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Showing 1-10 of 1,988 news posts. Most recent first | Next 10 
United Kingdom |
Dig into the past at the 23rd Festival of Archaeology! 13-28 July 2013Co-ordinated by the Council for British Archaeology, the Festival offers over 1,000 events nationwide, organised by museums, heritage organisations, national and country parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists. For details of events in your region go to http://www.archaeologyfestival.org.uk/ |
Posted by Chance15th June 2013ce |
Wiltshire |
Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Sites, a talk by Rachel FosterThursday 5th September 2013 2.15 pm Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham SN15 3QN An insight into two of the richest archaeological sites in the country. This talk will help you explore these ancient landscapes and celebrate their contribution to our understanding of our prehistoric ancestors. Limited 30 people Admission £3.50 (concessions £2.50). Spaces are limited so please buy your ticket in advance. Telephone 01249 705500 or visit our Help Desk at the History Centre. (Payment by credit/debit card or cheque available for the purchase of 2 or more tickets). |
Posted by Chance 15th June 2013ce |
Archaeology and Conservation Fair - Sunday 14th JulyWiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham SN15 3QN Ever wondered what the county archaeology team based in the History Centre does? Curious to take a tour of the Conservation Labs upstairs? Maybe you would like to find out about recent excavations, hoards and the work of local archaeology field units? The Archaeology and Conservation Fair on Sunday 14th July at the History Centre is a fantastic FREE event with stands from 20 local archaeological organisations and a programme of free 10 minute talks that will tell you all about archaeology in the county. Open from 11am to 4pm, the fair includes stands from Wiltshire's museums, Wessex archaeology, the National Trust and English Heritage. There will be plenty to interest visitors of all ages, including information on courses, volunteering, and fieldwork. Younger visitors will enjoy making their own Stonehenge, trying out a sandpit dig, handling a range of real objects and finding out about the Young Archaeologists clubs running in Wiltshire and Swindon. The ten minute talks' programme will run throughout the day and includes talks on the First World War project, Finding the Forgotten, the conservation of a large Romano-British pot found in Highworth, recent surveys, excavations and the discovery of 2 important early iron age hoards. Please see the full talks programme for times of individual talks. Tours of the conservation labs will run all day and you can visit the county archaeology service to find out about their work and see the Historic Environment Register demonstrated. For further information on this event see the History Centre events page http://www.wshc.eu/home/events.html |
Posted by Chance 15th June 2013ce |
Devon |
William Stukeley: Saviour of Stonehenge exhibition opens in DevonWilliam Stukeley, Saviour of Stonehenge exhibition, opens tomorrow (9 June) at Hartland Abbey, Hartland, Bideford, North Devon and runs until 6 October. Details here - http://www.hartlandabbey.co.uk/exhibition.htm and here - http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/exhibition-William-Stukeley-goes-display-Hartland/story-19271727-detail/story.html#axzz2WArN9bxi |
Posted by Littlestone8th June 2013ce |
Flag Fen (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) |
Eight bronze age boats surface at Fens creek in record findThis site is about two miles from Flag Fen and it is where the boats will end up for conservation work. Probably ties up with Rhiannon's news. (Most news is old news) 3,000-year-old fleet discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough. The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. One is covered inside and out with decorative carving described by conservator Ian Panter as looking "as if they'd been playing noughts and crosses all over it". Another has handles carved from the oak tree trunk for lifting it out of the water. One still floated after 3,000 years and one has traces of fires lit on the wide flat deck on which the catch was evidently cooked. Several had ancient repairs, including clay patches and an extra section shaped and pinned in where a branch was cut away. They were preserved by the waterlogged silt in the bed of a long-dried-up creek, a tributary of the river Nene, which buried them deep below the ground. "There was huge excitement over the first boat, and then they were phoning the office saying they'd found another, and another, and another, until finally we were thinking, 'Come on now, you're just being greedy,'" Panter said. The boats were deliberately sunk into the creek, as several still had slots for transoms – boards closing the stern of the boat – which had been removed. Archaeologists are struggling to understand the significance of the find. Whatever the custom meant to the bronze age fishermen and hunters who lived in the nearby settlement, it continued for centuries. The team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit is still waiting for the results of carbon 14 dating tests, but believes the oldest boats date from around 1,600 BC and the most recent 600 years later. They already knew the creek had great significance – probably as a rich source of fish and eels – as in previous seasons at the Much Farm site they had found ritual deposits of metalwork, including spears. The boats themselves may have been ritual offerings, or may have been sunk for more pragmatic reasons, to keep the timber waterlogged and prevent it from drying out and splitting when not in use – but in that case it seems strange that such precious objects were never retrieved. Some of the boats were made from huge timbers, including one from an oak which must have had a metre-thick trunk and stood up to 20 metres tall. This would have been a rare specimen as sea levels rose and the terrain became more waterlogged, creating the Fenland landscape of marshes, creeks and islands of gravel. "Either this was the Bermuda Triangle for bronze age boats, or there is something going on here that we don't yet understand," Panter said. Kerry Murrell, the site director, said: "Some show signs of long use and repair – but others are in such good condition they look as if you could just drop the transom board back in and paddle away." The boats were all nicknamed by the team, including Debbie – made of lime wood, and therefore deemed a blonde – and French Albert the Fifth Musketeer, the fifth boat found. Murrell's favourite is Vivienne, a superb piece of craftsmanship where the solid oak was planed down with bronze tools to the thickness of a finger, still so light and buoyant that when their trench filled with rainwater, they floated it into its cradle for lifting and transportation. Because the boats were in such striking condition, they have been lifted intact and transported two miles, in cradles of scaffolding poles and planks, for conservation work at the Flag Fen archaeology site – where a famous timber causeway contemporary with the boats was built up over centuries until it stretched foralmost a mile across the fens. "My first thought was to deal with them in the usual way, by chopping them into more manageably sized chunks, but when I actually saw them they just looked so nice, I thought we had to find another way," Panter, an expert on waterlogged timber from York Archaeological Trust, said. "I think if I'd arrived on the site with a chainsaw, the team would have strung me up." Must Farm, now a quarry owned by Hanson UK, which has funded the excavation, has already yielded a wealth of evidence of prehistoric life, including a settlement built on a platform partly supported by stilts in the water, where artefacts including fabrics woven from wool, flax and nettles were found. Instead of living as dry-land hunters and farmers, the people had become experts at fishing: one eel trap found near the boats is identical to those still used by Peter Carter, the last traditional eel fisherman in the region. The boats will be on display from Wednesday at Flag Fen, viewed through windows in a container chilled to below 5c – funded with a £100,000 grant from English Heritage which regards their discovery as of outstanding importance – built within a barn at the site. At the moment conservation technician Emma Turvey, dressed in layers of winter clothes, is spending up to eight hours a day spraying the timbers to keep them waterlogged and remove any potentially decaying impurities. They will then be impregnated with a synthetic wax, polyethylene glycol, before being gradually dried out over the next two years for permanent display. Murrell is convinced there is more to be found down in the silt. "The creek continued outside the boundaries of the quarry, so it's off our site – but the next person who gets a chance to investigate will find more boats, I can almost guarantee it." http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/04/eight-prehistoric-boats-bronze-age |
Posted by moss4th June 2013ce |
The Long Man of Wilmington (Hill Figure) |
Long Man of Wilmington to get scout restorationA 235ft (72m) chalk carving cut into the hillside near Eastbourne in East Sussex is to be restored by scouts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-22732907 |
Posted by scubi631st June 2013ce |
Stonehenge and its Environs |
Ancient skeletons have been found on a Mansell house-building site near Stonehenge in Wiltshire."Six Saxon skeletons dating back more than 1,000 years and round barrows dating back to the Bronze Age 4,000 years ago have been discovered on a brownfield development site in Amesbury" http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/skeletons-found-on-mansell-site |
Posted by Hob20th May 2013ce |
Bodmin Moor and the Rest of Cornwall |
The Heritage Trust: 2013 Outreach EventThe Heritage Trust will be holding its Outreach Event in Cornwall this year. The event will begin with lunch (for those wanting one) at the Cheesewring Hotel in Minions, Liskeard on Friday, 21 June. We’ll meet at the hotel around 11:30am leaving there around 1pm for a visit to Trethevy Quoit, then back to base at Minions for visits to The Hurlers, Pipers, Rillaton Barrow and Stowe’s. More here - http://theheritagetrust.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/the-heritage-trust-2013-outreach-event-update/ |
Posted by The Heritage Trust17th May 2013ce |
Duns Law (Hillfort) |
Duns Law finally gives up its Beaker burial ground.Human remains and seven earthen vessels dating back to the Bronze Age Beaker settlers were uncovered by Scottish Water at Duns Law. More info : http://www.berwickshirenews.co.uk/news/local-headlines/duns-law-finally-gives-up-its-beaker-burial-ground-1-2923376 |
Posted by drewbhoy10th May 2013ce |
Stonehenge and its Environs |
Druid calls for fake human remains to be displayed at StonehengeA druid leader is calling for fake, rather than real, human remains to be put on display at Stonehenge. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-22438232 |
Posted by scubi63 8th May 2013ce |
Showing 1-10 of 1,988 news posts. Most recent first | Next 10
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