News Round Up

On this whistle-stop tour of Roman York, Adam Parker gives us a tale of two cities. One is the military fortress, which was established in AD 70 or 71 and would shape the growth of the city long after the Romans left. Then there was the colonia, the…

The Isle of Raasay is in sharp focus in Scottish culture. It is the place whose cleared settlements informed Sorley MacLean’s important Gaelic poem Hallaig. It is the landscape where Calum MacLeod spent ten years in the 1960s and 1970s hand-building…

Torbay will mean only one thing to most people: holidays! In Torre Abbey, however, the area holds a gem of monastic archaeology. The site was founded quite late, in 1196, by the Premonstratensians (reformed Augustinian canons). When it was closed in…

They are the biggest relics of their age, and there are more than a hundred of them in Britain, yet because they do not easily fit into the modern view of post-Roman society – stripped of its hordes of rampaging Saxons – linear earthworks, or dykes…

It was said that astronomy was divided into two: study of the Crab Nebula and the rest. Similarly, in British prehistory, the Beaker Phenomenon with all its expansive bling outshines all others. The last decade has seen an almost nova-like explosion…

UTTARAKHAND, INDIA—An international group of researchers has carried out a new study of human remains found at Roopkund Lake in northern India, according to The Atlantic. The small body of water, which is more than three miles above sea level in the…

ISLE OF WIGHT, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that an 8,000-year-old wooden platform has been discovered off the Isle of Wight coast near Yarmouth. The seabed where the structure was found—at a depth of roughly 36 feet—would have been dry land when the…

PERTH, AUSTRALIA—One of the earliest sites showing Aboriginal occupation of northwestern Australia—some 50,000 years ago—has been discovered at the Drysdale River catchment in the Kimberley region, The West Australian reports. Archaeologists led by…

BAMBURGH, ENGLAND—According to a report in The Northumberland Gazette, archaeologists excavating Anglo-Saxon remains at Bamburgh Castle on England's northeast coast have unearthed the remains of a large building dating to the mid-seventh to mid-…

As an immediately recognisable monument, Hadrian’s Wall has long proved a rich seam of inspiration for cartoonists. Lucia Marchini visited a new exhibition exploring how the frontier can be funny. The post Review – Borderline funny appeared first on…

‘Love is love, right?’ That’s what a visitor said to me a few weeks ago, as I watched the rainbow flag fly above the British Museum. I’m not usually a morning person, but on Thursday 4 July I woke up early to join a small team of staff and…

How did cities come to flourish in the Negev Desert? George Nash has gone in search of Shivta’s former glory. The Negev Desert of southern Israel holds many secrets from the distant past. Its landscape and environment are no longer what they were…

Claims and counter-claims about a sculptural fragment held by the British Museum brought a touch of trepidation to a celebrity visit during excavations at Knidos, the Turkish city of Aphrodite, in 1971, as Richard Hodges remembers in this exclusive…

LIMA, PERU—BBC News reports that a mural decorated with sculpted figures depicting a smiling toad perched above a human face has been discovered at the 3,800-year-old site of Vichama, a center of Peru's prehistoric Caral culture, which originated…

TEHRAN, IRAN—According to a Tasnim News Agency report, recent analysis of a tooth recovered in 1999 from Wezmeh Cave, in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, provides the first direct evidence for Neanderthal presence in the region. Fereidoun…

GWYNEDD, WALES—Archaeologists are working to learn more about an Iron Age hillfort near Caernarfon in north Wales that is being gradually eroded by the sea, according to a report from BBC News. The fort at Dinas Dinlle is believed to date back about…

LYMINGE, ENGLAND—According to a BBC report, archaeologists excavating within the medieval churchyard at St. Mary and St. Ethelburga Parish Church have revealed a much older Anglo-Saxon building that appears to be one of the earliest stone churches…

What is it? This mid 3rd century AD semi-cylindrical shield is known as a scutum and was used by legionary soldiers of the Roman Empire. Constructed of thin strips of wood glued together in layers to create a plywood board, the surface is covered…

CAHORS, FRANCE—A limestone sarcophagus containing the remains of an elderly woman dating to the seventh century has been unearthed in Cahors, in southwestern France, according to a report from RFI. The discovery was made as part of excavations…

CARDIFF, WALES—Wales Online reports that recent excavations at Caerau, an Iron Age hillfort on the outskirts of Cardiff, have resulted in a number of new finds dating to both the Iron Age and the Roman era. Archaeologists believe Iron Age people…