News Round Up

The small size of the Cycladic island of Delos belies its significance in the ancient world, both as a major sanctuary and as a thriving port. According to myth, it was on this remote and rocky pocket of land in the Aegean that Leto, pregnant by…

What is it? This small Egyptian figure, carved out of red sandstone around 1800 BC, depicts a familiar mythical creature: the sphinx. It was perhaps a votive offering to the goddess Hathor; Egyptian hieroglyphs inscribed on the sphinx’s right…

Survey near the town of Palpa, Peru, has revealed a wealth of geoglyphs. Are they older than their celebrated neighbours at Nasca? And were they aimed at a very different audience? The post The Palpa figures appeared first on World Archaeology.

The mysterious images on the Nasca plateau, Peru, have captured countless imaginations. But where did this tradition of planting pictures in the earth come from? A curious congregation of figures and beasts, clustered around the nearby city of Palpa…

The mysterious images on the Nasca plateau, Peru, have captured countless imaginations. But where did this tradition of planting pictures in the earth come from? A curious congregation of figures and beasts, clustered around the nearby city of Palpa…

KENT, ENGLAND—Kent Online reports that traces of a 150-foot-long, 50-foot-wide Roman agricultural building in use for about 400 years have been uncovered in southeastern England. “It was divided into zones of activity, so the west end was a…

MOBILE, ALABAMA—USA Today reports that a search of the Mobile River has yielded burned wreckage of a ship that researchers say matches the characteristics of Clotilda, the last known vessel to bring enslaved people from Africa to America. “We are…

LEICESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND—According to a report in The Guardian, a 2,300-year-old wooden shield was discovered in a waterlogged pit in England’s Midlands by a team of archaeologists led by Matt Beamish of the University of Leicester Archaeological…

This large, handsome volume, organised into 11 well-crafted chapters and associated appendices, describes the trenching rationale from 25 sites and reveals the former street and building layout of the town, along with a vast artefact assemblage. The…

In this fascinating book, Bryony Coles charts the history of beavers in Wales, from their earliest evidence dating to the Ice Age (found in Pontnewydd Cave in North Wales) to historical evidence that suggests that they continued to exist in Wales as…

Written with an evocative turn of phrase and a sharp eye for interesting detail, Citadel of the Saxons is packed full of information, and impressive in its scope given that it is under 200 pages long. Rory begins his account in the 5th century…

Based on the ‘Our Lincolnshire’ project, this book details the project’s aim of connecting the people of Lincolnshire with the rural heritage of their region, and the challenges this presented. Given that one of the core issues with public…

Caroline Wickham- Jones offers a useful, if at times rather dry, overview of current research on submerged landscapes around the world. The realisation that sea levels were up to 140m lower globally at the height of the last Ice Age (26,000 to 19,…

Roots of Nationhood is a timely volume that explores questions of heritage and nationhood. The chapters offer perspectives on themes of place, material culture, ideologies, and engaging with cultural heritage. The post Review – Roots of Nationhood…

An exhibition at Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology brings together artefacts from early excavations at Star Carr, the latest finds from the celebrated site, and more, to conjure up what Mesolithic life was like beside Lake Flixton.…

POZNAŃ, POLAND—Science in Poland reports that an international team of researchers led by Maciej Chyleński of Adam Mickiewicz University attempted to recover and analyze genetic material from the remains of nearly 40 people who were buried some 8,…

STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND—BBC News reports that traces of a seventeenth-century fort were unearthed on the island of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides during construction work. The stone fort is thought to have been built by the order of Oliver…

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—According to an Associated Press report, archaeologists and microbiologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and their colleagues extracted yeast from tiny pores in nearly two dozen ancient pottery fragments recovered from…

Many moons ago, the ADS decided that it was going to try and increase its social media presence.  To this end, we started tweeting, and posting, and doing all sorts of social media like things.  From this, we began experimenting with the world of…

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—The Independent reports that Heidi Dawson-Hobbis and Kate Robson Brown of the University of Bristol and their colleagues analyzed a collection of medieval human remains held in wooden caskets in southern England’s Winchester…