British Archaeology

Brodie was out with Gloucestershire Metal Detecting Club when he found a rare 14th Century seal just metres from the family car and an inch underground. Brodie said in the future he hoped to find something "really big", like a Roman sword.

Gloucestershire and Avon Finds Liaison Officer Kurt Adams said it was probably an ecclesiastical seal, with the lamb of God pictured on the front and a banner behind that read: "Roger of Tetbury". "It's a lovely find, and a really good quality one as well," he added.

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Because the seal was not classed as treasure, Brodie is able to keep it and has already set his sights on something bigger.

"I always dream of finding something really big, like a horse and carriage or something, like gold jewellery or Roman swords and hats", Brodie said.

Vindolanda (translated as “white field” or “white moor”) was a Roman auxiliary fort that guarded a major highway called the Stanegate.

No less than nine forts were built of timber or stone at Vindolanda from between AD 85 to AD 370, creating one of the most complex archaeological sites in Britain and a unique cultural legacy of frontier life.

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During the latest season of excavations, a possible phallus symbol has been uncovered in the last remaining turfed area within the boundaries of the fort. The symbol is carved into a stone slab and could be a depiction of a fascinus, used to invoke divine protection.

Phallic imagery can be found across the Roman world in sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, and portable objects such as pendants or bulla.

The Roman’s believed that the phallus was the embodiment of a masculine generative power, and was one of the tokens of the safety of the state (sacra Romana) that gave protection and good fortune.

Along the corridor of Hadrian’s Wall, there are 59 known phalli which consist of incised, relief, or sculpture phalli. Each architectural type of phalli have been grouped into one of nine morphological traits: the rocket, the hammer, the kinky-winky, the splitcock, the pointer, the double-dong, running hard, the beast, and the lucky dip.

The Inverclyde Time Teamers, say they have found a previously unrecorded prehistoric hut circle, dating from between 1200BC and 500AD on the moors, just under a mile north east of Haylie viewpoint

Two of the detectives, Stephen McAllister and Allan Kinniburgh, were surveying the piece of land during Sunday afternoon after aerial photographs and computerised mapping and scanning equipment indicated it was a possible hotspot.

Stephen said: “Our target presented as circular structure with a very well defined raised outline, approximately 10 metres across.

"We thought it might have been a sheep ree, remnants of an Iron Age defensive dun or a prehistoric enclosure.

“Having had a closer inspection, and comparing this with similar structures we have visited or discovered, we have a very high level of confidence in announcing this as something that looks like a previously unrecorded prehistoric dwelling or hut circle find.

Archaeologists are conducting the first dig in a country park for almost 30 years.

Wandlebury Country Park invited teams from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Archaeological Unit on a two-week dig.

They will investigate the archaeological past of Wandlebury, where excavations were last carried out between 1994 and 1997.

The park, near Cambridge, is celebrating its 70th anniversary after it became a public open space on 26 April 1954.

Wandlebury sits on top of a small chalk hill and is home to an Iron Age hillfort, referred to as the Wandlebury Ring, which is around 1000ft (300m) in diameter.

A buried hoard of coins dating to the 16th and 17th Centuries has been found during renovation work on a cottage.

The cache of more than 1,000 gold and silver coins was discovered under an earth floor at South Poorton, Dorset.

One of the property's new owners, Robert Fooks, was digging with a pickaxe by torchlight when he found the trove in a pottery bowl.

Auctioneers hope to sell the collection for between £15,000 and £30,000.

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The hoard, discovered in October 2019, was returned to the couple this year after expert analysis and legal work.

The British Museum guessed they were deposited early in the English Civil War (1642-51) by a landowner trying to keep his wealth safe.

The collection, including James I and Charles I gold coins and Elizabeth I silver shillings, is being sold by Duke's Auctions in Dorchester on Tuesday.

Mrs Fooks said the property's previous owners came close to finding the hoard.

She said: "They had removed the flooring on top of the earth and stopped work. The coins were about 10 inches (25cm) further down."

The rising and setting of the sun at Stonehenge, especially during the summer and winter solstices, continues to evoke joy, fascination and religious devotion.

Now a project has been launched to delve into the lesser understood links that may exist between the monument and the moon during a once-in-a-generation lunar event.

A “major lunar standstill”, which takes place once every 18.6 years, when moonrise and moonset reach their farthest apart points along the horizon, will take place in January 2025.

This will give archaeologists, astronomers and archaeoastronomers a rare chance to explore theories surrounding the event and the ancient people of Stonehenge. Some experts believe the people who built the monument were aware of the major lunar standstill and may have buried their dead in a particular part of the site because of its relationship to the phenomenon.

cross-posted from: https://fedinews.net/m/ImproveTheNews/t/6557

• The UK has returned, by way of a long-term loan, 32 royal artifacts from the Asante Kingdom to present-day Ghana, more than 150 years after they were looted during the Anglo-Asante wars. BBC News (LR: 3 CP: 5)
• The return follows the signing of a loan deal between the British Museum (BM), the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), and the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the current traditional ruler of the Asante people. BBC News (LR: 3 CP: 5)
• The mostly gold objects comprise 15 pieces from the BM and 17 from the V&A and are initially on loan for three years with the possibility of renewal for a further three years. Pulse Ghana
• The artifacts — including a golden peace pipe, a sword of state, and golden badges — will be displayed at the Manhyia Palace Museum in the Asante region's capital Kumasi in May as part of the Asantehene’s silver jubilee celebrations. Tribune Online
• Commenting on the artifacts' temporary return, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a special advisor to Ghana's Minister of Culture, emphasized their "spiritual importance" and described the regalia as "part of the soul of the nation." Guardian (LR: 2 CP: 5)
• The Asante kingdom was once one of the most powerful and significant states in West Africa. In 1874, British troops launched a "punitive expedition" against the Asante, plundering Kumasi and looting many of the palace treasures. Yahoo News

Narrative A:

• This loan is an acknowledgment by the UK of the artifacts' spiritual and cultural significance to the Asante people. Although the objects form only a part of the Asante collections, this loan includes most of the key works to right some of the wrongs of Britain's colonial past.
  THE ARTNEWSPAPER

Narrative B:

• This is a welcomed first step, but it must be seen as a first step toward the full-time return of the artifacts, otherwise, this is an embarrassment. The wounds of the past will only really begin to heal once the Asante cultural heritage returns to Ghana for good.
  AFRICANEWS

Nerd narrative:

• There's a 1% chance that Kwasi Kwarteng will become UK Conservative Party Leader before Jan. 1, 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
  METACULUS (LR: 3 CP: 3)

Bones found after being unveiled by coastal erosion on the Cornish coast were probably from a shipwrecked sailor, say archaeologists.

Analysis of the the bones found near Trevone in 2022 suggest the body was from the 18th Century, the Cornwall Archaeological Unit (CAU) said.

The unit also said a skull found during a beach clean at Sennen in Cornwall in 2023 was about 3,300 years old.

The discoveries are the latest human remains found on the coast.

When Alan Baxter found a medieval ring in a farmer's field he knew there could be more ancient artefacts nearby - but the stubble from the thick oat crop made it difficult for his metal detector to get anywhere near the ground. So he waited.

Four years later the farmer had planted and harvested carrots.

"It must have had a deep plough when the carrots got lifted and I could get my detector right to the soil," the 44-year-old told BBC Scotland News.

"Every 3ft I was getting a signal. I couldn't move, there was stuff everywhere.

"I didn't want to go home."

The highlight of his haul in 2022 was a hoard of farthings from the reign of 15th Century Scottish King James III.

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An expert at the National Museum of Scotland said it was the first hoard of James III farthings to be found since 1919.

Several decades after the Sutton Hoo burial, starting in about AD660, there was a sudden rise in the number of silver coins in circulation in England, for reasons that have long puzzled archaeologists and historians.

The new rush of silver coinage stimulated trade and helped fuel the development of the new towns springing up at the time – but where did it come from? Were the Anglo-Saxon kings recycling old Roman scrap metal? Or had they found lucrative sources from mines in Europe?

Metallurgical analysis of early medieval coins has revealed the answer: the power brokers of the time were melting down their stockpiles of Byzantine silver treasures, in a type of early medieval quantitative easing that kickstarted the economy of England and established a monetary system that would last for a millennium.

Archaeologists from Newcastle University have unearthed evidence for an evolving sacred landscape spanning centuries in Crowland, Lincolnshire. The study is published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.

Crowland today is dominated by the ruins of its medieval abbey. However, local tradition holds that the area was the site of an Anglo-Saxon hermitage belonging to Saint Guthlac, who died in the year 714 and was famed for his life of solitude, having given up a life of riches as the son of a nobleman.

When his uncorrupted body was discovered 12 months after his death, Guthlac was venerated by a small monastic community dedicated to his memory. Guthlac's popularity while he was alive, and the success of this cult and the pilgrimage it inspired, were key factors in the establishment of Crowland Abbey in the 10th century to honor the saint.

Archaeologists have uncovered a “richly decorated” Roman villa complex during excavations in the English countryside. The site contained strange artifacts—such as miniature axes and scrolls—that may have once been used in rituals.

Located in the village of Grove, some 60 miles west of London, the area had been occupied since the Bronze Age, according to a statement from the Red River Archaeology Group (RRAG), which organized the dig.

The newly discovered complex wasn’t built until Britain’s Roman era: It included several “hall-like ‘aisle buildings,’” which date to the late first and second centuries C.E., as well as a “winged-corridor” villa.

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In addition to their size, these structures were impressive for their intricate decorations. Live Science’s Jennifer Nalewicki writes that the buildings were “embellished with painted plaster, mosaics, ornate tile work, colonnades, brick floors and other ornamentations.”

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The excavations also revealed a trove of artifacts, including brooches, rings, coins, tableware and a belt buckle decorated with horses. Researchers think the belt buckle, which dates to between 350 and 450 C.E., may have belonged to a member of the Roman elite, per the statement. The artifacts suggest that Romans occupied the area through the fourth or fifth century C.E.

“The site is far more complex than a regular rural site and clearly was an important center of activities for a long time, from the Bronze Age to the later Roman period,” says Giarelli in the statement.

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Details about the villa residents’ lives remain elusive. The researchers still don’t know “where all the people ended up,” but they think the complex contains a burial, Giarelli tells CNN. Some curious objects found during the excavation also provide clues about the occupants’ spiritual practices.

According to the statement, researchers unearthed an “enigmatic assemblage of tightly-coiled lead scrolls.” Straightened out, the scrolls resemble Roman “curse tablets”—scraps of lead the Romans used to write messages to higher powers. The site also revealed several “miniature votive axes” during excavations. These are similar to a collection of miniature weapons once found in the village of Uley, thought to have been offered to gods like Mercury.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9870110

About 5,000 years ago, the Thornborough Henges in what is now North Yorkshire would have dominated the surrounding landscape.

What would have been three striking white monuments, now known as the "Stonehenge of the North", were covered in gypsum and their banks are believed to have towered up to 23ft (7m) high.

According to historians, anyone stood inside the circular earthworks in Neolithic times would only have been able to see the vast sky above them.

Cut off from the landscape and enclosed in this huge human-made arena, our ancient ancestors would have felt "centred within nature" and could even have had a "cosmic experience", they say.

It is an experience that, in 2024, people can perhaps finally get just a taste of once again.

In February, public access to all three monuments was guaranteed when the whole complex was reunited under one owner - English Heritage - for what was believed to be the first time in 1,500 years.

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Dr Wexler said that while the site had been "historically ignored" until the 1990s, from the viewpoint of 2024, things were very different.

The focus was now on "access and conservation work", she said.

"With new non-invasive technology, we hope to better date the henges and work out the sequence in which they were built."

Dr Wexler added that everyone involved was "so excited" to have the Thornborough Henges reunited and ready for people to retrace ancient footsteps.

"There is so much more to discover. They are magical," she said.

"It is like stepping back in time."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9861367

Stonehenge: The Discovery with Dan Snow will premiere at 9pm on Sunday, March 31 on Channel 5 and My5.

The programme will follow Dan as he attempts to piece together the history of the stone circle and reveal modern discoveries that are moving the world closer to uncovering its mysteries.

Along his journey, Dan visits the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes to examine the Bush Barrow Chieftain and his gold lozenge found by William Cunnington in 1808 and goes among the stones with skyscape archaeologist Fabio Parracho Silva of Bournemouth University to measure the astronomical alignments of Stonehenge.

The bluestone monoliths incorporated into Stonehenge did not come from a “giant lost circle” at Waun Mawn in West Wales, according to a new research paper published in the academic journal The Holocene.

Dr Brian John, a retired geography lecturer from Durham University, examined the evidence associated with the claim that, around 5,000 years ago, scores of bluestones were incorporated into a massive stone setting on a moorland hillside in the Preseli mountains. He finds that the field evidence does not withstand scrutiny.

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At present there is only one standing stone on the Waun Mawn site, with three recumbent stones in a rough alignment. Dr John claims that it is fanciful in the extreme to interpret this rough stone setting as the last remnant of one of the biggest stone circles in the British Isles. He has examined most of the supposed empty “stone sockets” and concludes that they are entirely natural pits and hollows in a surface of undulating glacial and periglacial deposits.

Dr John said: “The conclusion must be that Waun Mawn had nothing at all to do with Stonehenge. There were no stone quarries in the vicinity, and there was no lost stone circle. Unfortunately, the archaeologists have been swayed by the false premise that the Stonehenge bluestones (from many different sources) cannot possibly have been transported by glacier ice; and on that basis they have developed a highly complicated ruling hypothesis of bluestone extraction and use whilst ignoring the very flimsy nature of their own evidence.”

In the newly published article Dr John points out that in the Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape of West Wales there is no evidence of spotted dolerite and rhyolite bluestones being used preferentially in megalithic structures. He also notes that in their latest publications Prof Parker Pearson and his team have accepted that many of their assumptions about bluestone extraction and use in West Wales need to be revised.

A burial monument with human remains thought to be about 4,500 years old has been discovered in East Yorkshire.

Parts of a Roman road and a burnt mound were also discovered during a £5m project to build a 5.2km (3.2 miles) sewer near Full Sutton.

Ecus Archaelogy, working on the site for Yorkshire Water, said the three sites give a glimpse into the prehistoric and early historic past of the area.

A major report on the remains of a stilt village that was engulfed in flames almost 3,000 years ago reveals in unprecedented detail the daily lives of England's prehistoric fenlanders.

Must Farm, a late Bronze Age settlement, dates to around 850BC, with University of Cambridge archaeologists unearthing four large wooden roundhouses and a square entranceway structure—all of which had been constructed on stilts above a slow-moving river.

The entire hamlet stood approximately two meters above the riverbed, with walkways bridging some of the main houses, and was surrounded by a two-meter-high fence of sharpened posts.

In July 2021, he took the coins to Oatcroft Farm in Titley in Herefordshire, the site of a metal detecting weekend held by the K C Rallys club.

The court heard how he had hidden the coins in the ground and then pretended he had found them there.

Giving evidence, he told the court that he had bought the coins online and hid them in the earth "for the fame and bravado that goes with it".

“It was stupid, I know. It was a feel-good thing, I just wanted to make myself look good," he said.

"It was a moment of insanity, I just didn’t think."

Adrian Harris, a fellow member of the K C Rallys club, told the court that Mr Jones had asked him to go to a corner of the field with him.

Mr Harris said he could see some freshly dug holes and that they found the Crusader coins very quickly.

"I was ecstatic, jumping up and down but Mike wasn’t really shocked," he told the magistrates.

Archaeologist Peter Reavill was at the time working as the Finds Liaison Officer for Herefordshire and Shropshire.

He told the court that had the coins been genuinely found in the field "they would have potentially altered the history of Herefordshire".

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In delivering the verdict, Sue Furnival, the chair of the magistrates told Mr Jones that he did act dishonestly.

"The prosecution has not proved beyond reasonable doubt that you intended to make financial gain," she told the court.

"You did make false representations, but the crown could not prove financial gain therefore we find you not guilty."

The charge against Mr Jones was dismissed.

Early Dark Age Britain is notorious for being poorly recorded. Most of our information about the era comes from much later records, written centuries after the events they allegedly describe. There is endless debate from scholars, based on the literary evidence, surrounding the historicity of the kings of Britain of this era. However, there are a few cases where we do not need to rely on the later medieval records to know whether a given king really existed or not. There are about 200 stone inscriptions from Dark Age Britain. These inscriptions provide us with contemporary or near-contemporary insights into the kings of Britain at that time.

• Nudd Hael
• Conomor
• King Ithel

A rough site plan for the Roman-era village of Silchester in south-central England, now a ruin, has existed since antiquarians excavated it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though extensive, these efforts used techniques that are now outdated and, modern researchers note, represent only the most well-preserved structures.

Accordingly, the popular estimates of Silchester's residential population, which suggest around 4,000 people at its peak in the Late Roman period, may be inaccurate, new research suggests.

This seems particularly likely considering more recent excavations of the site and other sites nearby, which have shown a large proportion of timber houses relative to stone ones. Newer studies have provided evidence along the same lines through a combination of geophysical survey and aerial photography.

In research recently published in Britannia, Scott Ortman, a University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of anthropology, and John Hanson, formerly a CU Boulder postdoctoral researcher and now a University of Oxford associate professor of Roman archaeology and art, were inspired by these developments to make a new estimate of Silchester's peak population. Their final figure of about 5,500 people has implications for not only the history of Silchester, but also Roman Britain and, potentially, the entire Roman Empire.

People across the Stirling area have joined forces with historians from around the world to fund the retrieval of a stone which is believed to date from between the 6th and 8th century.

The Rescuers of Old Kilmadock (Rook) discovered the Pictish artefact in Old Kilmadock cemetery in 2019.

Since then they have been working with Stirling Council archaeologist Dr Murray Cook, who said the stone had to initially be reburied in order to maintain its structural integrity.

He said: “The Rook team found the stone by accident and it soon became clear it could be something of international significance, with engravings of animals in the Pictish tradition and what appear to be examples of Ogham script, a form of Irish writing that’s rarely found in Scotland.

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A campaign to fund the retrieval of the stone had so far raised £10,000, which will go towards funding both the excavation and storage of the stone for a further two years.

It will also allow for an in-depth examination of the script and engravings which appear on both sides of the stone.

It’s believed the stone dates from around the period of the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685, when the Picts expelled the invading Northumbrians from the south and paved the way for the creation of Alba and, ultimately, Scotland.

"Mysterious features" found during a survey of Sutton Hoo are to be at the centre of a fresh archaeological dig.

A grave, burial ship and treasures, thought to be related to King Rædwald - the 7th Century Anglo-Saxon ruler of East Anglia - were revealed in 1939.

Researchers said a dig in June would see if the newly-discovered features were archaeological or geological.

Angus Wainwright, a National Trust archaeologist, said the project would be "painstaking".

Trevor Penny was searching for lost and discarded objects in the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire in November 2023 when he made the discovery. The magnet fisher had been down on his luck that day and only pulled scaffolding poles from the water, he told Live Science in a message on Facebook. When Penny lugged out the sword, he didn't immediately recognize what it was.

"I was on the side of the bridge and shouted to a friend on the other side of the bridge, 'What is this?'" Penny, who is a member of the Thame Magnet Fishing Facebook group, recalled in the message. "He came running over shouting, 'It looks like a sword!'"

Discoveries include a settlement believed to date to the Late Neolithic or Middle Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC), as well as evidence of life in Cumbria when the A66 was a Roman road.

Stephen Rowland, project manager at Oxford Cotswold Archaeology, said: “The route followed by the modern A66 through the Eden Valley and Stainmore Pass was ancient even when the Romans formalised it with their own road, nearly 2,000 years ago.

"Significant road and river junctions and crossings are still marked by prehistoric monuments, Roman forts, and medieval castles, whilst the fertile valley has supported communities since the end of the last Ice Age."

In another location, a possible ‘grubenhaus’ - a building typically built above a large rectangular pit and associated with Early Medieval settlements - has been found.