British Archaeology

In gardens a few metres from Leicester Cathedral, archaeologists have made a disturbing discovery. Their excavations have revealed a narrow vertical shaft filled with the remains of 123 men, women and children.

It is one of the largest pit burials ever excavated in the UK, with subsequent research suggesting the bodies were dumped there more than 800 years ago, early in the 12th century.

However, the reasons for putting the corpses in this tiny, ancient shaft remain a mystery.

“Their bones show no signs of violence – which leaves us with two alternative reasons for these deaths: starvation or pestilence,” said Mathew Morris, project officer at Leicester University’s archaeological services. “At the moment, the latter is our main working hypothesis.”

The excavations by Morris and his colleagues suggest the bodies were put into the shaft in three deposits, in rapid succession. “It looks as if successive cartloads of bodies were brought to the shaft and then dropped into it, one load on top of another in a very short space of time,” he said. “In terms of numbers, the people put in there probably represented about 5% of the town’s population.”

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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles repeatedly mention great pestilences and fevers, severe mortality, and miserable deaths from hunger and famine in England from the mid-10th century through to the mid-12th century, said Morris. “This mass burial fits within this timeframe and provides physical proof of what was then occurring across the nation.”

A rare and pristine example of gladiator memorabilia found in the River Tyne is to go on display, shining light on a 2,000-year-old culture of celebrity and sex appeal.

English Heritage said the copper alloy figurine would have been a decorative handle on a folding knife. Found near Corbridge, Northumberland, it provides proof that the superstar status of gladiators extended to the far edges of the Roman empire.

“It is amazing, it’s absolutely pristine,” said Frances McIntosh, English Heritage’s collections curator for Hadrian’s Wall. It is rare to find any example of gladiator memorabilia in Britain but “to find such a well-preserved and interesting piece is remarkable”.

“This beautifully made knife handle is a testament to how pervasive this celebrity culture was, reaching all the way to Hadrian’s Wall at the very edge of the Roman empire.”

McIntosh said successful gladiators became celebrities and had sex appeal. “There are lots of rumours that you see of high society women falling in love with gladiators,” she said. “Often a slur on somebody was that they had been fathered by a gladiator, that they were the son of a gladiator because their mother was … you know.”

Two neolithic stone circles have been discovered on Dartmoor, adding credibility to the theory that a “sacred arc” of monuments was built in the heart of the wild Devon uplands.

One of the circles appears to have similar features to Stonehenge, while the second sits slightly outside the sweep of the arc and could have served as a gateway used by pilgrims travelling to the area.

The discovery of the two rings is a result of a lifetime of work by Alan Endacott, a Devon archaeologist and stained glass artist who in 2007 unearthed the presence of the highest stone circle in southern England, Sittaford on Dartmoor

It was the first stone circle to be discovered on the moor for more than a century and reinforced the sacred arc theory. Rather than resting on his laurels, Endacott has kept on searching for more circles and been rewarded with two further finds.

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Endacott believes a sacred arc was intended to ring the high ground in the centre of the moor. “Dartmoor would have been very different then, there would have been a lot more forest cover. So possibly they were markers in the landscape, they recognised the higher ground and wanted to kind of enclose it for some reason.”

An enigmatic stone and turf structure on Bodmin Moor that was previously thought to be a medieval animal pen has been found to be 4,000 years older – and unique in Europe.

The rectangular monument was built not in the early medieval period to corral livestock, as recorded by Historic England, but rather in the middle Neolithic, between 5,000 and 5,500 years ago, archaeologists have discovered.

Nothing like it is known in Britain or farther afield, according to experts, meaning that the original purpose of the monument known as King Arthur’s Hall is a mystery.

“There isn’t another one of these anywhere,” said the lead archaeologist, James Gossip. “There is nothing built at that time or subsequently in prehistory that is a rectangular earth and stone bank with a setting of stone orthostats around the interior. There is no other parallel.”

The so-called “hall”, which sits on the western side of Bodmin Moor near Helstone in Cornwall, consists of a banked enclosure measuring 49 metres by 21 metres, lined on the inside with 56 standing stones up to 1.8 metres tall.

'In amongst the shattered peat was a perfectly preserved human foot – brown and complete with toenails.

Wilmslow in 1984 was a medium-sized, old-fashioned town with its fair share of furrier and celebrities, plus a couple of pharmaceutical companies to keep it rooted in the 20th century – not the kind of place where anyone would have guessed the UK’s most significant archaeological discovery of the century would be made.

It was there, in the rickety offices of the Wilmslow World on Water Lane one hot August day I received the call that would lead to the town being assured a place in the annals of ancient history, through the discovery of the UK’s first bog body to be removed intact from the peat.

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Andy Mould and Eddie Slack had been watching the peat coming down a huge conveyor belt when one of them had spotted a lump of peat: 'like a rugby-ball,' they told me. One picked it up to lob at the other, who dropped it. In amongst the shattered peat was a perfectly preserved human foot – brown and complete with toenails.

According to the peat diggers, the foot had been cut – as if by a blade. I wondered if there was a body out there missing a foot.

I was soon riding out, on a miniature train with temporary rails, onto the centre of the Moss to find out.

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On the way back to the sheds, I told the peat workers to stop the diggers for 24 hours, while I brought ‘an expert’ to look at the peat facer we’d just visited. With the arrogance of youth, I told them I would square it with their employers.

Naturally had no idea who I would summon, but I’d been on a dig during my university vacation (for social rather than academic interest) and had heard the term ‘County Archaeologist’ bandied about. Without the internet to assist, it took a few phone calls to locate a certain Richard (Rick) Turner, in his first week in the job.

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When Rick rang again, two days later (Friday, August 3), I could tell from his voice that this academic was excited. He told me he’d walked as directed up to the peat face, had simply stuck in his trowel and a bone had fallen out, which he immediately identified as human. He was convinced the foot belonged to a body buried there, he’d reported his discovery to the police in Wilmslow, and had been given the weekend to assemble a team of archaeologists to remove the body intact from Lindow Moss.

Then Rick said these unforgettable words: “I’m not going on the record with this, but I think this is a very important find, and will prove to be ancient.' He was guessing at 2,000 years ancient.

A hoard of Bronze Age artefacts unearthed by a metal detectorist in the Borders has been saved for the nation by National Museums Scotland.

It has acquired the Peebles Hoard, which had lain undisturbed for 3,000 years before it was discovered in 2020.

Efforts have now started to secure funding for continued research and conservation of the collection, which includes more than 500 pieces.

National Museums Scotland (NMS) said the man who found it had received a five-figure sum.

Senior curator Dr Matthew Knight said it shed new light on Bronze Age communities in Scotland.

The hoard has been described as one of the most significant ever found in the country.

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NMS said it represented a "complex set of material, some of which has no archaeological parallel anywhere in western Europe".

"This includes many unique artefacts, the use of which is yet to be discovered and could transform our understanding of life in Bronze Age Scotland," it added.

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The hoard was found in 2020 by metal-detectorist Mariusz Stepien, who alerted the Treasure Trove Unit.

That allowed experts to coordinate a complex retrieval process which involved removing the hoard from the ground in a single block which was then CT scanned.

Archaeologists have unearthed an exceptionally rare wooden spade dating back approximately 3,500 years.

Experts from Wessex Archaeology discovered the treasure during a project aimed at creating coastal habitats in Poole Harbour, Dorset.

The find is considered one of the oldest and most complete wooden tools found in the UK, with preliminary analysis confirming its Bronze Age origins.

Experts believe the waterlogged conditions of the excavation site contributed to the spade’s preservation, providing insights into how ancient communities interacted with the environment.

The spade’s preservation is unusual, as organic materials like wood typically do not survive for millennia.

Only one other Bronze Age wooden tool, the Brynlow Shovel, found in an ancient mine in Cheshire, has been discovered in the UK, the team said.

The graves of more than 4,500 people have been discovered in the grounds of a historic building on the edge of Bristol, which archaeologists say reflects a ‘dark chapter’ in the city’s history.

The remains were unearthed over five years in a dig at the site of the former Blackberry Hill Hospital in Stapleton in Bristol, and revealed in a report released this week by the archaeologists.

Cotswold Archaeology were commissioned by developers Vistry, who are developing the site for housing, to investigate the historic site, which has had many roles in the city’s history.

And now, having completed the first part of the archeological excavation, and analysed the findings, Cotswold Archaeology have now reported back to Vistry what they found - and the results are stunning.

The site was first developed in the late 1700s, when Stapleton Prison was built there. Over the next few decades, it housed prisoners of war from Britain’s conflicts with France, Spain, Holland and the US, but as Bristol grew and the conflicts ended, a new need was more pressing - as a hospital. Its location on the edge of the city meant it was converted into a hospital during the 1832 cholera outbreak, but within five years had been converted again into the Stapleton Workhouse.

From then until the early 20th century, the workhouse was where the poor, destitute, sick and anyone who couldn’t look after themselves were sent, and very often they died there, and were buried in unmarked graves - which have now been discovered, more than 100 years later.

“One of the most striking elements of the excavation is the discovery of more than 4,500 graves,” said Rosanna Price, Cotswold Archaeology’s engagement manager. “These primarily date from the workhouse period, from 1837 to the late 19th century. Some burials may even date back to the site’s earlier function as a prisoner-of-war camp.

An archaeological dig of a quarry in Lincolnshire has uncovered evidence of settlements and agriculture spanning 6,000 years.

Excavations of the West Deeping quarry revealed a Roman settlement as well as Neolithic and Bronze Age finds.

The oldest artefacts included pottery used for cooking and eating.

A free exhibition of some of the finds will be on display in West Deeping village hall on Saturday, from 13:00 to 17:00 BST.

Hannah Barrett, a project officer with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, said: "This site isn't just Neolithic, Bronze Age or Roman, we have all of the periods right through to Saxon in the 6th Century.

"All of these periods are represented and every single one has a good story to tell," she said.

"I think that's what's so fascinating about."

She added evidence dating back to the later Neolithic period included "the largest assemblage" of pottery ever found in East Anglia or the East Midlands.

The archaeologists unearthed structural features and materials dating to the Roman era and the early Medieval period during an excavation at a site near the Holt Roman tile and pottery works in Wrexham, North East Wales.

They also found the structure of an early Medieval longhouse — a long, narrow, building for communal dwelling.

“We were very hopeful of finding evidence of Roman life due to previous discoveries and geophysical surveys in the area, not to mention the presence of the legionary tileworks a few fields away, but did not expect our excavations to uncover what is believed to be an early Medieval longhouse,” said Dr. Caroline Pudney, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Chester.

“The discovery of a Roman settlement is extremely important in building a bigger picture of Roman Wrexham and although early Medieval longhouses have been found in other parts of Wales, to unearth evidence of such a building in North East Wales is extremely rare.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20367335

Evidence of highly organised urban settlement found during survey work for solar farm near Great Staughton

The well-preserved remains of a Roman town discovered during survey work for a solar farm in Cambridgeshire have been given heritage protection status as a scheduled monument.

The buried archaeological features of the settlement near Great Staughton extend across 31 hectares (77 acres) and include ditches, pits, post holes, and gravel surfaces that represent roads or yard areas.

The remains show the extensive streets and buildings of a highly organised Roman settlement of an urban character, Historic England said.

Recovered artefacts include pottery, animal bone, glass, copper alloy objects, iron objects, coins and shells. Evidence also suggests there may have been pottery kilns and blacksmith forges.

When the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel’s dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.

What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain.

Though invisible at ground level after millennia of ploughing, the enclosure still survives under Hardy’s garden. It has now been given protection by the government as a scheduled monument, recognising its status as a nationally important site...

Archaeologists have uncovered "significant" Anglo-Saxon finds across Holderness as cables are laid for the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm.

The discoveries include remnants of an Anglo-Saxon long hall structure between Beeford and Skipsea, as well as artefacts from a site in Ulrome.

The findings indicate Anglo-Saxons probably lived and farmed in this landscape over multiple phases between the 5th and 11th centuries.

Community engagement manager for Dogger Bank Wind Farm, Rachel Lawrence, said: "Safeguarding historical evidence has been a critical part of our preparation work on Dogger Bank Wind Farm."

She added: "We’re delighted we’re now able to share these exciting findings with the people who live in the towns and villages where this work was undertaken."

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The early medieval discoveries were unearthed by archaeologists working on a 30km corridor that houses the underground cables transmitting energy from Dogger Bank Wind Farm in the North Sea to the wind farm’s two onshore stations near Beverley.

Archaeologists described the finds as a "regionally-significant discovery".

Project manager for AOC Archaeology, Rebecca Jarosz- Blackburn, said the most "surprising and rewarding discovery" was the Anglo-Saxon long hall and associated field systems recorded near Beeford, which she said "represents some of the most extensive evidence from the period in the Holderness region".

"The plot has thickened on the mystery of the altar stone of Stonehenge, weeks after geologists sensationally revealed that the huge neolithic rock had been transported hundreds of miles to Wiltshire from the very north of Scotland.

That discovery, described as “jaw-dropping” by one of the scientists involved, established definitively that the six-tonne megalith had not been brought from Wales, as had long been believed, but came from sandstone deposits in an area encompassing the isles of Orkney and Shetland and a coastal strip on the north-east Scottish mainland.

Many experts assumed that the most likely place of origin was Orkney, based on the islands’ rich neolithic culture and tradition of monument building.

But a separate academic study has now found that Orkney is not, in fact, the source of the altar stone, meaning the tantalising hunt for its place of origin goes on..."

A "remarkable" Pictish ring thought to be at least 1,000 years old has been discovered by a volunteer on a dig in Moray.

The find was made by John Ralph at the site of a fort in Burghead.

It is thought the settlement was a significant seat of power within the Pictish kingdom between AD500 and AD1000.

Delighted Mr Ralph - who described himself as an "enthusiastic volunteer" - was on a dig being led by the University of Aberdeen. He felt like a "striker scoring a goal" with the find.

The village of Drumelzier in the Borders has long been associated with Merlin.

According to Vita Merlini Sylvestris (the Life of Merlin of the Forest) — a medieval manuscript held by the British Library — Merlin was reportedly imprisoned there and buried on the banks of the Tweed in the 7th century.

In 2022, a team of volunteers drawn from across Scotland and led by GUARD Archaeology set out to investigate the archaeological roots of this local legend.

Now, the results of the work have been published with experts revealing that there may indeed be some truth to the reports of Merlin's death in Scotland.

A geophysics survey revealed that there is an archaeological feature resembling a grave near to the reputed location of Merlin’s Grave at Drumelzier.

An excavation of Tinnis Fort, which overlooks Merlin’s Grave, also found that this prominent hillfort was occupied around the late 6th and early 7th centuries AD, precisely when the story was set.

Archaeologists said the fort has the hallmarks of a lordly stronghold of the time.

"The Drumelzier legend contains pre-Christian customs, ancient Cumbric names and was associated with local sites where archaeology now shows could credibly have given rise to the story," said GUARD Archaeology CEO Ronan Toolis, who led the project.

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"Unlike the classic depiction of Merlin as the wise and respected adviser to King Arthur, the Drumelzier legend paints a much darker picture.

"That of a rather pitiful fellow prone to uttering nonsensical riddles and bewildering prophecies, and kept prisoner by an obscure petty tyrant of a forgotten kingdom, before dying a gruesome death, the victim of royal intrigue."

Archive

It is a star object of the Galloway Hoard, the richest collection of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland, buried in AD900 and unearthed in a field in Scotland. Now a lidded silver vessel has been identified as being of west Asian origin, transported halfway around the world more than 1,000 years ago.

When it emerged from the ground a decade ago, the vessel was still wrapped in its ancient textiles, whose survival is extremely rare. Its surface could be seen only through X-ray scans. Since then, the textiles have been partially removed and preserved and the vessel has had laser cleaning to remove green corrosion over much of its silver surface. It has also undergone scientific analysis.

Details of a “remarkable” design that includes crowns, fire altars and creatures including leopards and tigers can be seen for the first time.

The imagery is linked to the iconography of Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Sasanian empire, the last Persian empire before the early Muslim conquests from AD632. Scientific analysis shows that the silver from which it was made came from a mine in modern-day Iran.

The hoard was discovered in 2014 by a metal-detecting enthusiast on what is now Church of Scotland land at Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire. Described as one of the century’s most important UK archaeological finds, it contained more than 5kg of silver, gold and other materials, with objects ranging from a Christian pectoral cross to brooches.

Since the Renaissance, scholars have been engaged in a curious and feverish debate over where the people who populate England came from. Did they arrive as conquerors, as Gildas would have it? Or by a more gradual and peaceful migration? The answer matters because it provides an explanation for a perplexing reality: In a remarkably short three centuries after the Roman occupation, Britain was transformed into a dramatically different kind of place.

Under Roman administration, Britain was largely urban. People lived in tile-roofed stone buildings in towns connected by roads; they boasted a standing army and a coinage system. Native Britons spoke an indigenous Celtic language and probably some Latin. By the 700s, things had changed entirely: Inhabitants lived mostly in country hamlets in wood-and-thatch homes resembling Grubenhäuser, those partly sunken houses typical of northern Germany and southwest Denmark. With the empire gone, many workers, from builders to vintners to smiths to perfumers, simply no longer had a market for their products or services, so the only way to survive was subsistence farming. In this way, the Britons produced what they needed, and they bartered for the rest. The things they made, jewelry or pots, drew on both continental and indigenous traditions but were uniquely theirs. Most striking, they had created a new national identity and were speaking a new language, the earliest form of English.

But exactly how was the Roman Britain of 400 transfigured into the radically different country we now call England—all in less than 300 years? Recent scholarship presents an intriguing, and persuasive, case for the migration hypothesis. Analyzing DNA from hundreds of Anglo-Saxon-era bones in England and in northwest Europe, a paper in the journal Nature has concluded that as much as 76 percent of ancestry in eastern medieval England came from what is now Germany and Scandinavia. Meanwhile, archaeologists continue to uncover artifacts in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries that arguably weigh heavily against the theory of origin-by-conquest; indeed, no graves suggesting wealth have been linked to any purely Germanic settlers. The findings suggest something rather remarkable: that some of the most precipitous shifts in social and material culture can come not from war but from peace.

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If there had been a conquest and a resulting upper class of Germanic warriors, you’d expect to see two distinct genetic pools. Not so. “This paper is paradigm-shifting,” says Oxford archaeologist Helena Hamerow, who reviewed the group’s work for Nature. “Clearly the native Britons were not nearly exterminated and/or driven out,” she adds, “but many must have intermarried with and lived amongst immigrants and their descendants.”

While walking his dog with his mom, a 12-year-old boy in the U.K. made an unexpected discovery in a field — not a stick for his dog or an interesting rock, but a first-century gold bracelet from Roman Britain.

Unlike most other jewelry from the Roman era, the lustrous bracelet probably wasn't worn by a woman, researchers later surmised. Instead, it likely belonged to a man who had received the accessory as a military honor, likely an "award for bravery," according to a statement from the local Chichester District Council.

The cuff bracelet has been described as "exceptional" and "relatively rare in Roman Britain," especially because it's crafted from gold, according to the statement.

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A newly announced analysis of the bracelet revealed that it was made from sheet gold with raised moldings, and it dates to the first century A.D., not too long after Roman emperor Claudius invaded Britain in A.D. 43.

"Archaeologists have unearthed a "stunning" Bronze Age burial chamber on one of Dartmoor’s most isolated hills.

Experts discovered a stone-built box, sometimes known as a cist, at Cut Hill during a three-day dig earlier this month.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found inside suggests the chamber, used to bury the dead during prehistoric times, is about 3,900 years old.

Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), which led the project, said the discovery had been prompted by reports of a feature being visible in the peat..."

A piece of the jigsaw puzzle that could unlock 1,000 years of history at a north Wales heritage site has been unearthed – suggesting that local Britons may have lived ‘in harmony’ with the Romans.

An excavation has led to the discovery of a horse bridle mount dating back to the late Iron Age at the Greenfield Valley Heritage Park in Flintshire.

The artefact, which is up to 2,000 years old, was found within the remains of a newly discovered settlement that likely belonged to the Iron Age Deceangli tribe but appears to have continued into the early Roman period.

The region occupied by the Celtic clan, which spread as far west as the River Conwy and included Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Wrexham, was rich in lead and silver, materials highly prised by the Romans.

Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000-year-old prehistoric settlement as part of development work on the site of the new HMP Highland in Inverness.

The excavation has led to the discovery of a roundhouse settlement relating to Iron Age and Bronze Age occupation of the site, which also contained earlier prehistoric remains dating back to at least 3,000 BC.

A wide variety of prehistoric remains were found at the HMP Highland site, including occupation areas related to domestic and industrial activities and structural evidence from the roundhouses and other timber structures.

The settlement consisted of 16 roundhouses that survived as circular alignments of postholes, where timber posts had once supported substantial hut buildings. Some of the house sites had been enclosed by palisade fencing to protect the interior.

An ancient monument uncovered by a team of amateur archaeologists is exciting and puzzling the experts.

Three years of excavations on the side of a hill in Aspull, Wigan have revealed a Bronze Age burial site surrounded by a ring shaped ditch that is believed to be a religious henge.

The find is thought to be unique to the region and potentially of national importance.

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The archaeologists working at the site believe it marks two different points in history.

"From the Neolithic Stone Age period it would have been a ritual holy site," Mr Aldridge said.

"But then at a later date, when the Bronze Age people came along, they thought it was something special and decided to create their own funerary monument in the middle of it.

"You do get Bronze Age barrows in the north, but they’re quite rare. You usually find them down south in places like Wiltshire.

"And you have to go to the Lake District, Yorkshire, Derbyshire or North Wales before you get henge monuments or Neolithic Stone Age activity.