News Round Up

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—Live Science reports that a previously unknown population of ancient humans was identified by sampling DNA extracted from 31,000-year-old children’s teeth unearthed in northeastern Siberia. The teeth were the only human remains…

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND—The Press and Journal reports that archaeologists led by Gordon Noble of the University of Aberdeen uncovered a well carved into the granite of Mither Tap, one of the rock outcrops in Bennachie, a range of hills in eastern…

KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE—According to a Seacoast Online report, a 10-foot-long dugout canoe was discovered in the shifting sands of the intertidal zone at Maine’s Cape Porpoise Harbor. Archaeologist and Maine Game Warden Tim Spahr and his colleagues in…

ANGOULÊME, FRANCE—BBC News reports that a piece of sandstone thought to have been engraved with images of animals and geometric motifs some 12,000 years ago has been discovered at a hunting site in southwestern France. The stone, which measures…

JENA, GERMANY—Genetic traces of migrants who traveled from Siberia to North America some 5,000 years ago have been detected in living people by a team of researchers led by Pavel Flegontov of the University of Ostrava and Stephan Schiffels of the…

The National Museum of Scotland launches a major exhibition exploring the Romantic fascination with the Scottish Highlands, from Culloden to Balmoral Wild moorlands, bagpipes and the tartans of the clans – they’re all as Scottish as malt whisky and…

Textile samples from the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester give up their secrets thanks to t’internet Archivists at the Science and Industry Museum working to find out more about their early nineteenth century samples have unearthed some…

Watch military historian David Fletcher discussing the unusual Swimming Sherman tank, used by the allies during the Normandy landings The rather odd machine was part of a group of innovative tanks developed by Major-General Sir Percy Hobart. Known…

As Historic England launches a new book, D-Day UK, marking the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings by exploring how they were made possible through 100 locations in Britain, we look at some of the archive photos and places featured Trebah…

Recently I accepted a new position at the National Trust, working across south-east England on the amazing sites and landscapes in the Trust’s care. With this change in roles, it seemed appropriate to devote my next few columns to National Trust…

Sixteen years after a spectacular early Anglo-Saxon burial was discovered in Essex, a team of more than 40 archaeological experts – including conservators and finds specialists, ancient timber specialists, and engineers – has produced revolutionary…

A chance find made during re-examination of zooarchaeological remains from Fishbourne Roman palace could push back the timeline of the introduction of rabbits to Britain by more than a millennium. The post Roman rabbit discovered at Fishbourne…

A recent ancient DNA study looking at the genetics of Neolithic Britons provides strong evidence to suggest that the shift to farming in Britain was due to migration from the Continent and not from local populations adopting agricultural methods –…

A long-forgotten piece of one of Stonehenge’s famous sarsen stones, which make up the outer ring of the monument, has travelled thousands of miles from the USA to return to the Salisbury Plain site. The core was drilled from one of the stones during…

The remains of a long-destroyed medieval castle have been unearthed by the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA) during a watching brief for a road infrastructure project in the centre of Kirkwall, Orkney. The post Remains of Kirkwall…

A settlement dating to the Iron Age and the Romano-British period has been uncovered near the village of Childrey in Oxfordshire, ahead of works to lay new water pipes for a Thames Water project. The post Unusual Iron Age burial uncovered at…

Facial reconstructions have become an increasingly common output of archaeological analysis. From the dark-skinned Cheddar Man (see CA 337) to the battle-scarred men from the Mary Rose, these life-like models put a face (literally) on the past in a…

The foundations of a house built by Captain Cook’s father – which stood in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, until it was moved stone by stone to Australia in 1934 – will be on public display this summer following their recent rediscovery. The post…

Our cover feature takes us 16 years back in time to revisit a justly famous Essex excavation. Found in 2003, the burial chamber of the ‘Prittlewell prince’ was a remarkable discovery: an undisturbed Anglo-Saxon tomb furnished with well-preserved…

These photographs from the collection of Imperial War Museums show the build up and aftermath of the Normandy landings of June 1944 in vivid color Most of the British images we know from the Normandy campaign of June 1944 were taken on black and…