Archaeology in the news

Experts and volunteers working at Castilly Henge have been trying determine if it is the county’s lost great stone circleIt was a grey Cornish autumn day, but Henry Stevens’s tough shift digging in a field next to the A30 was about to get very exciting.Her eye was caught by something glinting in the soil and she picked up a flake of flint that had lain for thousands of years within what might just turn out to be a Cornish version of Stonehenge. Continue reading…

In places such as Canada, the US, parts of Africa, southern India and Polynesia, biarchal traditions are almost within living memory, says Simon DawsonLaura Spinney offers a compelling glimpse into the possibility that gender-egalitarian societies once flourished in the past – cultures where women held substantial autonomy and influence (The big idea: Was prehistory a feminist paradise?, 5 October). However, her article remains constrained by a predominantly Eurocentric lens.Most of Spinney’s examples are drawn from Europe and Asia, where patriarchal systems displaced “biarchal” models (those based on shared gender governance) in the distant past. Yet in some regions biarchal cultures endured far longer. In places such as Canada, the US, parts of Africa, southern India and Polynesia, these biarchal traditions are almost within living memory. Continue reading…

Permitted development regulations allowed the contractor to strip topsoil and damage potential archaeology, writes Simon MarshIt isn’t just the countryside and its residents that are suffering due to HS2 (‘It’s been beyond difficult’: earthworks of HS2 take toll on Chilterns residents, 2 October). The high-speed rail contractor has recently done considerable damage to potential archaeology on the nationally important registered battlefield at Edgcote, a Wars of the Roses battle fought in 1469.HS2 stripped 30cm of soil from an area equivalent to around 16 football pitches to allow storage of hundreds of thousands of tons of earth dug out along the route of the new railway. The archaeology of battle sits in the topsoil and understanding its distribution is key. HS2’s contractor undertook a geophysical survey prior to work beginning. But this method is not designed to find the types of small artefacts typically found on a medieval battlefield. If it had used a systematic metal-detecting survey instead, such material would not have been lost. Continue reading…

Discovery of 1,900-year-old headstone dedicated to Roman sailor sets off effort to repatriate item to ItalyA New Orleans couple clearing away undergrowth in their home’s yard unearthed a grave marker, setting off a quest for answers about how the roughly 1,900-year-old relic ended up there – and an effort to repatriate it to Italy.The remarkable discovery was the work of Tulane University anthropologist Daniella Santoro and her husband, Aaron Lorenz, according to a report published online Monday by the magazine of New Orleans’s Preservation Resource Center (PRC). Continue reading…

Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding powerThere is a stubborn and widely held idea that in some earlier phase of our species’ existence, women had equal status to men, or even ruled, and societies were happier and more peaceful for it. Then along came the patriarchy, and much bloodshed and oppression later, here we all are.This notion of matriarchy and patriarchy as polar opposites – with a switch having been thrown between them – was seeded in the 19th century by Marxist theory, taking root in archaeology without much evidence. From there it spread to public consciousness. Continue reading…

Withypool, Somerset: This is a landscape where things can lie hidden – not least a bronze-age structure that is more trip hazard than landmarkSeen from the barrow at the top of Withypool Hill, the common stretches away south like a lion’s back, tawny grass glinting as the land dips and then rises to the open skyline. Apart from a bridle path worn through like a rubbed seam, and a distant, narrow thread of road, the ground appears empty. But it’s not – we’re only a few hundred metres from a bronze‑age stone circle.Forget the mighty 4-metre-tall megaliths of Stonehenge, this modest, ground-hugging construction could almost be mistaken for a series of natural stony outcrops. The 29 miniliths are less than knee-high, set earthfast among wiry mats of heather and whortleberry, more trip hazard than landmark. Absent from early maps, the monument wasn’t rediscovered until 1898, when a rider, led astray in the mist, stumbled over one of the markers. Continue reading…

The latest find is likely from the 16th century and could have originated as far away as the CaribbeanFlorida already claims to be the world capital of golf, shark bites and lightning strikes. Now a remarkable discovery following a devastating hurricane has enhanced its position as a global leader in another distinctive field: ancient canoes – some even prehistoric.State archeologists have just completed a painstaking preservation of an ancient wooden canoe discovered by a resident of Fort Myers during the cleanup from Hurricane Ian in 2022. Continue reading…

Exclusive: Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are PictishThe Book of Kells was likely to have been created 1,200 years ago in Pictish eastern Scotland, rather than on the island of Iona, according to research that challenges long-held assumptions about one of the world’s most famous medieval manuscripts.The Book of Kells is an intricate, illuminated account of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that was long thought to have been started in the late eighth century at the monastery on Iona before being taken in the 9th century to the monastery of Kells in County Meath, Ireland, after a Viking raid.The Book of Kells by Victoria Whitworth (Bloomsbury Publishing, £35). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Continue reading…

Scientists say Netanyahu government and its US backers are trying to construct a history shorn of all complexityWhen the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited Jerusalem this month, the itinerary his Israeli hosts laid on involved more archaeology than anything else. On his first day, Benjamin Netanyahu took Rubio underground to excavations near the Western Wall. On the second day, Israel’s prime minister gave his American visitor the honour of inaugurating a tunnel burrowed under a Palestinian district, along a Roman-era street nicknamed the Pilgrimage Road, in a “City of David” archaeological park established by an Israeli settler organisation.Both events were intended to emphasise Jerusalem’s Jewish roots and its status, Netanyahu stressed, as “our eternal and undivided capital”. Continue reading…

About 1,400 visitors were evacuated but hundreds were left stuck because of action linked to bus contract dispute, say Peru authoritiesAt least 900 tourists were stranded near the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu on Tuesday, Peru’s tourism minister said, after a passenger train service was suspended due to a protest.PeruRail said service was suspended on Monday because the route in Peru’s mountainous Cusco region had been blocked by “rocks of various sizes” as residents clashed with authorities and bus companies. PeruRail’s local unit also said “third parties” had excavated part of its rail route, which affected the track’s stability and slowed down the evacuation of tourists. Continue reading…

Officials hurriedly remove nearly three decades of finds in ‘high-risk operation’An official in charge of nearly three decades of archaeological finds in Gaza has described how the artefacts were hurriedly evacuated from a Gaza City building threatened by an Israeli strike.“This was a high-risk operation, carried out in an extremely dangerous context for everyone involved – a real last-minute rescue,” said Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF), which housed the relics. Continue reading…

Evidence of millions of animal bones at sites in West Country and Surrey points to ‘age of feasting’These days, revellers converge on the West Country from all parts of the UK and beyond to take part in the wonderful craziness of the Glastonbury festival.It turns out that at the end of the bronze age – also a time of climatic and economic crisis – the same sort of impulse gripped people. Continue reading…

In this week’s newsletter: an archaeologist and gamer on why we love to walk around finding objects in-game and in real lifeThe game I’m most looking forward to right now is Big Walk, the latest title from House House, creators of the brilliant Untitled Goose Game. A cooperative multiplayer adventure where players are let loose to explore an open world, I’m interested to see what emergent gameplay comes out of it. Could Big Walk allow for a kind of community archaeology with friends? I certainly hope so.When games use environmental storytelling in their design – from the positioning of objects to audio recordings or graffiti – they invite players to role play as archaeologists. Game designer Ben Esposito infamously joked back in 2016 that environmental storytelling is the “art of placing skulls near a toilet” – which might have been a jab at the tropes of games like the Fallout series, but his quip demonstrates how archaeological gaming narratives can be. After all, the incongruity of skulls and toilets is likely to lead to many questions and interpretations about the past in that game world, however ridiculous. Continue reading…

The unprecedented find has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the AmericasArchaeologists in Peru have discovered a multicoloured three-dimensional wall that could date back 4,000 years, in an unprecedented find that has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas.The centrepiece of the three-by-six metre wall carving is a stylistic depiction of a large bird of prey with outstretched wings, its head adorned with three-dimensional diamond motifs that visually align the south and north faces of the mural. It is covered with high-relief friezes and features designs painted in blue, yellow, red and black. Continue reading…

Archaeologist whose recording of ceramics provided insights into the Mycenaean civilisation of late bronze age GreeceWhen Penelope Mountjoy, who has died aged 78, undertook her first archaeological research season in Greece in 1970, she spent time at Mycenae, in the eastern Peloponnese. One of the principal sites of the late bronze age in mainland Greece, it had given its name to a civilisation that flourished between c1650 and c1150 BC.Studying and drawing potsherds – broken pieces of ceramic material – for the project’s co-director, Lisa French, proved to be an early step towards Penelope becoming the leading authority on decorated Mycenaean pottery. The cumulative effect of her scholarship took understanding of the field to a new level. Continue reading…

Social media is helping drive trade in skulls, bones and skin products as UK legal void risks new era of ‘body snatching’“When it comes to human stuff, I’ll take anything, pretty much,” says Henry Scragg. “As long as it’s been ethically sourced, may I add.”Speaking from his macabre curiosities shop in Essex in a recent YouTube interview, Scragg wears a shabby bowler hat, has tribal-style face tattoos and a ginger beard that descends into three pendulous dreadlocks. Continue reading…

Cranes hoisted statues from depths of submerged site that authorities say may be extension of ancient city of Canopus Egypt has unveiled parts of a sunken city submerged beneath waters off the coast of Alexandria, including buildings, artefacts and an ancient dock that date back more than 2,000 years.Egyptian authorities said the site, located in the waters of Abu Qir bay, may be an extension of the ancient city of Canopus, a prominent centre during the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years, and the Roman empire, which governed for about 600 years. Continue reading…

Isotopes shows animal began life in Wales, adding weight to theory cattle used in hauling stones across countryA cow’s tooth from a jawbone deliberately placed beside the entrance to Stonehenge at the Neolithic monument’s very beginning in 2995 to 2900BC could offer tantalising new evidence about how the stones were transported about 125 miles from Wales to Salisbury Plain.Analysis of the third molar tooth showed the animal began life in Wales, adding weight to a theory that cows were used as beasts of burden in hauling the enormous stones across the country. Continue reading…

Crown estate owns seabed of treacherous sandbank off Kent that has entombed more than 2,000 shipwrecksOver centuries the treacherous Goodwin Sands off Kent – known as the great “ship swallower” – has entombed more than 2,000 shipwrecks, dozens of second world war aircraft and is the final resting place of thousands. Shakespeare described it as “a very dangerous flat, and fatal”.In 1703, five vessels were sucked into its shifting sands during a storm, including the English warship HMS Northumberland, which only now is yielding its well-preserved secrets. Continue reading…

Coralie Clover says having human remains on display inspires visitors and helps build empathy with the ancient worldI found Paul Daley’s opinion piece on displaying human remains an interesting read (Times change, so do people. So why does the British Museum still think it’s OK to display human remains?, 6 August). I am always glad to discuss the reasons why museums retain and display human remains. First, I completely agree that human remains taken by colonial powers should be repatriated rather than displayed in international institutions. I disagree strongly, however, with the idea that there is no value (aside from shock value) to displaying human remains. Through museums it is possible to learn about death and human remains in a respectful way – without the gore you often find in the media.At Folkestone Museum, we display the human remains of an Anglo-Saxon woman from a cemetery on the hill above our town. She was exhumed during an excavation in 1908. The rest of the skeletons excavated from that cemetery were collected together in a single tea chest and reburied, which I don’t consider especially respectful. I believe that by telling our skeleton’s story in as complete a way as we can, through our research, display and educational work, we can honour her memory best. Through this work, our skeleton has become beloved to generations of visitors to the museum. For over a hundred years, she has inspired people to learn more about the past and at least one person has become an archaeologist after meeting her. Our work aims to help visitors build empathy with the people who lived before us and our skeleton is an important part of that work. Continue reading…