News Round Up

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—According to a Cosmos report, Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University and his colleagues analyzed levels of different elements in the growth rings of Australopithecus africanus teeth to investigate the hominin’s…

MORAVIA, CZECH REPUBLIC—Radio Praha reports that foundations of a fortification wall have been uncovered at the site of Břeclav Castle, which is located near the southern border of the Czech Republic, and radiocarbon dated to A.D. 1041. “This leads…

WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND—Science Magazine reports that large quantities of pig fat may have been used to transport megaliths to the site of Stonehenge. Lisa-Marie Shillito of Newcastle University and her colleagues suggest such grease would have made it…

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA—According to a report in The Baltic Times, the bases of two columns have been uncovered at the site of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, which was built in 1633 and burned down by the Nazis during World War II. It was formerly one of…

The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) excelled at telling stories through his art. He frequently depicted scenes from the Bible, as was customary in Europe in the 17th century, but Rembrandt depicted these familiar stories in new ways. He…

SASKATOON, CANADA—The Star Phoenix reports that archaeology student Kristina Chomyshen of the University of Saskatchewan uncovered a 6,000-year-old dart tip at the Wolf Willow site in south-central Canada’s Wanuskewin Heritage Park. The point would…

DURRES, ALBANIA—The Associated Press reports that members of the RPM Nautical Foundation discovered 22 amphoras in the Ionian Sea, off the coast of Albania’s Karaburun peninsula. The vessels are thought to have held wine or oil and to be at least 2,…

PLOVDIV, BULGARIA—According to a report in The Sofia Globe, a third-century Greek inscription honoring the god Dionysus has been found on a slab that was reused in the floor of a fifth-century Christian basilica at the site of Philippopolis. The…

Recently I had the pleasure of travelling to meet a number of our National Partners in the North of England and the Midlands, following my initial trip to the North East shortly after I joined the British Museum in 2016. It was wonderful to visit…

Unbelievably the digging season is nearly at an end at The Cairns. It only seems a few days since we started! This blog post is written by Holly Young who is about to start her MSc with us at the… Continue reading →

RENO, NEVADA—Cosmos reports that an international team of researchers analyzed particles of lead trapped in 13 ice cores from Greenland and the Russian Arctic in order to measure levels of economic activity over the past 1,500 years. Lead levels are…

ATHENS, GREECE—According to a Live Science report, a partial modern human skull found in a cave in southern Greece has been dated to 210,000 years ago, suggesting that modern humans left Africa and arrived in Eurasia some 150,000 years earlier than…

PÉCS, HUNGARY—Hungary Today reports that a Roman-era cemetery and the walls of a medieval structure have been unearthed at the site of Hungary’s Cathedral of Pécs. The original cathedral was constructed by Peter Orseolo, king of Hungary, in the…

DUBLIN, IRELAND—Gizmodo reports that an international team of scientists led by Marta Verdugo, then of Trinity College Dublin, sequenced the genomes of 67 wild aurochs and domesticated cattle, or Bos taurus, that lived in the Middle East and the…

In the years since the Battle of Peleliu, Palauans have largely avoided the ridges and caves where the worst fighting took place, wary of chancing upon the ubiquitous unexploded ordnance and disturbing the human remains that were left at the end of…

Church Tourism Week is the UK’s annual week-long programme of events designed to inspire us to explore and enjoy the ancient churches and chapels on our doorstep. The week takes place between July 26 and August 3 and to whet your appetite, the…

A story-filled exhibition at the Bank of England Museum celebrates its 325th birthday through art, design, architecture, politics, wartime, technology, fraud and forgery This impressive collection of objects, many of them emerging for the first time…

Decorative, functional and beautiful: ceramics from the last 400 years are on display in this celebration of Somerset slipware at Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury until November 9 The magic mixture of coloured clay and water, called ‘slip…

Jayne Williams of Rutland County Museum on a set of gallows used to execute five men in Oakham in the early nineteenth century These gallows are what’s known as the New Drop, a very early type of drop gallows and are the only surviving set in the…

The top secret wartime role of Benjamin Disraeli’s former home is being revealed by the National Trust at Hughenden The National Trust acquired Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s home, Hughenden in Buckinghamshire, in 1947, but the manor’s…