Historic England show off the most ancient decoratively carved piece of wood yet found in Britain – recently carbon dated to around 4620BCE, about 500 years older than the oldest previously known example. The Mesolithic timber was found in peat not far from the River Lambourn, by Derek Fawcett, about four years ago. You can spin a 3D model around on the link. (Don’t expect anything too decorative about the markings(!) but you can indulge in some wonder that someone made them 2000 years before Stonehenge was built).
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“Four Neolithic houses found in a Berkshire quarry are thought to make up one of the oldest permanent settlements ever found in England.
Archaeologists unearthed the 5,700-year-old foundations at Kingsmead Quarry, near Windsor.”
More here...
More “news teasers” from the BBC for Digging for Britain – but looks like the series will be worth watching.
This one covers a planned Iron Age settlement near Reading.
From ‘ThisisSlough.com‘
A 3,000-year-old hill-top settlement has been discovered during water mains digging.
Pottery and flint have been found alongside burnt bones and storage pits at a site near Taplow. The remains are thought to date back to 850 BC, and are from the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age.
A team of archaeologists are now trying to establish whether the settlement was permanent or temporary. More...
From the Wokingham Times 20.2.03
By Ricky Hindmarsh
A fragment of an infant’s skull has been found near pig bones on a primary school playing field in Winnersh earmarked for a housing development. Experts believe the skull could be part of a much wider Bronze Age burial ground.The unusual historical relic surprised archaeologists who say it is unusual to find human and animal bones together.Police and the coroner’s office have not been officially informed of the find which was made in February last year.
Details have only now been made public.
Initial evidence points to the remains being more than 100 years old.
A process called Carbon 14 dating is being used to determine the exact date, but a Bronze Age burial site found in the 1960s, just 100 yards away, suggests it could be a small satellite addition to the central site. Now Kev Beachus, senior archaeologist at BABTIE, Wokingham District Council’s highways consultants which surveys all large building applications, says the top-soil will have to be stripped off to search for the rest of the skeleton to comply with the letter of the law. There is no evidence of foul play and a thickening of the two-inch piece of skull suggests that death could have been caused by meningitis, it is thought.
Mr Beachus, who is unable to speculate on how the bone came to rest with the pig remains, said too little was known about Bronze Age settlements to be entirely sure of what else could be found.
He said: “Finding the infant’s skull with the pig bones did lead us to think of some terrible things, but it was found separately in the same ditch we were digging. It is unusual and in my 15 years I have never come across anything like this. In law, human remains have to be found ‘in totum’, which is why I will insist that further work be done.”
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When the topsoil is peeled off, which could take about six weeks, the site will be opened to the public for one day only...
A hoard of Iron Age coins from Sulhamstead dating back more than 2,000 years has been acquired by West Berkshire Museum.
The Sulhamstead hoard comprises eight gold coins – seven gold staters and one quarter stater – from the late Iron Age.
Staters were used by the Celtic tribes throughout the Iron Age, such as the Atrebates who inhabited Berkshire, Hampshire and West Sussex.
Indeed, the quarter stater is a rare coin particular to East Wiltshire and Berkshire.
The hoard was unearthed by a metal detectorist from Great Shefford between 2013 and 2015 and a coroner later ruled that the coins were treasure.
Holds the Crow Down Hoard found in Lambourn near the Ridgeway consisting of five gold objects – possibly arm adornments. And the Yattendon Hoard consisting of 58 bronze objects – not all on display.
The Yattendon Hoard consists of 58 bronze objects – some of which are available to see in West Berkshire Museum, Newbury.
