be melted down into the types of ingots it was found with? We can easily imagine this cross being robbed from a Christian cleric during a raid on a church - a classic stereotype of the Viking Age. But the complexity of this hoard forces us to reconsider simple stereotypes.

'The cross is just one of many unusual features in the Galloway Hoard. Late Anglo-Saxon Christian metalwork is very unusual in Viking-age silver hoards. As well as silver bullion, the Galloway Hoard contains a large collection of brooches, bracelets, glass beads, pendants, curios, heirlooms and more gold than any other hoard surviving from Viking-age Britain and Ireland, as well as outstanding preservation of organic materials including Scotland's earliest examples of silk.

'Answers to the questions about the motives for burial can only be attempted once every object in the Hoard is analysed and understood, along with investigation of the wider context. This work will continue for years.'

What is the Galloway Hoard?

The Galloway Hoard brings together the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland. Buried around the end of the 9th century, the Hoard brings together a stunning variety of objects and materials in one discovery.

The Hoard was buried in four distinct parcels. The cross was buried in the top layer with a parcel of silver bullion. This was separated from a lower layer of three parts: firstly another parcel of silver bullion wrapped in leather and twice as big as the one above; secondly a cluster of four elaborately decorated silver 'ribbon' arm-rings bound together and concealing in their midst a small wooden box containing three items of gold; and thirdly a lidded, silver gilt vessel wrapped in layers of textile and packed full of carefully wrapped beads, pendants, brooches, curios, relics and heirlooms. Research and conservation continues into these rare surviving organic materials and the inorganic objects they are combined with.

Discovering and decoding the secrets of the Galloway Hoard is a multi-layered process. Conservation of the metal objects has revealed decorations, inscriptions and other details that were not previously visible. But even the act of removing dirt to see what's underneath is not as simple as it might appear. The silver spiral chain wrapped around the cross was particularly intricate, made from wire less than a millimetre in diameter and wrapped around an organic core, preserved within the coiled silver and identified as animal gut. Conservators improvised a cleaning tool by carving a porcupine quill, sharp enough to remove the dirt yet soft enough not to damage the metalwork.

It is this combination of organic and inorganic materials that provide unique opportunities for research into this Viking-age treasure. Softer organic material like textiles, leather and wood very rarely survive in comparison to hard inorganic materials like stone or precious metals. Gold and silver are obviously recognised as treasure, but the surviving organic materials in the Galloway Hoard are archaeological treasures, valuable for the different scientific and forensic techniques that can be applied to them, such as radiocarbon dating.

Comparison with other collections and consultation with specialists around the world has enabled deeper understanding of the Hoard. An Anglo-Saxon runic inscription on an arm-ring fragment has revealed the name 'Egbert', perhaps a person associated with the Hoard's burial. The Old English name, rather than a Scandinavian one, again causes us to question simple stereotypes about the identities of those involved with the Hoard's accumulation and burial. More detailed scientific analysis is enabling greater precision about the date and composition of the material, which in turn offers clues to where the individual objects may have come from.

The Galloway Hoard was discovered in 2014. It was acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2017 with the support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, ArtFund and the Scottish Government as well as major public fundraising campaign. Since then, it has been undergoing extensive conservation and research at the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh.

The exhibition, which is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers, will open at the National Museum of Scotland on 19 February 2021, and will tour thereafter to Kirkcudbright Galleries (summer 2021 to spring 2022) and Aberdeen Art Gallery thanks to funding from the Scottish Government.

Following the tour, research into the contents of the Galloway Hoard will continue. Part of it will go on long-term display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh with a 'significant and representative portion' of it also displayed long-term at Kirkcudbright Galleries.
Report and images copyright National Museums Scotland

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Galloway Hoard conservation reveals glorious detail of Anglo Saxon treasure buried for 1,000 years

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Pre-conservation pectoral cross Previously encrusted in a millennium's worth of dirt (as shown above), months of painstaking cleaning and conservation work have revealed an intricately decorated silver cross, allowing scholars to view this detail for the first time before it is put on public display in a new exhibition, Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh (19 Feb-9 May 2021).

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Government to 'redefine treasure finds' in UK

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Changes to the 1996 Treasure Act are aimed at protecting newly-discovered treasure.

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Randall Haas, an archaeologist at University of California, Davis, recalls the moment in 2018 when his team of researchers gathered around the excavated burial of an individual lain to rest in the Andes Mountains of Peru some 9,000 years ago. Along with the bones of what appeared to be a human adult was an impressive-and extensive-kit of stone tools an ancient hunter would need to take down big game, from engaging the hunt to preparing the hide.

"He must have been a really great hunter, a really important person in society"-Haas says that's what he and his team were thinking at the time.

But further analysis revealed a surprise: the remains found alongside the toolkit were from a biological female. What's more, this ancient female hunter was likely not an anomaly, according to a study published today in Science Advances. The Haas team's find was followed by a review of previously studied burials of similar age throughout the Americas-and it revealed that between 30 and 50 percent of big game hunters could have been biologically female.

This new study is the latest twist in a decades-long debate about gender roles among early hunter-gather societies. The common assumption was that prehistoric men hunted while women gathered and reared their young. But for decades, some scholars have argued that these "traditional" roles-documented by anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer groups across the globe since the 19th century-don't necessarily stretch into our deep past.

While the new study provides a strong argument that the individual in Peru was a female who hunted, plenty of other evidence has long been lying in plain sight, says Pamela Geller, an archaeologist at the University of Miami who is not part of the study team.

"The data is there," Geller says. "It's just a matter of how the researchers interpret it."

Whose tools?

When archaeologists excavated the burial, they found a colorful array of 24 stone tools. Among them: projectile points for taking down a large mammal; hefty rocks likely for cracking bones or stripping hides; small, rounded stony bits for scraping fat from pelts; tiny flakes with extra sharp edges that could have chopped the meat; and nodules of red ocher that could help preserve the hides. Scattered around the site were fragments of the bones of animals including ancient llama relatives and deer.

In initial discussions about the toolkit, the researchers presumed the owner was male, perhaps a prominent figure of society, or even a chief of the group. "I'm as guilty as anyone," says Haas, who has been working in the region since 2008. "I thought yeah, that makes sense with my understanding of the world." Back in the lab, however, close inspection of the bones suggested the physiology of a biological woman. To confirm, they analyzed a protein that forms tooth enamel and is linked to sex.

Importantly, the team cannot know the individual's gender identity, but rather only biological sex ( which like gender doesn't always exist on a binary). In other words, they can't say whether the individual lived their life 9,000 years ago in a way that would identify them within their society as a woman.

Challenging assumptions

The 2018 discovery does pose a challenge to gender binaries commonly assumed for our early ancestors: Men acted as hunters, women acted as gatherers. This assumption comes from studies of modern hunter-gatherers, where men more frequently are responsible for the hunt while women bear the most responsibility for caring for children, says Arizona State University's Kim Hill, who specializes in human evolutionary anthropology and was not part of the study team. "You can't just stop in the middle of stalking a deer in order to nurse a crying baby," Hill says via email.

Yet inferences from present-day hunter-gatherers have limits. For decades, Geller says, some archaeologists have argued that the simple view of male hunters and female gatherers is in fact an oversimplification. "With few exceptions, the researchers who study hunting and gathering groups-regardless of which continent they work on-presume that a sexual division of labor was universal and rigid," she says. "And because it is commonsensical, they then have a hard time explaining why female-bodied individuals also bear the skeletal markers of hunting or have hunting tool kits as grave goods."

When researchers have found signs of this discrepancy in the past, Geller says, "usually they don't say anything, as if ignoring the evidence will make it go away."

Hunting would likely require as many able-bodied adults as possible to increase safety and efficiency-regardless of their biological sex. After a child weans, the mother could be available to assist in big hunts, says Kathleen Sterling, an archaeologist at Binghamton University, who was not part of the study team. But even with babies, hunting could still be possible with community nursing assistance.

The meaning of burial goods

Spurred by their 2018 discovery, Haas's team then dug in to reports of past excavations of early hunter gatherers throughout the Americas. Many past studies have unearthed similar presence of stone hunting tools in burials with biological females, yet each case isn't necessarily clear cut. For some, the sex is not definite. In others, disturbed contexts made it uncertain if stone tools and remains were buried at the same time. And in still others, the few projectiles found in the burial could have even been murder weapons interred with their victims.

But when Haas's teams reviewed the individual cases as part of a larger data set, they found that of the 27 of 429 burials with individuals of known sex who are were buried with hunting tools, 11 are female-including the newly identified remains-while 16 are male. The many uncertainties (such as disturbed context and sex identification) are present in burials of both males and females, Haas says. So even when the most uncertain cases were excluded, the abundance of burials with hunting tools among females and males remain similar.

"These patterns are not at all what you would expect in a population if males were [the only] hunters," Haas says.

ASU's Hill says he's not yet fully convinced that the female individual buried 9,000 years ago was actually a hunter in life. Burial goods, including hunting tools, could have been placed there because of symbolic or religious beliefs, he cautions.

Did the newfound toolkit belong to the buried individual? Sterling challenged the inquiry itself. "We typically don't ask this question when we find these toolkits with men," She says. "It's only when it challenges our ideas about gender that we ask these questions."

Geller adds: "There's so much mental gymnastics that go on trying to explain these things away."

The toolkit discovered in the 9,000-year-old burial was quite diverse, including both precious implements, like projectile points that are challenging to make, as well as more mundane tools, like stone flakes that can easily be crafted by smashing rocks. This hints the tools weren't some type of offering; rather, it points to the objects being used by the individual in life, Haas contends. There's also strength in the numbers, with an abundance of females now found to have been buried with tools throughout the Americas, Sterling adds.

For Geller, the debate has important implications for today. "There's so much gender disparity going on right now, if we were to presume that there's something that biologically predisposes us, then you'd be able to justify that gender disparity," she says. "To me that's dangerous, and completely unsubstantiated."

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Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions

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Randall Haas, an archaeologist at University of California, Davis, recalls the moment in 2018 when his team of researchers gathered around the excavated burial of an individual lain to rest in the Andes Mountains of Peru some 9,000 years ago.

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HS2: Medieval graffiti to 'ward off evil spirits' found

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Archaeologists unearth lines radiating from a drilled hole on two stones at the remains of a church.

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Viking relatives to be 'reunited' as skeletons

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DNA evidence has linked a skeleton found in Oxford with another excavated in Denmark.

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The Dyke is privately-owned, but it is managed by a partnership of landowners, Natural England, English Heritage, the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, and Cambridgeshire County Council.

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Devil's Dyke: Ancient monument 'degraded' by walkers and dog poo

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The Dyke is privately-owned, but it is managed by a partnership of landowners, Natural England, English Heritage, the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, and Cambridgeshire County Council.

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We’ve all been there: digging in the wrong castle!

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Lost Shrewsbury chapel remains hidden as team 'digs in the wrong castle'

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Archaeologists searching for a medieval chapel found they were digging in the wrong castle - but made some interesting discoveries.

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Mr Clark, a retired leather craftsman, said he had taken the ring, along with others, to a museum to be recorded but was told they were "fairly modern" so he had put them in a tin at his mother's house and forgotten about them.

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Aylesbury man finds 14th Century treasure in garage

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Mr Clark, a retired leather craftsman, said he had taken the ring, along with others, to a museum to be recorded but was told they were "fairly modern" so he had put them in a tin at his mother's house and forgotten about them.

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Dr Marsden, a numismatist at Norfolk Historic Environment Service, said it "must have been eventually lost" in the county until it was rediscovered last year by a metal detectorist in a field, whose location is not being disclosed.

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Scottish medieval coin 'lost' and found in Norfolk declared treasure

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The coin, bearing the head of a Scottish king and turned into jewellery, was found in a field.

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It was a Viking saga written in genes. In 2008, construction work on an isolated Estonian beach near the town of Salme uncovered the skeletons of more than 40 powerfully built men. They were buried around 750 C.E. in two ships with Viking-style weapons and treasure-apparently the aftermath of a raid gone wrong. DNA from the bones has now added a poignant detail: Four of the men, buried shoulder to shoulder holding their swords, were brothers.

The new data come from a massive effort to sequence the DNA of Vikings across Europe. The results, published today in Nature, trace how the Vikings radiated across Europe from their Scandinavian homeland, and how people with roots elsewhere also took up Viking ways. "The big story is in line with what's told by archaeologists and historians," says Erika Hagelberg, an ancient DNA expert at the University of Oslo who was not part of the research team. "It's the small details of particular sites that are really compelling." The Estonian site, for example, offers powerful evidence that the crew was a tight-knit group from the same village or town. "Four brothers buried together is new and unique ... [and] adds a new dimension," says Cat Jarman, an archaeologist working for the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, who was not part of the research team.

Over the course of almost 10 years, a team led by geneticist Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen assembled samples from across Scandinavia dating to the Viking Age, from about 750 C.E. to 1050 C.E., as well as some earlier and later samples. The team also gathered human remains from burials elsewhere in Europe and beyond that had Viking grave goods or burial styles. "We approached every place where we could see there should exist somehow an association with Vikings," Willerslev says. Ultimately, the team was able to sequence 442 Viking Age genomes from as far afield as Italy, Ukraine, and the doomed Viking settlements of Greenland.

The results tell dramatic stories of individual mobility, such as a pair of cousins buried in Oxford, U.K., and Denmark, separated in death by hundreds of kilometers of open ocean. The genetic details may also rewrite popular perceptions of Vikings, including their looks: Viking Age Scandinavians were more likely to have black hair than people living there today. And comparing DNA and archaeology at individual sites suggests that for some in the Viking bands, "Viking" was a job description, not a matter of heredity.

Age of exploration

Viking ships sailed forth from Scandinavia, traversing the waterways of Europe and reaching across the Atlantic Ocean. Vikings from different homelands preferred certain destinations; for example, men from Norway settled Greenland, DNA data now show.

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'Viking' was a job description, not a matter of heredity, massive ancient DNA study shows

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It was a Viking saga written in genes. In 2008, construction work on an isolated Estonian beach near the town of Salme uncovered the skeletons of more than 40 powerfully built men. They were buried around 750 C.E. in two ships with Viking-style weapons and treasure-apparently the aftermath of a raid gone wrong.

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News UK Home News

Hnefatafl pieces may be oldest collection ever found at one site

A metal detectorist has unearthed a viking board game in Lincolnshire dating back to 872 AD.

Mick Bott, a retired miner, made the rare discovery of a complete set of 37 pieces used in Hnefatafl - a chess-like game popular with soldiers for its strategic nature - at a site next to the River Trent.

The 73-year-old had spent 20 years searching for items at the location where, thanks to his efforts, historians now know Vikings set up camp throughout the winter of 872 AD.

From his first detecting session at the Torksey site in 1982, Mr Bott and two fellow detectorists unearthed hundreds of coins, strap ends, brooches, and mounts, all of which were from the ninth century.

"It was later on after showing many of our finds to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge that the experts realised that this was the Viking winter camp of 872/3 when several thousand men of the Viking army overwintered," Mr Bott said.

Despite the work of Mr Bott and his friends leading to this historical breakthrough, nobody was aware of the significance of the dozens of small lead objects they also discovered during their years at Torksey, according to Nigel Mills, an artefact consultant with auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb.

"They thought they were lead weights, basically," Mr Mills told The Independent. "The Vikings hacked a lot of silver and gold up into useable pieces, which had different weights, so they needed weights to decide [how heavy] they should be. However, when I weighed them, none of them matched - there was no consistency to them - and I thought it was very strange, but that was the theory at the time.

"It was only when I was in Oslo Museum that I realised they had two of these gaming pieces out of polished stone from this game Hnefatafl, which match the conical lead weights that Mick had. So I realised that there was a connection and I discussed it with Mark Blackburn at the Fitzwilliam and he agreed that these were gaming pieces."

Mr Mills believes it is the oldest complete set of pieces ever found at one site.

"What's really intriguing is when you think of the army of thousands of men, Viking warriors, all sitting around playing this board game. It's really weird," he said.

The purpose of the game is for the defender to move the king to one of the corner squares, which are designated as castles, as the attacker tries to surround the king on all four sides to prevent him from moving.

"It is a very strategic game, it's like chess in the sense that you have to think about all the various lines of play - about what's happening behind you, in front of you and to the side," Mr Mills said.

"You have to think ahead and it is quite difficult to win by attacking ... it's very biased towards the defence, which is an interesting game for the Vikings to play - obviously they're always attacking, defence wasn't so important to them.

And with some of the kings sporting differing copper insets, Mr Mills posited a theory that these would act as prizes for the winner of the game, with soldiers aiming to collect as many different kings as possible.

The discovery will be auctioned online by Dix Noonan Webb on Tuesday, and is expected to fetch at least £1,000.

Mr Bott's findings "show you how important metal detecting is and the significance of the things that they found", said Mr Mills, adding of the game pieces: "No one really appreciated them, but they actually are a very important part of our history."

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1/3 Metal detectorist unearths 1,150-year-old Viking board game

Metal detectorist unearths 1,150-year-old Viking board game

Viking 2.jpg

The 37 original pieces on a board commissioned by auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb

Dix Noonan Webb

Metal detectorist unearths 1,150-year-old Viking board game

Mick Bott

Detectorist Mick Bott, from Worksop, unearthed a 1,150-year-old viking board game by the River Trent

Dix Noonan Webb

Metal detectorist unearths 1,150-year-old Viking board game

Viking 2.jpg

The 37 original pieces on a board commissioned by auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb

Dix Noonan Webb

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Metal detectorist unearths 1,150-year-old Viking board game

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News UK Home News Hnefatafl pieces may be oldest collection ever found at one site A metal detectorist has unearthed a viking board game in Lincolnshire dating back to 872 AD.

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Miss Byard, an Oxford Archaeology South small finds expert, said: "Although personal seal matrices are not uncommon finds, one in silver of an identifiable individual, and, indeed, an identifiable context for the loss, is a very unusual occurrence.

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Silver seal find at Hambleden 'gives life' to medieval woman

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Miss Byard, an Oxford Archaeology South small finds expert, said: "Although personal seal matrices are not uncommon finds, one in silver of an identifiable individual, and, indeed, an identifiable context for the loss, is a very unusual occurrence.

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Bronze age Britons remembered the dead by keeping and curating bits of their bodies, and even turning them into instruments and ornaments, according to new research on the remains.

Archaeologists found that pieces of bone buried with the dead were often from people who had died decades earlier, suggesting their remains had been kept for future generations, as keepsakes or perhaps for home display.

"This is the first evidence we have for an established bronze age tradition of curating human remains for substantial lengths of time, over several generations," said Thomas Booth, who carbon-dated the remains at the University of Bristol.

"It's indicative of a broader mindset where the line between the living and the dead was more blurred than it is today," he said. "There wasn't a mindset that human remains go in the ground and you forget about them. They were always present among the living."

While the practice might seem macabre by modern standards, Booth points out that the retention of bits of friends and relatives lives on in the tradition of keeping an urn of a loved one's ashes on the mantlepiece. In the bronze age, remains might have been kept in families or passed around the community, depending on who they came from.

Booth and his colleague, Prof Joanna Bruck, studied human and animal bones, and pieces of charcoal and nutshells, from bronze age sites across Britain. At some of the sites, people were buried with pieces of human bone, or artefacts made from human bone, belonging to other people.

Carbon-dating of the remains showed that, on average, the "curated" human body parts were buried about two generations after the individual died, though the range of dates suggests they could be more recent or as old as six generations.

Bruck, the principal investigator on the project, said that although pieces of human bone were included as "grave goods" with the dead, they were also kept at home, buried under floors, and placed on display.

One remarkable item, found with a man buried near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, turned out to be a whistle made from a carved and highly polished human thigh bone. Dating suggests it belonged to someone who lived around the same time. Meanwhile, at Windmill Fields, Stockton-on-Tees, a woman was buried with skulls and limb bones from at least three other people who died an estimated 60 to 170 years before her. Nearby was what appears to be a ceremonial box of bones, all of a similar age to those buried with the woman.

"Our study indicates that bronze age people were accustomed to handling the bones of the dead, even in their day-to-day lives," said Bruck. "Bones belonging to significant ancestors were curated as relics, and even made into artefacts, some of which may have been used or displayed in the homes of the living."

"Radiocarbon-dating of curated bones suggests that bronze age people's sense of identity and belonging was based on their links to known kin who had died in the past few decades rather than to distant and anonymous ancestors," she added. The research is published in the journal Antiquity.

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A skeleton from Windmill Fields, Stockton-upon-Tees, buried with skulls and bones of three people who had died several decades earlier. Photograph: Tees Archaeology/PA

The archaeologists next used a procedure called microcomputed tomography, or micro-CT, at the Natural History Museum, to look at the fine structure of the bones. The micro-CT images showed that some of the bones had been cremated before being separated, others had been exhumed, and yet more had been de-fleshed by allowing them to decompose on the ground.

"Our research demonstrates that excarnation - the exposure of fleshed bodies to the elements - was in fact common throughout the bronze age, and evidence for the manipulation of partially fleshed bodies in a variety of ritual practices indicates that bronze age people had a quite different attitude to death and the dead than we have today," Bruck said.

Booth said various bronze age human artefacts, including the whistle, possible amulets, and a skull with perforations that suggested it had been hung up as an ornament, gave a flavour of the multitude of ways in which humans remembered the deceased. "It's likely you have a whole ceremonial smorgasbord of what you can do with human remains and we just see glimpses of the various ways in which they were used," he said. "Humans remains always have some intrinsic power. Perhaps they brought some comfort."
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Bronze age Britons made keepsakes from parts of dead relatives, archaeologists say

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Bronze age Britons remembered the dead by keeping and curating bits of their bodies, and even turning them into instruments and ornaments, according to new research on the remains. Archaeologists found that pieces of bone buried with the dead were often from people who had died decades earlier, suggesting their remains had been kept for future generations, as keepsakes or perhaps for home display.

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The skeleton of monk discovered at Westminster Abbey, London. Photograph: Westminster Abbey

A lost medieval sacristy used by 13th-century monks has been uncovered in the grounds of Westminster Abbey along with the bones of hundreds, if not thousands, of buried bodies.

"You do have to be careful where you're walking," said archaeologist Chris Mayo, pointing to a fragment of skull poking out of the sandy soil. "You can see from the ground there are burials everywhere."

Mayo has led a team working on one of the abbey's biggest archaeological projects, one that has had the aim of uncovering the foundations of the Great Sacristy on its North Green, facing the busy Victoria Street.

The sacristy was built in the 1250s by Henry III during his reconstruction of the abbey that was built by Edward the Confessor.

It was the place where monks kept their vestments, altar linens, chalices and other sacred items used in mass.
Archaeology
Before that the site was used as a burial ground for monks, one of whom - still in remarkable condition - has been carefully and temporarily uncovered in his chalk-lined grave by the archaeological team.

Remains of hundreds of bodies also discovered at site used as burial ground for monks

Detail from a painting by Pietro Fabris showing the former Great Sacristy at the centre. Photograph: Westminster Abbey

The sacristy was repurposed as a domestic dwelling and in 1740, being in a perilous state, it was demolished.

It was later uncovered and recorded in 1869 in a project directed by the celebrated architect Sir George Gilbert Scott whose buildings include the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras station in London. At the time he was the Abbey's Surveyor of the Fabric.

The team from Pre-Construct Archaeology has been working since January, with a three-month lockdown break, to understand the site better as part of a wider building project.

Authorities at the abbey want to construct a building on the site to house new welcoming, ticketing and security facilities, which they say will allow visitors to enter through the grand Great West Door, the entrance used by monarchs and royal brides but not the public.

To build on the site, the abbey wanted to fully understand the medieval footprint - hence the dig.

As the dig nears completion and before the site is covered, the Guardian was invited along to take a look. Mayo said the aim of fully exposing and recording the superstructure of the Great Sacristy had been achieved with the foundations clearly revealed.

Archaeologists from PCA working on the Great Sacristy site. Photograph: Westminster Abbey

Much had been learned and discovered with one significant find being a stoup, or basin, which was probably used by monks in Edward the Confessor's church to wash their hands as they entered. It was found upturned and reused in the 13th-century foundations.

Other finds include a lead pipe, which would have supplied water to the monastery and probably dates from the 13th century.

Many fragments of medieval painted wall plaster have been found, suggesting the walls of the Great Sacristy were decorated with handpainted red, white and black flowers.

The team also found a large number of 18th-century domestic objects, including china plates, chamber pots, glass drinking vessels and an assortment of combs and brushes.

Not surprisingly given its past as a known burial ground before the sacristy and during the 18th century, lots of human remains have been discovered.

There must be "hundreds if not thousands", Mayo said, adding "this will be the case right the way across the Abbey site. Ultimately the Abbey's grounds once went much further still... this whole area was awash with burials. If you dug a hole underneath the supreme court you'd find a few burials as well."

As with many archaeological digs there have also been moments of excitement, followed by juddering letdown.

A stacked grave was found leading to speculation that it could be some of the regicides, the men involved in the execution of Charles I whose bodies Charles II ordered to be taken from the abbey and thrown in a pit. Unfortunately the dates meant that was not possible.

The discovery of an impressive medieval sarcophagus also raised hopes that the team could have found the remains of someone in charge of the Great Sacristy.

"What we've found is that the individual has been taken out and the sarcophagus has been re-used as a drain," said a disappointed Mayo. "It does take some of the gloss off."

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Lost medieval sacristy uncovered at Westminster Abbey

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A lost medieval sacristy used by 13th-century monks has been uncovered in the grounds of Westminster Abbey along with the bones of hundreds, if not thousands, of buried bodies. "You do have to be careful where you're walking," said archaeologist Chris Mayo, pointing to a fragment of skull poking out of the sandy soil.

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Written by Amy Woodyatt, CNN

A amateur metal detectorist has uncovered a haul of Bronze Age objects in a Scottish field, in what experts are calling a "nationally significant" discovery.

The hoard, which dates from 1,000-900 BC and includes a complete horse harness and sword, was found by Mariusz Stepien as he searched a field near Peebles, Scotland with friends on June 21.

Stepien discovered a bronze object buried 1.5 feet under the ground, and reported his discovery to the Treasure Trove Unit after getting strong signals from the earth around the object.

Archeologists worked on the site for 22 days, and discovered a sword still in its scabbard, decorated straps, buckles, rings, ornaments and chariot wheel axle caps, as well as evidence of a decorative "rattle pendant" that would have been attached to the harness -- the first to be found in Scotland.

"I thought I've never seen anything like this before and felt from the very beginning that this might be something spectacular and I've just discovered a big part of Scottish history," Stepien, who has been detecting for almost nine years, said in a statement.

Stepien and his friends camped in the field for the duration of the 22-day dig, determined to witness the excavation from beginning to end.

"I was over the moon, actually shaking with happiness," he added. "I'm so pleased that the earth revealed to me something that was hidden for more than 3000 years. I still can't believe it happened!"

This is only the second time a haul of this kind has been discovered in Scotland, according to experts from Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

The soil had preserved the trove's organic materials, such as wood and leather, which allowed archaeologists to trace the straps, which connected buckles and rings to make a harness -- something they say has never been seen before in Britain.

"This is a nationally significant find -- so few Bronze Age hoards have been excavated in Scotland, it was an amazing opportunity for us to not only recover bronze artifacts, but organic material as well," Emily Freeman, Head of the Treasure Trove Unit, said in a statement.

"There is still a lot of work to be done to assess the artifacts and understand why they were deposited," she added.

The cache of treasure has been removed from the site in a block of soil and taken to the National Museums Collection Center in Edinburgh for continued excavation and research, COPFS said in a statement.

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amateur detectorist finds astonishing bronze age haul in scotland - cnn

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Amateur metal detectorist finds astonishing Bronze Age haul in Scotland

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Written by Amy Woodyatt, CNN A amateur metal detectorist has uncovered a haul of Bronze Age objects in a Scottish field, in what experts are calling a "nationally significant" discovery. The hoard, which dates from 1,000-900 BC and includes a complete horse harness and sword, was found by Mariusz Stepien as he searched a field near Peebles, Scotland with friends on June 21.

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Removing archaeology and heritage protection from the planning system will make society poorer.

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Archaeology is a set of tools for understanding the past in the present. It has evolved over many generations to embrace a wide range of humanities- and science-based disciplines, and has also moved outside the narrow confines of academia into the real world of planning and development.

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Right now, the United States is burning. This is not the first time. It is not the last.

In the wake of yet another social maelstrom caused by the Original Sin at the heart of U.S. history, I've been getting emails, text messages, and other requests to help archaeologists articulate a response to these recent events. Our overwhelmingly white industry is wondering what they can do to make a statement against coordinated anti-black violence in a culturally sensitive way. Most of these requests are coming from other university archaeologists and archaeology organizations but a few cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists have reached out ( NOTE: None of the CRMers who reached out to me are principal investigators or company owners. I wonder how CRM companies are not responding? Perhaps CRM PIs know how to adequately respond to coordinated anti-black violence rooted in systemic racism better than black archaeologists do). I don't mind these requests, but I've been overwhelmed.

Archaeology has a race problem. Some of us know it and have been doing something about it.

It's interesting how the few non-white archaeologists are consistently tapped to address racism in our industry. For years, we have been doing the work with a core group of white archaeologists. A committed group of individuals in the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) have been doing anti-racism training since 2015 for a good reason ( http://www.succinctresearch.com/archaeology-structural-racism-and-the-seahawks-musings-on-sha2015/). This SHA advocacy came after years of vocal requests from several black archaeologists and I am proud to move this forward. The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) is thinking about thinking about organizing a committee where they can start thinking about ways to talk about racism without offending anyone. Based on their response to sexual harassment amongst their membership, I think it will be years before we se substantive change in the SAA. The Society of Black Archaeologists has joined the numerous tribal historic preservation offices (THPOs) in the United States to do heritage conservation archaeology for non-white sites. This work is inherently anti-racist and is one attempt to conserve non-white heritage for non-white people. We are not alone but we are outnumbered. We are also getting positive results.

Some of us only think about the role archaeology plays in maintaining racism in the United States when the suffering of non-white bodies becomes visible, when non-whites start criticizing their professional organizations, or when white archaeologists can trendjack our deaths and uprisings to increase their own prestige. Some archaeologists only write statements against racism when someone builds an oil pipeline across Indian lands AFTER archaeologists have done a cultural resource management (CRM) evaluation of those same lands without tribal collaboration. They speak out only AFTER Native people start getting arrested. Archaeologists write statements against anti-black violence AFTER black people keep getting killed and we rise up against it. Archaeologists only join forces to take down racist monuments AFTER anti-racism advocates start ripping them down. Some archaeologists think they're down with the cause but do nothing to change things until somebody else starts doing something or its politically beneficial for them to do so.

Now that things are changing quickly, archaeologists are scrambling to try and figure out our place in the movement. This is when white archaeologists start reaching out to the few non-white ones of us in an attempt to find someone to help them make sense of things and help them feel comfortable that they are not part of the problem (HINT: Most archaeologists are part of the problem).

I thought I'd write down some of my feelings on racism, archaeology, cultural resource management, and the #blacklivesmatter movement so it can stand on the internet for years to come. This way I only have to say this once and you all can backlink to this blog post the next time archaeology tries to wake up to its role in supporting structural racism in the United States:
1. Structural racism is baked into American Archaeology
This has been covered extensively on this blog:
http://www.succinctresearch.com/are-archaeologists-racist-part-i/http://www.succinctresearch.com/are-archaeologists-racist-part-i/http://www.succinctresearch.com/does-crm-archaeology-mean-whiteness/
I'm not the only archaeologists who's noticed this:
https://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/archaeologists-the-whitest-people-i-know/
There is also a wealth of Black Studies literature that adequately explains how institutions, academia, and professionalism support structural racism.

Here's how American archaeology supports racism:

->>The monoracial demographics in archaeology have created an uncomfortable space for non-white people that is not conducive to cultivating diversity. It also means Americans only see white people doing archaeology, which is a disincentive for many non-white youth as archaeology is portrayed as a "thing only white people do." Additionally, archaeology doesn't pay well and it takes at least 4 years of college to even qualify for an entry-level position. So, it's hard to convince the few non-white students who make it to college to even think about becoming a professional archaeologist.

->> When a non-white student does choose archaeology, they get to embody all diversity in their department. They also get to put up with insensitive, racist things from their classmates and professors who degenerate into fragility whenever this is called out. This will continue throughout their career as an archaeologist.

->> As professionals, non-white archaeologists will be asked to be all things racial for their company, department, and professional organizations. They will be asked to explain everything about America's racist society to white archaeologists, who won't listen anyway, and will be expected to make white people feel good about themselves when confronting issues about race when they arise. They will also have to put up with the fragile responses that inevitably happen when their white colleagues realize they are supporting racism. Archaeologists of color will put up with this because existing power differentials pretty much guarantee we will suffer sanctions if we don't (for example, missed job opportunities, exclusion, cut networks, getting passed over, labeling [i.e. being that angry black guy], not getting promoted, not getting tenure, etc.).

->> Non-white archaeologists will care about increasing diversity, so we aren't so lonely. Fighting racism and increasing diversity will dominate our entire careers.

->> Meanwhile, white archaeologists will be free to choose to become experts in whatever aspect of archaeology they like, even researching indigenous, ethnic, and non-white groups living in other countries.

->> These white archaeologists will harden their privilege with degrees, journal articles, books, CRM contracts, grants, and doing more and more projects on their chosen specialty ("prehistory," Native American, African American, Japanese American, Chinese American, etc.). Rather than cultural affiliation and real-life experience, white archaeologists will use these credentials as "proof" that they know more about non-white people than those people know about themselves. They will demand a seat at the table they created for themselves and will pass these traditions on to their students.

->> These experts will create seminars, workshops, webinars, online videos, write articles, books, testify in court, and create social media posts about their expertise until they become the voice for a particular aspect of archaeology. All of this will be considered "proof" of expertise. Governments will look to them to be the experts for non-white people, silencing non-white elders. Non-white people will be dependent on white archaeologists to protect their heritage. There will be successes and failures. Rarely will white archaeologists be blamed for failure by other archaeologists.

->> White archaeologists will also expect to be part of whatever heritage conservation groups non-white people create for themselves and will expect non-white people to recognize their expertise in something they can never experience themselves and barely even understand. They will expect us to give them our cultural knowledge so they can further their own careers but will tell us that it's to help us save our own heritage. We might have free access to some of their articles and will get to watch them speak for us on TV.

->> White archaeologists will get angry if anyone challenges them on this.

->> White archaeologists know they made all of this up for themselves but will pretend that it can also serve non-white communities. Somehow, they will be surprised to learn that their entire life's work hasn't made much positive change for non-white people even though most of this work was never even told to anyone outside academia, the SHPO, or other archaeologists.

->> At the same time, non-white archaeologists will only be expected to be experts on their own race or ethnicity. Their skills and knowledge will be questioned whenever they research subjects white archaeologists have anointed themselves experts. We non-white archaeos will put up with this because we care about our heritage and want to show black people that we can take control of our own heritage. We also want to rewrite what they've written. We will try and do this in our own words but will be forced to use their mediums so we can keep our jobs.

->> We don't owe white people anything and can do it all for ourselves in our own way, but this will go unnoticed unless we play by their rules. Doing things in ways that jives with our culture (i.e. through oral history, art, dance, and music) will not be considered equal to writing journal articles and technical reports that nobody reads. These forms of conservation are what our communities want but they will not be considered significant to archaeologists. They will not listen when we tell them we care more about them sponsoring a cultural festival or art installation than writing an academic book. They will not change their behaviors accordingly unless it helps solidify their privilege. The wheel of dharma will continue turning.

->> Then, white and non-white archaeologists will try and recruit students of color into this environment even though many of us know it's bad. None of us will be able to change this as long as it remains embedded in the existing structure. Non-white students will sense things are not well and black professors will be remiss to find comforting words. Few archaeologists of color will put up with this after our undergraduate years.

->> Archaeology will continue to wonder why it's hard to increase diversity but will keep using the same structures designed to maintain inequality because we lack the imagination to try something different. Government agencies and university administrations will not let us change the rules.

->> Monoracial demographics in archaeology will continue to create an uncomfortable space for non-white people that is not conducive to cultivating diversity..."

Archaeology maintains structural racism because it was born of a racist structure (i.e. pseudoscience, academia, CRM) and we continue to perpetuate these roots. This is why we find it hard to increase diversity in archaeology.

2. Recognize archaeology is built on other peoples' heritage:

Unless your work is 100% on European American sites that have no nexus with any other race, you are creating black history, Native history, Asian history, Hispanic history, LGBTQ history and all other non-white histories. By not acknowledging this, you are creating white history. Archaeology informs us of the past. Our findings disproportionately impact non-white communities who lack the power to advocate on their own behalves; therefore, it is paramount that white archaeologists always openly and readily recognize that the pasts they are researching are not theirs. It is also paramount that white archaeologists think about the impact their work has on non-white communities, especially CRM.

Thinking reflexively is where I'd like all archaeologists to begin before they embark on any archaeological project. We all need to start thinking about how our research will affect the communities in which we work. Sincerely respecting non-white heritage is the smallest action any of us can do.

3. Most archaeology is not done to benefit American communities, especially non-white ones:

If you read Section 1 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1969 (NHPA), you will get the feeling that this legislation was created to help preserve the threatened materiality of American heritage. It sounds like the goal is to help us remember the past so that we will not be doomed to repeat it. That serving the American public will be behind this "preservation" so future generations will have the places necessary to help them understand their identity in the present and the sources from whence these identities were created.

Somewhere along the line, archaeologists co-opted the preservation process, boiling it down into a professional service that can be contracted to clients for the right price. This is efficient and has led to an explosion of archaeology but has not yet helped conserve American heritage. The NHPA has become a rule book, like the instructions for putting together an IKEA "Billy" bookshelf, that helps clients get a useful "product" that they can use to achieve their development goals.

CRM companies increasingly push universities to teach students how to do CRM as opposed to whatever we've been teaching students, but they don't want us to create an engaged, introspective archaeology oriented toward serving communities. CRM wants us to teach students how to better complete the checklists companies need to comply with laws. Like Mandalorians, CRM companies just want us to teach checklisting because "this is the way."

The CRM industry doesn't seem interested in creating CRMers who are community assets- essential professionals that help right the wrongs of the past and help preserve heritage properties. CRM ethics are boiled down to not violating the prime directive of CRM (i.e. don't do something that could get the company sued) rather than serving the spirit of the NHPA. Companies just want to get a paycheck so they can live to dig another day.

Few companies are following the only financially sound pathway towards building a solvent, profitable, beneficial CRM organization-becoming a preservation-oriented non-profit organized along the lines of a real estate investment trust (REIT). The National Trust for Historic Preservation was launched based on the idea of using property ownership to save buildings, landscapes, and sites for future generations. Similar to English Heritage in the U.K. and the Stadsherstel in the Netherlands, the National Trust uses proceeds from their non-profit REIT, tax-deductible donations, and a special relationship to the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation to further the cause of historic preservation by acquiring new properties, providing trainings, grants, and collaborations. The Archaeological Conservancy uses a similar network of ownership, donations, development easements to protect archaeological sites. These organizations may not always be doing social justice for non-white communities and they have troubles with the narratives they create of the past, but they have shown a financially feasible system for doing the work elucidated in the NHPA. This is a proven model that CRM companies could use to get around the incentive to race to the bottom.

Companies could acquire property, leverage preservation tax benefits, help create preservation-minded zoning incentives, and use the income from their properties to fill the revenue gap that happens when you are between projects. CRM companies could also refuse to do work for the lowest possible cost because they have the $ to keep the company solvent until the right client comes along, or could focus on design, policy analysis, and real estate investment. These preservation-oriented companies could use archaeology to highlight the company's commitment to communities, research, and preservation. They could also use a portion of revenues to lobby legislators to maintain, strengthen, and expand preservation regulations. Not only does this generate different sources of revenue it also unlocks a range of different tax deductions for CRM companies. There is nothing that prevents CRM companies from transitioning away from being "service providers" to being true heritage conservation organizations. There is also nothing that keeps non-white communities from doing this for themselves.

I only know one CRM company that is doing anything remotely related to this. If you know of any others, please write it in the comments below.

CRM disproportionately neglects non-white communities because the people living in those neighborhoods and communities are rarely the ones doing the historic property surveys and rarely get to comment on the ways these projects will adversely affect their communities. White neighborhoods can fight back with lawyers. The rest of us can't afford this defense. Our heritage sites get bulldozed after a couple of excavation units are dug by white archaeologists who didn't even hire anyone living in that community to help "mitigate" the site.

Sometimes, CRMers just hide behind technicalities to blow off non-white concerns. The DAPL, African Burial Ground, and Port Angeles Graving Dock projects are among the most vivid examples in recent memory but, each week, hundreds of non-white historic properties get written off or "mitigated" by white archaeologists. Unless you're working in California or on a reservation with a THPO, non-white people are almost never paid to do the archaeology on their own sites or even asked to provide input. Native Americans present a unique case as CRM legally recognizes the fact that their heritage sites continue to be screwed by structural racism. A "special relationship" between the government and tribes (i.e. minimal recognition that they were robbed of their ancestor's graves) means they get a cursory nod when it comes to their heritage properties. They are the only ethnic/racial group that consistently gets this "special" consideration, which is actually the tiniest step towards recognizing white supremacy. The rest of us have to fight it out in the courts without any durable legal nexus.
4. (Re)interpret existing sites for today's people:
There is a movement advocating for removing monuments to America's racist past. We should not do this.

Removing racist monuments only erases a piece of our history. It also makes it easier for white people to forget their origins, lets them show that they've "moved on" from the past, and can trigger white fragility when we remind them about these monuments. We don't want to get over the past. We want to make a better future. This can't happen if we forget what our ancestors did to build this world.

Rather than removing these monuments, we need to keep them in place and (re)interpret them. Let Native tribes handle the interpretation of Little Bighorn. Let black people interpret Confederate monuments. Let LGBTQ people commemorate Stonewall. How about we fund Japanese American's interpretations of internment camps, Native Hawaiians commemoration of Russian fur trading sites, or Chinese Americans interpretations of what the Transcontinental Railroad means to them? In the case of the most racist monuments like Confederate statues, we should let the communities who descended from those harmed in the past execute the entire (re)interpretation of these sites however they wish. We tear down existing monuments as long as descendant communities get to build a new one in its place; new monuments to persistence, survivance, culture and America's heritage.

We should let these (re)interpreted sites stand and invite criticism and wonderment over the accuracy, truth, appropriateness, or ethics of the new narratives non-white people spray paint over the top of white history. These criticisms from white experts will let us all know who is with us and who is not. It's easier to keep from getting bit by a rattlesnake you can see than one that remains concealed in the grass. Let the new histories we tag all over these racist monuments help reveal the rattlesnakes hiding in the grass all round us.

We should also not approve any more CRM reports that do not include input from local elders, regardless of race, ethnicity, or culture. And, CRM budgets should always have money to pay elders for their cooperation regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, or deviation from the mainstream. No more "prehistoric" archaeology reports without tribal input. No more sharecropper sites written off without black elders making a contribution. No more "Overseas" Chinese mining sites evaluated without Chinese American elders telling us how their ancestors lived on those sites. No more Hispanic farmworker sites without those farmworkers' children telling us what their parents went through. Better yet, allow all relevant local communities to contribute as most sites are multivalent and have overlapping claims.

No more CRM without community input. I know its going to cost more to do this but you should think about passing on the costs on to our clients like they pass the costs of living with their "development" to our children.

5. Heritage conservation not cultural resource management: CRM is predicated on the management of "historic properties," which are bounded geographic locations with 3-dimensional attributes connected to narratives (i.e. interpretations of past events) that are considered significant by qualified professionals. There is little room in typical property assessments for intangible aspects of historical properties. Also, forces CRMers to confirm veracity of narratives which disproportionately rely on documents not created by non-white communities.

When evaluating non-white historic properties, CRMers could draw upon the guidelines established for for assessing traditional cultural properties ( https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/NRB38-Completeweb.pdf). TCPs are not a new type of historic property but rather a reorganization of the NRHP criteria in such a way that we can better take traditional knowledge into account. National Register Bulletin 38 provides a wider scope that features local knowledge in hopes of creating more holistic interpretations of historic properties. Thinking about non-white sites as being similar to TCPs provides space for vernacular interpretations and narratives. The key is to start thinking about non-white historic properties outside the "carved-in-stone" methodologies CRMers use most of the time. Conducting field visits with local elders, actually consulting with local folks, and reconciling vernacular and archaeological data are all things that will help CRM serve communities.

(I know. I know. I know, what you're thinking, " CRM companies are not the ones who are supposed to be consulting with affected communities. That's the lead agency's job. We might get sued if we talk to folks on our own." My response is: What good is cultural resource management if you aren't helping communities preserve their heritage? Isn't CRM rooted in the idea that the, "...historical and cultural foundations of the Nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people"? And, "...the preservation of this irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, economic, and energy benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans"? If your contracts prevent you from reaching out to tribes or non-white communities while on the job, what's keeping you from doing that when you are not under contract? Why can't you fulfill your ethical obligations to American heritage by reaching out to non-white communities BEFORE you land a contract in their traditional use area? How come you all have to be paid before you'll try and fulfill the spirit of the NHPA?)

UNESCO's convention safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is another way CRMers could start looking at sites valued by people they don't understand ( https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention ). Going this deep into the ocean would require CRMers to think even more like anthropologists and would strain historic preservation regulations even further but is a possible framework for applying intangible attributes to TCP-style historic properties. The entirety of this Convention cannot be applied using the NHPA but the idea of saving spaces where traditional festivals, practices, and beliefs take place helps recognize the value intangible practices have to many local communities.

6. It is not up to archaeologists of color to help white archaeologists learn how to think about structural racism in archaeology: The few non-white archaeologists you know are probably getting worn down having to help all of archaeology adequately respond to the structural racism imbedded in our country. CRM and academic archaeology are products of this system. Archaeology is economically, structurally, paradigmatically, and legally dominated by white archaeologists. Therefore, it is not up to the 4-5% of non-white archaeologists to fix a system created by and for the other 95%.

I know several of us have been telling y'all what needs to change since before I became an archaeologist and things still haven't dramatically changed. Now that a few of us started our own organizations and are getting recognition for doing good things for our own black, Native, and other non-white communities you all are sending cold call emails asking us to edit your public soliloquies on standing against racism just to make sure you aren't offending any of us? Someone who is already doing anti-racism work shouldn't need to cold call people in the directories of their professional organization to find a black friend. If you were doing the work, you'd already have black friends.

All it took was a nationwide race uprising for you to tell the world that you stand against racism? What were you doing for the rest of your career? The fact that you haven't increased diversity in archaeology for a decade kinda tells us all we need to know about how you feel about inclusion, diversity, and racism. A race uprising is not the time to demonstrate you are not racist because by the time that happens, you're too late. Your message has already been sent.

If you're putting in work, you shouldn't need to make a statement against racism because those who know you and your work already know where you stand. As soon as this started going down, every CEO, chancellor, university president, organization head, sleeping bag manufacturer, airline, and church started writing public declarations saying they were against racism, felt sorry for black people, and were committed to #blacklivesmatter. All of these statements are just ad campaigns unless we see some real change in these organizations.

White archaeologists: actions speak louder than words. Your online statement is just window dressing if you haven't been doing the work. And, if you haven't been doing the work we will see through your words.

Don't be afraid to discover you are part of the problem. That knowledge can be a powerful motivation to help you move in a different direction. Don't be afraid of making a statement that reveals how little you know about race and race relations. If we don't like what you say, we will set you straight in a way that you will never forget. Think of it like having a trial by fire, you'll get burned but fresh, green growth will come from the experience

What if you truly want to take a stand against racism?

There are a lot of problems in archaeology and you don't have to feel like you need to help change them all. However, some problems are worse than others (for example, the lack of diversity, persistence of sexual harassment, stealing cultural knowledge for personal gain, using privilege to gain more privilege, economic precarity, inequality, and more). Those are the ones we need all hands on deck to handle if we want archaeology to be relevant to American society.

Addressing structural racism in archaeology is one of those problems. We can't have bystanders because none of us are innocent.

If you know we have a problem and want to help, here are some suggestions:

- Acknowledge when you appropriate non-white cultural knowledge in your research. ALWAYS tell other people that you have been allowed to hear a portion of the knowledge of others and are simply doing your best to understand what they are telling you. This even goes for "prehistoric" sites because, most of the time, archaeologist interpret these sites without even asking the site's creators' descendants what it means to them. (FYI: Human understandings of time are relative and subjective. For millions of people, time is cyclical and happening on multiple plains of existence which means the past and future are happening in the present. There is no separation between prehistory, history, and the present. Native people are not gone. Slavery, Jim Crow, internment, and anti-LGBTQ violence is not over. This stuff started in the past and still exists in the present. The goal is not for us to get "over it." Our sites have not been "abandoned;" we don't need to own a property for it to be "our" heritage. These sites still have a role to play in the present so we can make a better future for ourselves. And, that role is not just to help provide a historical context for the NHPA or corroborate a carbon-14 date.)

- Actions speak louder than words. Embody anti-racism before you start talking about being an anti-racist. We are watching and we've been told you're down with the cause many times. Then, we've watched you recruit more white students, keep hiring all white CRM crews, and write articles on our heritage without even acknowledging us. Do what is right.

- Listen to non-white communities before you speak. Without talking, just sit back and listen. If non-white folks are talking, you are lucky to hear what we have to say because we don't tell you the truth very often. ( Actually, we never tell you the real truth. The real truth is ours to know and we only share this with our friends, family, and other folks who know the struggle. You won't hear real truth unless you are one of our friends and family. But, if you're lucky we will let you hear a version of the truth that you can handle.)

It's not a dialogue. It's a lecture. We teach; you listen. Then, we hope you learn.

This goes for all of this newfound anti-racism floating around on the internet. Did someone in the non-white community ask you to write a statement of commitment to diversity? Did we ask you to speak on our behalf? Did you ask us if you should publish a YouTube video on our heritage? If not, your words are really only lip service for other white archaeologists. We are watching your actions not your words.

- Change your actions based on what non-white community members told you they need. If you've been listening, you probably know what we need: 1) jobs, 2) money, 3) political power, 3) connections to jobs, money, and/or political power, 4) space to make our own decisions, and, sometimes, 5) someone to have our back when we push for change. If you really want to help, think about how you can provide at least one of those things. We don't need more talk, thoughts, advise, smiles, hugs, or hopes and prayers.

- Hire non-white archaeologists. It's hard to increase diversity when you don't hire anyone but white people to do archaeology. Most CRM projects do not require SOI-qualified field technicians. How hard would it be to hire black youth and teach them how to survey or dig shovel probes? You already complain that us professors don't teach our students what they need to do CRM. If you've already got to teach them everything, why not start at ground zero with some non-white kids who are looking for a job? Don't be afraid. Black people are just like everyone else. We think archaeology is cool but don't know if it's a viable career. Show black youth they can do CRM.

- Create a scholarship, grant, or fellowship for non-white archaeology students. Paying black people to do archaeology is one of the surest ways you can increase diversity. Non-white students have huge hurdles to overcome but they're more likely to put up with the silent racism in anthro departments if they're getting paid.

- Create a program to recruit and train archaeologists of color. Once a student gets their first taste of archaeology and is close to finishing an anthro degree, help them get their foot in the door. Then, create a feedback mechanism for them to tell you how "woke" you and your company really is. Most importantly, don't get all fragile if the response is not what you expected.

- Pay non-white people for their time and efforts when we help you build a historical context for your CRM assessment. No more interviewing elders at the black history museum and adding that to your historical context for free. Next time, bring cash.

- Go out of your way to hire non-white businesses. Make an effort to hire backhoe operators, GIS specialists, insurance agents, payroll companies, landscapers, editors, illustrators, publishers, researchers, etc. the next time you have a project. If you cannot find these individuals, that tells you a lot about the economic environment where your offices operate.

- Open your next CRM office in a non-white neighborhood. We know offices in the tech parks shield you from discomfort, but redlining is the reason why there aren't any jobs in black neighborhoods and on reservations. Get out of your comfort zone. Get out of the suburbs. Go off campus.

- Offer assistances to tribes and non-white communities pro bono. And, don't be sad if they turn you down. Archaeology has not been kind to non-white people. Not everyone is going to be your friend or forget past slights. Don't let that keep you from trying.

- Know that credentials, qualifications, and education limit diversity. These structures were designed to bolster inequality in the United States. Either change the system or change your hiring/recruitment systems.

- Know that increasing non-white archaeologists is just one step. Just because you have black friends does not mean you are no longer racist. Anti-racism is a lifelong process just like racialization is lifelong. This will take generations to break down just like it took generations to build.

- Know that racism hurts white people too. Black people are the ones disproportionately being killed by the police, but white people are also harmed in a different way by the racist society in which we live. Please, research how racism is hurting you too.
Basically, listen first, think reflexively, then put your money where your mouth is.
My rebuttal to your rebuttals to my recommendations

-Rather than accusing me of reverse discrimination, think about what you're doing to fight structural racism in archaeology. If you are just reading blog posts, do something to fight structural racism.

-Rather than saying " We hire the most qualified applicants and comply with equal opportunity laws," understand those laws and qualifications are at the heart of structural racism as they support the status quo and reduce the likelihood that you will hire archaeologists of color. Change your hiring systems and do something to fight structural racism.

-Rather than saying, " It's hard enough to get into archaeology. Why should we privilege students of color?," look at yourself in the mirror and think, " Would I be saying that if I weren't white? " If the answer is "no," don't say it anymore and do something to fight structural racism.

-Rather than saying, " I've got too many things on my plate to do something about this," watch the video of George Floyd's execution again. If that sparks any sort of sympathetic response, do something to fight structural racism. (If it doesn't, you should find a psychiatrist.)

-If you think I am asking too much and still believe you are not racist, you should think again. Then, do something to fight structural racism.

Deep in my heart, I do believe...

Archaeology can be part of the immersion therapy the United States needs to address the terrible way we all came into being. Breeding black people for labor. Committing genocide against Native Americans. Exploiting European immigrants, Hawaiians, Chinese, and Hispanics for generations. Putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Beating women with clubs just because they wanted to vote. Killing gay people because their existence upsets the way you think the world should be. We are the descendants of all those people. They are our relatives. They are our ancestors. Their deeds echo in the present.

American archaeology is one institution that lays all of this bare for us to stare at with naked eyes and swelling hearts. Those who support white supremacy are the ones who are afraid to face this reality. They don't want to know how they got power. They don't want to think that their house is built upon a thousand broken backs. They don't want to think about how their ancestors lied, cheated, stole, and killed so they can do the same things to black and brown bodies. They don't want to think about the fact that they are still doing that today. Most importantly: They don't want to give up their privilege. It is very clear that they will burn down their own country rather than live as equals alongside their non-white neighbors. We've been telling you this for centuries.

As a nation, we must recognize where we came from if we are ever to stamp out the inequality, racism, and sexism in the future. We have to grieve over these pasts and start thinking about how all of this has twisted and perverted the way we see ourselves and the world. We cannot move towards justice as long as we keep lying to ourselves and avoiding the pain. After the grief and the tears comes the emotional release and healing that lies in the knowledge that we are not them. We are better than they were. Together, we can make a better world for our children.

Now that you've read this far, you need to know that white archaeologists can be allies to non-white archaeologists. Our situation is not hopeless, but we will not eliminate structural racism in archaeology without white archaeologists.

I have to give a shout out to all the white archaeologists who helped me along the way. Since I didn't have a black archaeologist as a mentor or professor until I was almost done with graduate school, I wouldn't have gotten where I am today without the sincere, dedicated help, advice, and mentorship of white archaeologists. The white archaeologists out there who helped me were fighting racism and helping make archaeology more diverse. Some of these folks helped me because they were committed to diversity in archaeology. Others helped me because they had to. A bad CRM archaeologist on your crew is like a lead weight that can sink a project. Some white folks helped me so I wouldn't hurt their project. Either way, my career has been furthered from the concerted efforts of white archaeologists for nearly 20 years. I'm not going to name any names but those who helped me have shown their commitment to fighting racism and increasing diversity in archaeology. I am here to help you further this commitment.

However, the actions of our universities, professional organizations, government agencies, and CRM companies show me most archaeologists do not care about diversity. They do not want to break down systemic racism. This blog post is uncomfortable for them to read because talking about race and interacting with non-white people makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them remember. It makes them think. White fragility makes these archaeologists avoid discomfort. But they don't want us to think they are racist or complicit in structural racism so they will use online statements, forums, conference presentations, webinars, and other truthiness to make it look like they are against structural racism. They say the lack of diversity in archaeology is a bad thing but don't really want it to change because the presence of non-white bodies in archaeology threatens their privilege and expert status. I see this every day through their (in)actions and words.

Regardless of how many solidarity statements we are writing these days, I truly doubt most of the archaeologists writing them will change their behavior enough to make archaeology a truly anti-racist enterprise. If they did, things already would be different today.

Rather than saying #blacklivesmatter on the internet, change your behavior to show black people that our lives matter. Change your behavior and show us that non-white heritage matters to archaeologists.
This blog post reflects the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of the author alone. It does not reflect the sentiments and/or actions of the University of California, Berkeley, the Society of Black Archaeologists, the Archaeology Podcast Network, any other archaeology organization of which the author is a member, or all non-white archaeologists in general.
Write a comment below or send me an email if you have anything to say. Otherwise, start fighting structural racism.

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The 2020 Race Uprisings and Archaeology's Response

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Right now, the United States is burning. This is not the first time. It is not the last. In the wake of yet another social maelstrom caused by the Original Sin at the heart of U.S. history, I've been getting emails, text messages, and other requests to help archaeologists articulate a response to these recent events.

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"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.

"Once I'd realised what I was seeing I became very angry, and a great feeling of sadness came over me as I saw more and more stones removed," he said.

"I was amazed at the effort that had been put in to move some of the stones, I couldn't quite believe it."

Doll Tor

The monument likely dates from the earlier part of the Bronze Age (c. 2500 until c. 800 BC)

The small circle formed part of a larger complex with a ditch, cairn (stone mound) and nearby boulders possibly associated

Human bones, along with bronze and flint tools, have been found at the site

It was likely a place of burial, ritual and possibly an area reserved for seasonal celebrations

Source: Historic England
A spokesman for Historic England said: "As a scheduled monument, Doll Tor stone circle and adjacent stone cairn is a nationally important archaeological site and protected by law.

"This site forms an important part of our shared past and the preservation of the standing stones, cairn, buried archaeology and other features is vital in helping us to understand the ritual importance of this site and the beliefs of prehistoric peoples."

Historic England said it was working with Derbyshire Police, the private landowner and the Peak District National Park to investigate the crime.

Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

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Ancient stone circle damaged by campfires

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"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.

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Show caption
The pendant was made by someone who was clearly skilled in their craft around 1,000-800BC. Photograph: British Museum

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.
British Museum

Gold bulla is described as one of the most important bronze age finds of the last century

Wilkin said it could easily pass as a glorious example of art deco jewellery from the 1930s. In reality it was made by someone who was clearly skilled in their craft around 1,000-800BC. "The skill and care with which it has been put together is remarkable," he said. "It is just exquisite."

It comes from a period that is often misunderstood, associated with people living in huts or caves. Wilkin said that was understandable. "This is a subject, a period, that hasn't been taught in school curriculums until very recently ... I didn't learn about it at school."

The pendant is decorated with semi-circles and geometric motifs, and on one side is a stylised solar design, reflecting the importance of the sun and its path across the sky to bronze age farmers.

That depiction of the sun is seen in famous objects as the Trundholm sun chariot in Copenhagen and a small number of gold pendants found in Ireland, "but we haven't really seen it on British objects until now," said Wilkins.

The pendant is decorated with semi-circles and geometric motifs, and on one side is a stylised solar design. Photograph: British Museum

The pendant was found in a landscape that would have been boggy and wet during the bronze age. Curators think it would have been intentionally cast into the water as an offering, much as people today throw coins into fountains.

It was found by a metal detectorist who wants to remain anonymous. All the correct procedures were adhered to in that it was reported to the local finds liaison officer who notified the coroner and brought it to the British Museum under the treasure process.

A coroner found it to be treasure and the independent treasure valuation committee recommended to the culture secretary a valuation of £250,000.

It will probably be known as the Shropshire sun pendant and will go on display from November at Shrewsbury museum and art gallery, near the find site. In 2021 it will come to the British Museum in London and will be displayed near other bronze age treasures such as the Mold gold cape.

The pendant, 3.6cm by 4.7cm, is the second one ever found in Britain. The first was discovered during canal digging in Manchester in 1722 and was assumed by many experts to be Roman, because of its quality. It was last recorded in 1806 before disappearing from sight.

Could it still be out there? "It is possible," said Wilkin. "To find it would be astonishing but in some ways it wouldn't surprise me. The weight of it means you wouldn't necessarily think of melting it down for bullion. I do have a sneaking suspicion it is out there somewhere, just misunderstood or mislabelled."

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British Museum acquires 3,000-year-old Shropshire sun pendant

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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.

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A famous hillside chalk figure has been adorned with a face mask.

The Cerne Abbas Giant is thought to have been given the unauthorised addition on Friday.

Local resident Kevin Knight, who tweeted a picture of the alteration earlier, said it had "really lifted villagers' spirits".

The National Trust, which manages the protected Dorset site, said it did not encourage defacements.

The 180ft (55m) ancient naked figure is not normally accessible to the public, in order to avoid damage and erosion.

It has been unofficially altered several times before.

The penis was adorned with petals and leaves in 2019, while two years earlier the name "Theresa" and a tennis racquet were added on separate occasions.

Mr Knight tweeted: "Great to see Cerne Abbas Giant practising social distancing, wearing his face mask and keeping up villagers' morale."

He added: "It has put a smile on some of the older people's faces who are shielding and self-isolating."

The alteration bears a resemblance to a hand drawing, tweeted on Tuesday by Ministry of Defence archaeologist Richard Osgood.

Mr Osgood said his "prophetic" sketch, with the words "stay safe", was a "bizarre coincidence".

The National Trust said: "While we understand the public's ongoing concern about coronavirus, we don't encourage the defacing of the Cerne Abbas Giant.

"Any such action may damage this fragile site, whether by someone physically attaching something to him or giving the impression of having done so, as this may encourage others.

"The giant is protected as both a Scheduled Ancient Monument and as part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its important chalk grassland which supports wild flowers, butterflies and other wildlife."

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A famous hillside chalk figure has been adorned with a face mask. The Cerne Abbas Giant is thought to have been given the unauthorised addition on Friday. Local resident Kevin Knight, who tweeted a picture of the alteration earlier, said it had "really lifted villagers' spirits".

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Archaeologists have unearthed one of medieval Britain's most important architectural masterpieces - the long-lost chapel of northern England's most powerful medieval rulers, the Prince-Bishops of Durham.

The exact location of the massive 40-metre-long princely chapel was unknown for hundreds of years.

Now archaeologists from Durham University and a local archaeological project have unearthed the chapel's long-lost remains.

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So far, they have found ultra-fine masonry from the chapel walls, delicate stone vaulting from the ceiling, fragments of stone columns, beautiful stained glass and the chapel's unique black plaster floor.

The finds have enabled them to recreate an image of what the great chapel would have looked like in the later Middle Ages.

The archaeologists have also discovered part of the enamel and copper sacramental bowl used to hold the communion bread during services held there by the Prince-Bishops in the 14th century.

They have also unearthed an image of a kneeling monk - believed to be northeast England's most famous medieval religious leader, St Cuthbert (whose major shrine is still in Durham Cathedral). It is one of the very few medieval images of him ever found.

Bigger than the Royal Chapel at Westminster (St Stephen's in parliament) and almost as big as St George's Chapel, Windsor, it was built by the Bishop and Earl Palatine of Durham as part of his main out-of-town princely castle in the late 13th century.

So powerful was its builder, Prince-Bishop Bek, that one of his leading officials boasted that there were two monarchs in England - the king and the prince-bishop.

But in the end, three and a half centuries later, the great princely chapel, at Auckland Castle, County Durham, was deliberately destroyed with copious quantities of gunpowder by another megalomaniac - a ruthless anti-royalist who craved absolute power, loathed the established church and hated all bishops.

The ultra-intolerant extremist was Sir Arthur Hesilrige, a senior parliamentarian military commander.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

The chapel and the castle it formed part of had been in pro-royalist hands - and had been seized by parliament and sold to Hesilrige, the most powerful republican in northeast England, dubbed, in reference to a biblical villain, the "Nimrod of the North" by his opponents.

As an extreme Puritan, he hated the Church of England - and persecuted its clergy, on one occasion evicting a vicar and his family from their home in the middle of the night, hurling their belongings into the local graveyard.

Indeed, one of Civil War England's leading left-wing democrats, John Lilburne, leader of the ultra-egalitarian Levellers, accused him of "traitorously subverting the fundamental liberties of England and exercising an arbitrary and tyrannical government over and above the law".

Hesilrige's conduct - including his acquisition and deliberate destruction of the chapel - is politically important in English history because, along with similar behaviour by other leading Cromwellians, it helped fatally discredit the cause of republicanism and thus helped in its downfall and the restoration of the monarchy.

The discovery of the chapel is of substantial importance in terms of the history of northern England.

"For centuries it has been one of the great lost buildings of medieval England," said one of the key archaeologists involved in the excavation, John Castling, archaeology and social history curator at the Auckland Project, which owns the castle.

"Our excavation of this huge chapel has shed additional light on the immense power and wealth of the Prince-Bishops of Durham - and has helped bolster Auckland Castle's reputation as a fortress of great importance in the history of England."

Some of the new discoveries will be put on public display at Auckland Castle from early next month.

The chapel was discovered using sophisticated remote sensing equipment - including ground-penetrating radar and magnetometers - and was funded through the legacy of the late Mick Aston, the well-known TV archaeologist and presenter of the Channel 4 archaeological series Time Team.

Referring to the excavation of the chapel, Durham University archaeologist, Chris Gerrard said "This is archaeology at its very best."

"Professionals, volunteers and Durham students, working together as a team, to piece together clues from documents and old illustrations, used the very latest survey techniques to solve the mystery of the whereabouts of this huge lost structure," he added.

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Archaeologists find long-lost architectural masterpiece inside important medieval fortress

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Archaeologists have unearthed one of medieval Britain's most important architectural masterpieces - the long-lost chapel of northern England's most powerful medieval rulers, the Prince-Bishops of Durham. The exact location of the massive 40-metre-long princely chapel was unknown for hundreds of years.

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Two men who found a huge hoard of pre-Christian coins in a field in Jersey have been recognised as record-setters.

The Celtic coins were discovered by metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles in 2012.

The number of coins has been verified as 69,347 - breaking the record for the largest collection of Iron Age coins.

Mr Miles said he and Mr Mead had been "involved the whole way through" and it was "lovely" receiving the official Guinness World Records certificates.

When the hoard was first discovered, its value was estimated at about £10m.

Some of the coins, which were found in the east of the island, are on display at La Hougue Bie Museum in Jersey.

Olga Finch, curator of archaeology for Jersey Heritage, said: "We are not surprised at this achievement and are delighted that such an impressive archaeological item was discovered, excavated, examined and displayed in Jersey.

"Once again, it puts our island in the spotlight of international research of Iron Age coinage and demonstrates the world-class heritage that Jersey has to offer."

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The hoard, thought to date from about 50BC, was discovered at a depth of just over 3ft (1m).

Mr Miles said it had taken 30 years to locate the coins, after receiving a tip-off in the 1980s from a woman who said she had spotted something that looked like silver buttons in a field.

The hoard is officially owned by the Crown, he added.

Prior to the discovery, the largest hoard found in the British Isles was the Cunetio hoard, which was unearthed in Wiltshire in 1978. It contained 54.951 low-value copper coins manufactured in the 3rd Century BC.

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Two men who found a huge hoard of pre-Christian coins in a field in Jersey have been recognised as record-setters. The Celtic coins were discovered by metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles in 2012. The number of coins has been verified as 69,347 - breaking the record for the largest collection of Iron Age coins.

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New data suggests that our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals may have been diving under the sea for clams.

It adds to mounting evidence that the old picture of these ancient people as brutish and unimaginative is wrong.

Until now, there had been little clear evidence that Neanderthals were swimmers.

But a team of researchers who analysed shells from a cave in Italy said that some must have been gathered from the seafloor by Neanderthals.

The findings have been published in the journal Plos One.

The Neanderthals living at Grotta dei Moscerini in the Latium region around 90,000 years ago were shaping the clam shells into sharp tools.

Paolo Villa, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues, analysed 171 such tools, which all came from a local species of mollusc called the smooth clam ( Callista chione). The tools were excavated by archaeologists at the end of the 1940s.

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Clam shells that wash up on beaches can be distinguished from those that are still live when they're gathered.

The beached specimens were opaque, sanded down through being knocked against pebbles on the shore, perforated by other marine organisms and encrusted with barnacles.

Most of the specimens at Grotta dei Moscerini fit the criteria of shells that were collected on a beach.

But one quarter of them had a shiny smooth exterior, showing no signs of such wear and tear. This suggested they were collected from the seafloor while the clams were alive.

Today, Callista chione is most often fished by dredging, using small boats, or gathered by scuba divers in waters off the Adriatic coast that are more than 10m in depth.

In the northern part of the Adriatic, however, there are some sand banks where Callista clams can be collected at depths of between half a metre to one metre. In this case, the clams could be caught just by wading.

But, said Paola Villa: "It's quite possible that the Neanderthals were collecting shells as far down as two to four metres," adding, "of course, they did not have scuba equipment."

Dr Matt Pope, from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, who was not involved with the study, told BBC News: "We can all come up with exceptional situations where, during a storm event clams get thrown up on a beach.

"But it's the fact they occur at more than one [archaeological] unit, it's the fact they occur as part of a system of material being brought further into this cave, that suggests there's more than just a single, odd event going on."

The evidence is in stark contrast to our old view of the Neanderthals spending much of their time chasing or scavenging big game animals.

It's known that Neanderthals gathered mussels from estuaries and fished in shallow waters, but there has been little clear evidence for swimming, skin-diving - or in some cases, perhaps, wading.

"It's more evidence to place Neanderthals into these coastal environments and at points in time making use of coastal resources, not just for food, but also as a raw material for tools," said Dr Pope.

He said that decades ago, this type of resource-gathering had been used to distinguish early examples of our own species, Homo sapiens, from the Neanderthals. "We can't find that distinction any more," he said.

"What's nice about this paper is that it covers a site which at particular points in time, when you've got high sea levels... is right on the coast. You can see that they're not living there in large numbers for long periods of time. it looks like they're making short trips and they're coming equipped - bringing materials that they might need, such as pre-existing tools."

"Maybe it's a place where they camp seasonally, at particular times of the year. Maybe one of the things that's drawing them there are these shellfish, which are wonderful things to be eating through the winter when there's not a lot of other dependable food around."

Last year, a team led by Prof Erik Trinkaus from Washington University in St Louis, US, published evidence showing that many Neanderthals suffered from a medical condition called "surfer's ear".

This condition is characterised by abnormal bony growths that appear in the ear canal. It's often seen in people who take part in aquatic sports in cold climates, but it can occur simply because of repeated exposure to cold, wet weather.

At the time the paper was released, there were suggestions Neanderthals could have got it from sleeping on chilly, damp cave floors.

"The archaeological evidence from Moscerini supports the idea of frequent aquatic resource exploitation based on anatomical data," Paola Villa and colleagues write in the latest paper.

Follow Paul on Twitter.

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Neanderthals 'dived in the sea for shellfish

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New data suggests that our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals may have been diving under the sea for clams. It adds to mounting evidence that the old picture of these ancient people as brutish and unimaginative is wrong. Until now, there had been little clear evidence that Neanderthals were swimmers.

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Police are investigating "appalling damage" at a Bronze Age burial mound which dates back 3,000-4,000 years.

Gwent Police Rural Crime Team said the destruction was caused by off-road vehicles and said immediate prevention measures were being put in place.

The Woodland Trust shared pictures of its Wentwood site, near Newport, on Monday afternoon, where tyre tracks covered the monument.

Site manager Rob Davies said damage has been "an ongoing problem".

"A feature that is around 3,000-4,000 years old has been damaged within a few minutes," he added.

"This is a Bronze Age burial mound, a scheduled ancient monument, and the damage caused is therefore a criminal offence."

Mr Davies went on: "There has, unfortunately been an on-going problem with damage to this and similar features within Wentwood.

"The Trust has been spending around £1,500 a year to try to keep vehicles way from them, and following this damage, we will be undertaking further work."

Site managers believe the latest damage took place sometime between Christmas Day and 6 January.

The Woodland Trust said that Wentwood forms part of the largest block of ancient woodland in Wales, with a number of Bronze Age burial mounds on its ridge tops.

In a tweet, police said: "Investigating appalling damage caused to a #Bronze Age burial mound by off road vehicles. Immediate intervention measures being introduced to prevent further damage."

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'Appalling damage' to ancient burial mound

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Police are investigating "appalling damage" at a Bronze Age burial mound which dates back 3,000-4,000 years. Gwent Police Rural Crime Team said the destruction was caused by off-road vehicles and said immediate prevention measures were being put in place. The Woodland Trust shared pictures of its Wentwood site, near Newport, on Monday afternoon, where tyre tracks covered the monument.

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The remains of a Shakespearean theatre, 17th Century shipwreck and bones of Britain's first rabbit have been named among the top 10 archaeological finds of the last decade in England.

Historic England drew up the list to mark the imminent arrival of 2020.

Chief executive Duncan Wilson said: "This has been a truly remarkable decade of landmark archaeological discoveries.

"The past never ceases to amaze us and there is always more to learn."

Must Farm Bronze Age Settlement, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

Although archaeologists knew there was something important at this site, it was not until 2015 that a major excavation revealed the remains of a remarkably intact Bronze Age settlement, made up of timber roundhouses raised on stilts above the marshy ground.

Shortly after being built, the settlement was destroyed in a catastrophic fire and the roundhouses, with most of their contents still inside, were preserved in the water-logged ground, giving a glimpse of everyday life 3,000 years ago.

The excavation, carried out by Cambridge Archaeological Unit and jointly funded by Historic England and Forterra, also led to the discovery of the largest, earliest complete Bronze Age wheel in Britain.

The Theatre, Hackney, east London

The Theatre was built in 1576-7 and is thought to have been the first place to show William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet and Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

A popular venue, a number of playing companies were associated with it, such as the Lord Chamberlain's Company that included Shakespeare as an actor.

The remains of The Theatre were formally protected in 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

Hadrian's Wall Quarry, Carlisle, Cumbria

New Roman graffiti was discovered in the remains of a quarry near Hadrian's Wall at Gelt Woods in February 2019.

Known as The Written Rock of Gelt, the inscriptions were made by the Romans while they were repairing Hadrian's Wall in AD207.

It was thought they included a group of nine inscriptions, of which only six were legible, however more have been found including a caricature of the commanding officer in charge of the quarrying and another that proves the Romans were rebuilding their frontier in the early third century.

The graffiti were discovered during a project to record them before they were lost through erosion, work funded by Historic England and carried out by archaeologists from Newcastle University.

The London Shipwreck, Southend, Essex

The London accidentally blew up in 1665 and sank off Southend-on-Sea, where it lies in two parts on the sea bed.

Five years previously it had been part of the flotilla that brought Charles II back to Britain from the Netherlands to restore him to the throne.

It was excavated by Historic England, Cotswold Archaeology and licensed divers between 2014-15 to retrieve important artefacts before they could be lost forever through damaging currents and sea worms.

An array of items including musket balls, ingots and navigational tools were recovered.

An extremely rare and well-preserved wooden gun carriage was also brought to the surface - the only known example from this period in existence.

Mutilated corpses, Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire

The burnt and mutilated bodies discovered in the deserted village of Wharram Percy could be a sign of a medieval fear of the living dead, archaeologists said.

Medieval folklore held that the dead could rise from their graves, spreading disease and menacing the living.

In research published in 2017, experts from Historic England and the University of Southampton found many of the bones had knife-marks consistent with decapitation and dismembering.

There was also evidence of burning and the deliberate breaking of bones after death.

Britain's earliest rabbit, Sussex

A tiny rabbit bone found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex was confirmed to date from the first century AD, revealing the animals arrived in the country 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Rabbits are native to Spain and France and it had been thought they were a medieval introduction to Britain. The 4cm (1.6in) piece of tibia was discovered during excavations in 1964 but had been overlooked at the time.

In 2019, a Historic England zooarchaeologist recognised the bone belonged to a rabbit and verified this through genetic testing.

This animal may have been kept as an exotic pet with scientific analysis suggesting it was kept in confinement with no signs of butchery marks.

Anglo-Saxon Cemetery, Great Ryburgh, Norfolk

In 2016, archaeologists uncovered an Anglo-Saxon cemetery containing 81 extremely rare wooden coffins that were preserved in the wet ground.

They were discovered during an excavation by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) funded by Historic England, in advance of a new lake and flood defence system being built.

The waterlogged conditions of the river valley led to the preservation of the tree-trunk coffins as well as plank-lined graves that dated from the seventh and ninth centuries AD.

It was believed to have been a Christian cemetery "greatly adding to our understanding of early Christian Anglo-Saxon communities and their funeral practices", Historic England said.

Roman settlement, Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire

Discovered in 2017 as part of a road improvement scheme, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a major Roman settlement that pre-dated settlements in York and Carlisle by 10 years, showing the Romans probably expanded their occupation into Northern England earlier than previously thought.

The archaeological team also found a startling range of Roman objects during the investigations, from shoes and keys to a snake-shaped silver ring, rare amber figurine and the most northerly example of coin production ever found in Europe.

Greyfriars, Leicester

Long known to be the site of a medieval monastery, in August 2012 the University of Leicester, the Richard III Society and Leicester City Council began an ambitious excavation to search for the grave of Richard III.

His remains were eventually discovered under a car park in the city centre and identified by DNA analysis of surviving descendants.

Further excavations revealed the extent of Greyfriars, the site where Richard III was buried after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Greyfriars was an early 13th Century Franciscan friary which played an important role in medieval Leicester before its dissolution in 1538.

It was granted protection as a scheduled monument in December 2017.

Iron Age or Roman Settlement, Killington, Cumbria

This site at Gillsmere Sike was discovered by Historic England's aerial archaeology team in 2012, who photographed the late Iron Age or Roman settlement from a light aircraft.

Historic England's flying archaeologists identified two round houses, separated from the surrounding land by an embanked boundary with an entrance on the southern side, opening towards a stream.

The remains of medieval or post-medieval ploughing, known as ridge and furrow, appeared as undulating lines on the landscape and they show this area was in agricultural use for many years.

The hot dry summer of 2018 also led to many further archaeological discoveries from the air.

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Ten English archaeological finds of the decade

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The remains of a Shakespearean theatre, 17th Century shipwreck and bones of Britain's first rabbit have been named among the top 10 archaeological finds of the last decade in England. Historic England drew up the list to mark the imminent arrival of 2020.

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Evidence of a "massive" lightning strike has been found at the centre of a stone circle in the Western Isles.

A single large strike, or many smaller ones on the same spot, left a star-shaped magnetic anomaly at the 4,000-year-old site in Lewis.

Scientists made the discovery at Site XI or Airigh na Beinne Bige, a hillside stone circle now consisting of a single standing stone.

The site is at the famous Calanais Standing Stones.

Scientists said the lightning strike, which was indentified in a geophysics survey, could show a potential link between the construction of ancient stone circles and the forces of nature.

They said the lightning struck some time before peat enveloped the stone circle at Site XI 3,000 years ago. The discovery is detailed in new research published online.

Dr Richard Bates, of the University of St Andrews, said: "Such clear evidence for lightning strikes is extremely rare in the UK and the association with this stone circle is unlikely to be coincidental.

"Whether the lightning at Site XI focused on a tree or rock which is no longer there, or the monument itself attracted strikes, is uncertain.

"However, this remarkable evidence suggests that the forces of nature could have been intimately linked with everyday life and beliefs of the early farming communities on the island."

The discovery was made by the Calanais Virtual Reconstruction Project, a joint venture led by the University of St Andrews with standing stones trust Urras nan Tursachan and the University of Bradford and supported by funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The same project has also produced a 3D virtual model recreating another of the area's "lost" stone circle, Na Dromannan.

Its stones are today either lying flat or buried under peat.

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Star-shaped lightning strike found at stone circle

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Evidence of a "massive" lightning strike has been found at the centre of a stone circle in the Western Isles. A single large strike, or many smaller ones on the same spot, left a star-shaped magnetic anomaly at the 4,000-year-old site in Lewis.

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In addition to Lola's genetic story, the international team of researchers was also able to identify the DNA of plants and animals she had likely recently consumed, as well as the DNA of the countless microbes that lived inside her mouth-collectively known as her oral microbiome.

"This is the first time we have the complete ancient human genome from anything other than [human] bone, and that in itself is quite remarkable," says Hannes Schroeder, an associate professor of evolutionary genomics at the University of Copenhagen's Globe Institute and a co-author of the study. "What's so exciting about this material is that you can also get microbial DNA."

While our scientific understanding of the human microbiome is still in its very early stages, researchers are beginning to understand what an important role it plays in our health. Variations in our microbiome may impact everything from susceptibility to infection and heart disease to even possibly behaviour.

By being able to sequence ancient DNA together with the individual's microbiome, Schroeder says, researchers will be able to understand how the human microbiome has evolved over time-revealing, for instance, how the dietary shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture thousands of years ago may have altered our microbiome for better or worse.

Stone Age "chewing gum"

Birch pitch (also called tar), a glue-like substance made by heating birch bark, has been used to fasten stone blades to handles in Europe since at least the Middle Pleistocene (approximately 750,000 to 125,000 years ago). Blobs of pitch imprinted with human teeth marks have been found at ancient toolmaking sites, where archaeologists surmise the pitch was chewed to soften before use. Due to the antiseptic nature of birch bark, it may have also had medicinal properties.

Chewed pitch is sometimes the only indicator of a human presence at sites where physical remains are not found, and archaeologists have long suspected that the otherwise unremarkable wads may be a source of ancient DNA. It's only recently, however, that they've had the tools to extract genomic data from what many call ancient chewing gum.

Earlier this year, nearly complete human genomes were sequenced from 10,000-year-old chewed birch pitch originally excavated 30 years ago at the site of Huseby Klev in Sweden. "These artifacts have been known for quite some time," says Natalija Kashuba, a doctoral student in the department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University and lead author on the Huseby Klev study. "They just haven't been in the spotlight before."

In the latest study, Lola's DNA and microbiome were extracted from a chewed bit of birch pitch excavated at the site of Syltholm on the Danish island of Lolland (hence Lola's moniker). Archaeologists at Syltholm have found evidence for tool making and animal butchery at the site, but no human remains.

The pitch was radiocarbon dated to around 5,700 years ago, the advent of the Neolithic period in Denmark. This was a time when practices of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were being disrupted by the introduction of agriculture from areas to the south and east.

Lola's DNA shows none of the genetic markers associated with new farming populations entering northern Europe, bolstering a growing idea that genetically distinct hunter-gatherer populations in the region survived for longer than previously thought. Her genome also reveals that she was lactose intolerant, which supports the theory that European populations developed the ability to digest lactose as they began to consume milk product from domesticated animals.

The majority of bacteria identified in Lola's oral microbiome are considered normal inhabitants of the mouth and upper respiratory tract. Some, however, are associated with severe periodontal disease. Her microbiome also shows the presence of Streptococcus pneumoniae, although it's impossible to tell from the sample whether Lola was suffering from pneumonia at the time she was chewing the birch pitch. The same goes for Epstein-Barr virus, which infects more than 90% of the world's population but usually causes few symptoms (unless it develops into mononucleosis).

Seeing the Invisible

Researchers were also able to identify the DNA of mallard ducks and hazelnuts from the chewed pitch, suggesting that the foodstuffs had been recently consumed by Lola. This ability to isolate specific plant and animal DNA from ancient human saliva trapped in pitch may enable us to "see" dietary habits-such as the consumption of insects-that might otherwise be invisible in the archaeological record, says archaeologist Steven LeBlanc, former director of collections at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

LeBlanc helped usher in the era of extracting human DNA from non-human material more than a decade ago, with a pioneering 2007 study on chewed yucca fibres discovered in archaeological sites in the American Southwest. He believes the toolkit that scientists have now to obtain not only a full human genome, but also microbiome and dietary information from non-human material, will set the new gold standard for understanding how ancient populations grew and changed over time, how healthy they were, and what they subsisted on.

"It's absolutely amazing how fast the field has progressed," he says. "What we were able to do then compared to what they can do now is just shockingly different."

It's also a good reminder that even the most unremarkable artifacts should be studied and preserved, LeBlanc adds, recalling times when he'd show visitors to the Peabody Museum the desiccated, masticated pieces of yucca he researched.

"They would look at this crummy little piece of fibre, and I would say the museum has curated this for over a hundred years. And nobody could figure out why we had bothered to save this little thing. Then I'd say we got human DNA out of it, and their eyes would just go wow."

LeBlanc imagines that the custodians of Europe's "Stone Age chewing gum" have faced similar questions about their ancient blobs of birch pitch, which may now turn out to contain priceless information that will change our understanding of the deep past.

"There must have been plenty of [government] ministers who were saying, 'Why are you wasting money and storage space on those stupid little black wads?'"

"This is why museums curate this stuff-because we don't know what to do with it yet."

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DNA from Stone Age 'chewing gum' tells an incredible story

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In addition to Lola's genetic story, the international team of researchers was also able to identify the DNA of plants and animals she had likely recently consumed, as well as the DNA of the countless microbes that lived inside her mouth-collectively known as her oral microbiome.

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Archaeologists working at the site of a proposed electricity sub-station in Orkney have found nine "amazing" stone carvings.

The 50cm (20in) tall sculptures have all been worked to give them shoulders, a neck and what looks like a head.

The first has been nicknamed the "Finstown Fella", after the location of the dig. After it was recognised, eight more were found on the site.

Experts believe they date from roughly 2000BC.

Sean Bell, site director for ORCA Archaeology, told BBC Radio Orkney that they had all been worked using a technique known as pecking - chipping away flakes of stone with a pointed metal or stone tool.

He said the round shape on the largest of the carved stones "definitely looks like a head, and in some lights you think you can see features on it. But whether that's intentional or not we can't say."

Mr Bell said finding nine of the anthropomorphic - or human like - stones in one place is unprecedented.

"Examples have come up, usually as individuals as a result of people ploughing," he added.

"But some of the examples we've got, instead of being rotund and three dimensional, are very flat. And they're similar to some that have come out from the Links of Noltland (on the island of Westray).

"So, even though we're calling them all necked stones, they might not all have the same function. But so little is known about them. That's why this is so important."

The objects could be deliberate representations of the human form. Or they might have been made for a specific practical purpose. Or, perhaps, both.

"One theory, particularly with the flat ones, is they may be set in the ground, and then the neck is used for a tether. A sort of Neolithic tent peg," Mr Bell said.

"Of course when you talk about anthropomorphic figures, you automatically start thinking of ritual and religion.

"But even a flat one being used to tether something could still be part of that aspect of society."

Sean Bell said the discovery of so many of the stones in one place, and in a secure archaeological context, shines a light on a relatively unknown part of Orcadian pre-history and may help experts to understand more about the objects.

The dig was carried out at Finstown ahead of development at the site by SSEN Transmission.

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Nine 'amazing' Bronze Age figures found in Orkney

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Archaeologists working at the site of a proposed electricity sub-station in Orkney have found nine "amazing" stone carvings. The 50cm (20in) tall sculptures have all been worked to give them shoulders, a neck and what looks like a head. The first has been nicknamed the "Finstown Fella", after the location of the dig.

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Not as good as Clare’s egg from Oakes Street though!

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Not as good as Clare’s egg from Oakes Street though!

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The only complete chicken's egg from Roman Britain is a "genuinely unique discovery", according to an expert.

It was one of four hen's eggs found during a dig in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, although three broke releasing a "potent stench".

The "remarkable collection" of other organic finds included leather shoes, wooden tools and a "very rare" basket.

Archaeologist Edward Biddulph said the extent and range of discoveries "was more than could be foreseen".

Mr Biddulph, senior project manager with Oxford Archaeology South, said the "standout discoveries" were found in a pit.

From the late Third Century, people threw objects into it for good luck "much like a wishing well", he said.

Mr Biddulph said: "The pit was still waterlogged and this has preserved a remarkable collection of organic objects.

"Most extraordinary of all was a basketry tray, made of woven oak bands and willow rods, and four chickens' eggs."

The eggs were so fragile, three broke releasing a "potent stench of rotten egg", he said.

Eggs were associated with fertility, rebirth and the Roman gods Mithras and Mercury.

Eggshell fragments have been found before, usually in Roman graves, but this is the "only complete Roman egg known in Britain" and "a genuinely unique discovery", Mr Biddulph said.

He believes the eggs and bread basket could have been food offerings cast into the pit as part of a religious ceremony during a funeral procession.

Pre-Roman finds were also discovered, but the site reverted to agriculture after the late 4th Century.

The dig took place between 2007 and 2016, ahead of the development of the Berryfields site, a mix of housing and community facilities.

It borders the Roman road of Akeman Street, under the A41, next to the Roman town at Fleet Marston.

The full results of the dig are being revealed after three years of analysis.

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'Only complete' Roman egg found during dig

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The only complete chicken's egg from Roman Britain is a "genuinely unique discovery", according to an expert. It was one of four hen's eggs found during a dig in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, although three broke releasing a "potent stench". The "remarkable collection" of other organic finds included leather shoes, wooden tools and a "very rare" basket.

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A hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins discovered in a field by an amateur detectorist has fetched £90,000 at auction - three times its original estimate.

The collection, made up of 99 "silver pennies" thought to be 1,000 years old, was found buried on farmland in Suffolk in March 2017.

Among them is a rare "small cross mule" coin, which was sold to a European collector for £13,640 alone.

Detectorist Don Crawley said he was "totally amazed" at the outcome.

The hoard was found under the remains of a Saxon church believed to have been demolished soon after the Norman conquest in the 11th Century.

The coins may have been buried by a pilgrim who was making penitence and feared "the impending apocalypse of the Millennium," the auction house suggested.

Mr Crawley, a builder from Bucklesham, near Ipswich, said he made the find on his first visit to the field.

Roman coins 'may be linked to Boudiccan revolt'

Anglo-Saxon gold declared treasure

Is 'nighthawking' stealing our past?

"After walking up an incline in the field, my detector gave off a strong signal and within a short space of time I had recovered 93 coins," he said.

"The finds officer was called in and they investigated the site which turned out to be a long-forgotten Saxon church."

Excavations carried out in the area later revealed human bones on the site.

The hoard was examined by experts at the British Museum, who verified it dated from the reign of Aethelred II (978-1016).

An auction spokeswoman said the coins originated from several different mints, including a previously unknown mint at Louth, Lincolnshire.

A rare coin from the Melton Mowbray mint also fetched £8,400.

The entire hoard was originally expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000 when it went under the hammer in 84 lots at Dix Noonan Webb auctioneers in London earlier.

Antiquities specialist, Nigel Mills, said the sale showed "how the prices realised at auction for a newly-found hoard can exceed everyone's expectations."

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Hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins sells for £90k

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A hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins discovered in a field by an amateur detectorist has fetched £90,000 at auction - three times its original estimate. The collection, made up of 99 "silver pennies" thought to be 1,000 years old, was found buried on farmland in Suffolk in March 2017.

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(Image: Paul Gardner)

A metal detectorist found a gold Medieval ring buried in a farmer's field in Stockport.

And in a rare case, Paul Gardner's unusual find has officially been classed as 'treasure' by a coroner.

The ring is now set to join the collection at The British Museum in London - and net Paul a tidy little windfall.

Metal detecting has been a hobby of his for three years.

He's found Bronze Age arrowheads, coins spanning 12 different monarchs and even a small cannonball, but said the ring was his first real 'treasure' find.

It's a gold finger ring and could date as far back as the year 1200 AD, the coroner was told.

Found by Paul on a farm near Marple in Stockport in June, it's thought to have been owned and worn by a senior figure in the clergy, most likely a bishop.

It weighs 3.1 grammes but, sadly, is missing its gemstone.

Paul said only three items found in Greater Manchester have been formerly declared as 'treasure' over the last 17 years.

This, he said, was the first item for around five years.

Legislation under the Treasure Act 1996 requires all finds believed to be treasure to be reported to the coroner for the district they were found within 14 days.

Finds can also be flagged up with local Finds Liaison Officers.

They are classed as treasure under the Act if at least 10 per cent of their weight of metal is a precious metal - gold or silver.

Among a list of other stipulations and examples, two or more coins thought to be more than 300 years old also qualify as being treasure.

In this case, Paul reported the ring to one of the officers based at the Museum of Liverpool.

They, in turn, contacted Stockport Coroners' Court and the formal ruling was delivered at a hearing on Thursday.

Paul, 53, from Chadderton, Oldham, said: "I have only been detecting for about three years and have had some incredible finds.

"You just do not expect to find treasure in Greater Manchester.

"The ring now belongs to the Crown and they will come up with its worth. That will be split between me and the landowner.

"At a guesstimate, perhaps £1,000, maybe a bit more or a bit less. We just don't know.

"The gemstone would have made it worth a fortune.

"I have always wanted to be a metal detectorist since I was a kid, but I don't do it for the value. It's just a hobby. I work nights and do it on my days off."

Paul, who goes into schools to display his finds, said he had been out for 'four or five hours' in and around the field when he found the ring.

"It was just three inches down under the soil," he said.

"It was a boiling hot day, I remember that, and I knew it was a brilliant find.

"I was literally shaking."

At the hearing, senior police coroner's officer Rita Wilkinson said the ring 'was, and is, clearly an exciting find'.

She described it as 'something every metal detectorist hopes to find' and confirmed the court was informed of the find - which was made on private land after the landowner gave Paul consent to search.

The ring was described as an 'incomplete, decorative gemstone, gold finger ring' said to date back to between AD 1200 and AD 1400.

Paul said a similar Medieval finger ring with a sapphire gemstone on display at Plymouth Museum was worth in excess of £60,000 - and only 12 rings like it have ever been found before.

The British Museum wants to buy the ring, the hearing was told, and senior coroner Alison Mutch said the museum was 'satisfied with the quality of the find'.

Ms Mutch said: "The law does require me to make a determination.

"I am satisfied that the item in question meets the definition of treasure and should be formally identified as such."

The ring's value is expected to be set by a government department and the Treasure Valuation Committee at sometime in the new year.

The role of a coroner over the issue of treasure dates back many centuries.

According to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, if a museum wants to be a potential item of treasure, a coroner must hold an inquest to determine whether the find constitutes treasure and determine the key facts in the case.

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A metal detectorist found Medieval treasure buried in a farmer's field

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A metal detectorist found a gold Medieval ring buried in a farmer's field in Stockport. And in a rare case, Paul Gardner's unusual find has officially been classed as 'treasure' by a coroner. The ring is now set to join the collection at The British Museum in London - and net Paul a tidy little windfall.

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An "extremely rare" Napoleonic era army camp kitchen has been discovered on L'Ancresse Common in Guernsey.

The site is believed to the fourth 19th Century British military field kitchen found worldwide, according to members of the Clifton Antiquarian Club.

The four mounds were thought to be from the Bronze Age, but artefacts found in a dig in May told a different story.

Among the items uncovered were a clay pipe and a button that could only have produced in the early 19th Century.

Dr Donovan Hawley, from the Bristol-based archaeology group, said: "In one of the mounds we found remnants of a clay pipe.

"Luckily there was still enough of that clay pipe, enough evidence to allow us to date it... a maker's initial, which could be traced to a manufacturer in Portsmouth that were making these pipes between 1803 and roughly 1815.

"We found this in one of the burnt areas in the mound, so that was very important to date that mound - it gives us a fairly accurate date. It also indicates where the people who made those mounds might have come from."

The fragment of burnt wood sent for radio carbon dating and the button were also dated to the early 19th Century.

The threat of invasion from France saw Guernsey and the Clos du Valle becoming one island and loophole towers and batteries built around the coast.

At times in the period the island housed 3-4,000 troops, with a population at the time of about 20,000.

Dr Hawley said: "These features seem to be extremely rare around the world.

"In the research we've done so far... we've only discovered three others; in America, Ireland and England.

"Four here intact is probably unique in such a small area... certainly well worth preserving and looking after."

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'Rare' Napoleonic field kitchens discovered

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An "extremely rare" Napoleonic era army camp kitchen has been discovered on L'Ancresse Common in Guernsey. The site is believed to the fourth 19th Century British military field kitchen found worldwide, according to members of the Clifton Antiquarian Club.

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Road widening and archaeology don’t mix!

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Road widening and archaeology don’t mix!

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A proposal to widen a road near the Rollright Stones has been criticised by a conservation charity.

The suggestion was raised at an Oxfordshire County Council meeting discussing the large number of HGVs driving through nearby Chipping Norton.

Transport cabinet member Yvonne Constance said councillor Mike Tysoe's proposal to divert traffic past the ancient site was "doable".

But the chairman of the Rollright Trust said it would "trash" a "key landmark".

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Tysoe said: "Would our Neolithic ancestors mind too much if we save future generations?

"I don't think it will basically damage the site. I've been told it probably won't or there are ways of ensuring that any damage doesn't happen."

'Flippant remark'

George Lambrick, chairman of the Rollright Trust, said such a scheme would be "bonkers".

It would affect the area's tranquillity and cause safety issues for visitors, including schoolchildren, he said.

He added: "Mr Tysoe's flippant remark that 'our Neolithic ancestors would understand' shows he entirely fails to understand, or chooses to ignore, the importance of the Stones nationally, what they mean to people today, or the work of the Rollright Trust looking after them for the benefit of the public."

He said Ms Constance was "shooting from the hip to endorse the idea instead of checking details of heritage and landscape constraints".

Oxfordshire County Council said it was investigating the "most effective ways to improve air quality" in Chipping Norton.

It added: "We have to ensure that any measures we take to remedy matters in Chipping Norton can be funded and actually result in an improvement, and also don't create new problems elsewhere."

The Rollright Stones, which lie within 10m of the road, are believed to have been built over 4,000 years ago, in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

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Rollright Stones road widening proposal criticised

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A proposal to widen a road near the Rollright Stones has been criticised by a conservation charity. The suggestion was raised at an Oxfordshire County Council meeting discussing the large number of HGVs driving through nearby Chipping Norton. Transport cabinet member Yvonne Constance said councillor Mike Tysoe's proposal to divert traffic past the ancient site was "doable".

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Skeletons Found Under a Florida Wine Shop May Be Some of America's First Colonists

Historians recently announced in Florida that several small children's bones buried beneath underneath the last place one might think to look: a wine shop.

However, there will be no police inquiry. The Florida wine shop happens to be located in St. Augustine, America's oldest city. And those bones? They're just about as old as the city is.

The archeologists actually believe that these skeletal remains could have been among the first settlers in North America.

In the past few weeks, researchers have found seven people including three children, in the ancient graveyard.

According to the St. Augustine Register, one of them was a young white European woman.

Researchers are still examining the other remains, but a pottery fragment found nearby suggests that these people died sometime between 1572 and 1586.

"What you're dealing with is people who made St. Augustine what it is," Carl Halbirt, St. Augustine city archaeologist, tells FirstCoast News. "You're in total awe. You want to treat everything with respect, and we are."

Archaeologists were able to dig underneath the building thanks to the effects of last year's Hurricane Matthew, the flooding from which convinced the building's owner that it was time to replace the wooden floor.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the building's floor was constructed in 1888, and the soil beneath the building has remained untouched since then, thus creating a virtual time capsule.

The building also happens to be built where the ancient Church of Nuestra Señora de la Remedios used to stand.

"The mission churches across Florida buried everybody in the church floor," Ellsbeth Gordon, an architectural historian, told FirstCoast News. "It was consecrated ground, of course."

According to Smithsonian, Sir Francis Drake burned the church down in 1586, a hurricane destroyed it again in 1599, and the British once again burned it down in 1702.

That last time may have been for good, but until then the church had been the main meeting point for a colony that had been established 55 years before the Pilgrims ever set foot on Plymouth Rock.

While the archaeologists are planning on moving the bones found outside the wine shop to a nearby cemetery, the skeletons found inside will stay right where they have lain for the past 400 years.

Jessica Saraceni has been a part of Histecho Since 2018, drawn to the site for its quirky character and through Articles about the Mysteries of earth and human behavior. previously, she was an assistant editor and Research fellow at Archaeology magazine, where she gained an appreciation for the field work. A master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental science from the Center for Archaeological Research, the University of Texas at San Antonio. She enjoys all forms of exercise; reading works by her favorite author, Haruki Murakami; and playing with her sons.

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Skeletons Found Under a Florida Wine Shop May Be Some of America's First Colonists

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Historians recently announced in Florida that several small children's bones buried beneath underneath the last place one might think to look: a wine shop. However, there will be no police inquiry. The Florida wine shop happens to be located in St. Augustine, America's oldest city. And those bones?

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A medieval castle's 600-tonne wall collapsed on to a house and garden in Lewes sparking a major search.

Emergency services, including a hazardous area response team and sniffer dogs, went to the scene of the collapse of the 10m (32ft) by 10m wall.

When the alert first came in at 12:22 GMT, it was not known if anyone was trapped and dogs trained for use in earthquake zones were deployed.

Firefighters later tweeted the search was over with no casualties found.

Incident commander Matt Lloyd said the wall had fallen into an adjacent garden and house.

The wall had been reportedly undergoing work to remove ivy in recent weeks.

A spokeswoman for castle owners Sussex Archaeological Society said the wall that collapsed was privately-owned and the section that had fallen was part of the curtain wall that ran round the entire outside of the 1,000-year-old landmark.

It was one of the last remaining sections of the historic defence wall, she said, adding: "There's not much of it left standing. It's one of the last sections that was still at full height."

Staff at the castle closed the attraction on Monday as a precautionary measure, the spokeswoman said.

She said the castle walls that are owned by the archaeological society are checked independently on an annual basis.

Several parts of the castle structure are privately owned by different property owners.

Lewes District Council said officers from its building control team went to the scene to liaise with emergency services.

You may also be interested in:

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Medieval wall collapses on house and garden

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A medieval castle's 600-tonne wall collapsed on to a house and garden in Lewes sparking a major search. Emergency services, including a hazardous area response team and sniffer dogs, went to the scene of the collapse of the 10m (32ft) by 10m wall.

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Dr Caroline Pudney, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Chester which was involved in the survey, said: "This exciting discovery potentially alters our understanding of north east Wales in the wake of the Roman conquest.

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Wrexham Roman villa uncovered by metal detectorists

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Dr Caroline Pudney, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Chester which was involved in the survey, said: "This exciting discovery potentially alters our understanding of north east Wales in the wake of the Roman conquest.

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Police are investigating a reported unauthorised excavation at an Iron Age site in the Western Isles.

Dun Torcuill, a small uninhabited island in North Uist, has the archaeological remains of an ancient stone-built tower called a broch.

Stones have been cleared away, damaging the legally protected scheduled monument.

Police Scotland said it received a report of the damage on 22 October and was now appealing for information.

Officers have been working with Historic Environment Scotland on the investigation.

Sgt Gavin McDevitt, of Lochmaddy Police Station, said: "Damaging or removing any part of a scheduled monument is a criminal offence.

"In this instance, there is the potential for destabilisation of the monument, and the loss of archaeological deposits previously protected by the tumbled stone."

He added: "It is an offence under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 to undertake works without Scheduled Monument Consent.

"The penalties for offences under the Act are considerably higher than those for damage to property or vandalism offences, with fines ranging up to £50,000 or prison sentences of up to two years."

Historic Environment Scotland said it would urge anyone with information on the incident to contact police.

Brochs are some of Scotland's oldest and most formidable structures to be found in Scotland, many of them in the Highlands, the Western Isles and Orkney.

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'Unauthorised excavation' at Iron Age broch site

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Police are investigating a reported unauthorised excavation at an Iron Age site in the Western Isles. Dun Torcuill, a small uninhabited island in North Uist, has the archaeological remains of an ancient stone-built tower called a broch. Stones have been cleared away, damaging the legally protected scheduled monument.

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Picture: Mike Poloway. Lock gate replacement on the Leeds and Liverpool canal Submitted by Lynn Pegler
The North West's waterways are set to benefit from £725,600 in funding from the Canal and River Trust, the national waterways and well-being charity.

The funding has been awarded via the Heritage Stimulus Fund and is part of the government's £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund.

This fund will help safeguard the North West's historic canals and rivers, so people can continue to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of being by water.

The North West projects which will receive funding include vital repairs to three different locks - the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Wigan and Chorley, Hunts Lock on the River Weaver Navigation near Northwich and Chester Dry Dock on the Shropshire Union Canal, in Chester.

The region's allocation represents nearly half of the national £1.6 million grant given to the Trust to fund a total of 17 projects across England and Wales.

Canal and River Trust North West Director, Daniel Greenhalgh, said: "The canals were built over 200 years ago and are a vital part of our industrial heritage.

"The grant funding will enable us to carry out important repairs to sites of social and historical importance, much-loved by those who use them and the communities that live alongside.

"Today, we recognise the well-being benefits of being on or by the water, with our waterways right on the doorstep of millions across England and Wales. The Canal and River Trust looks after them, promotes their benefits for the nation's physical and mental health and safeguards them for generations to come.

"This funding will be spent during our annual winter works programme, which is essential to ensure our canals and rivers can continue to provide a valuable resource to the public.

"The task of looking after our waterways in the North West remains a challenge, but is one we are committed to as we aim to keep them in good working order for the nation. We are delighted that the importance of our work has been recognised by the government."
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The North West's canals safeguarded with vital funding

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Picture: Mike Poloway. Lock gate replacement on the Leeds and Liverpool canal Submitted by Lynn Pegler The North West's waterways are set to benefit from £725,600 in funding from the Canal and River Trust, the national waterways and well-being charity. The funding has been awarded via the Heritage Stimulus Fund and is part of the government's £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-essex-50236411?__twitter_impression=true

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New Museums Association for partnership working!