Rock Crystals Recovered from Neolithic Burial Mound in England

Distinctive and rare rock crystals were moved over long distances by Early Neolithic Brits and were used to mark their burial sites, according to groundbreaking new archaeological research.

Evidence for the use of rock crystal – a rare type of perfectly transparent quartz which forms in large hexagonal gems – has occasionally been found at prehistoric sites in the British Isles, but the little investigation has previously been done specifically into how the material was used and its potential significance.

A group of archaeologists from The University of Manchester worked with experts from the University of Cardiff and Herefordshire County Council on a dig at Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire, a mile south of another dig at Arthur’s Stone.

There, they studied a complex of 6000-year-old timber halls, burial mounds and enclosures from the Early Neolithic period, when farming and agriculture arrived in Britain for the first time. 

As well as a range of artefacts including pottery, stone implements and cremated bones, they uncovered rock crystal which had been knapped like the flint at the site, but unlike the flint, it had not been turned into tools such as arrowheads or scrapers – instead, pieces were intentionally gathered and deposited within the burial mounds.

The experts say the material was deposited at the site over many generations, potentially for up to 300 years.

Only a few places in the British Isles have produced pure crystals large enough to produce the material at Dorstone Hill, the closest being Snowdonia in North Wales and St David’s Head in South West Wales – this means that the ancient Brits must have carried the material across large distances to reach the site. 

As a result, the researchers speculate that the material may have been used by people to demonstrate their local identities and their connections with other places around the British Isles. 

“It was highly exciting to find the crystal because it is exceptionally rare – in a time before the glass, these pieces of perfectly transparent solid material must have been really distinctive,” said lead researcher Nick Overton.

“I was very interested to discover where the material came from, and how people might have worked and used it.”

“The crystals would have looked very unusual in comparison to other stones they used, and are extremely distinctive as they emit light when hit or rubbed together and produce small patches of rainbow – we argue that their use would have created memorable moments that brought individuals together, forged local identities and connected the living with the dead whose remains they were deposited with.„

Dr Nick Overton

The researchers plan to study materials found at other sites to discover whether people were working with this material in similar ways, in order to uncover connections and local traditions.

They also intend to look at the chemical composition of the crystal to find out if they can track down its specific source.  

7,000-Year-Old Forest and Footprints Uncovered in the Atlantis of Britain

Ancient footprints, as well as prehistoric tree stumps and logs, have become visible along a 200-meter stretch of a coastline at Low Hauxley near Amble, Northumberland, in what is believed to be Doggerland, the Atlantis of Britain.

The Daily Mail reports that the forest existed in the late Mesolithic period. It began to form around 5,300 BC, and it was covered by the ocean three centuries later.

The studies proved that at the time, when the ancient forest existed, the sea level was much lower. It was a period when Britain had recently separated from the land of what is currently Denmark.

The forest consisted mostly of hazel, alder, and oak trees. Researchers believe the forest was part of Doggerland, an ancient stretch of land, which connected the UK and Europe.

Doggerland: Stone Age Atlantis of Britain

Located in the North Sea, Doggerland is believed to have once measured approximately 100,000 square miles (258998 square kilometres). However, the end of the Ice Age saw a great rise in the sea level and an increase in storms and flooding in the region, causing Doggerland to gradually shrink.

Doggerland sometimes called the Stone Age Atlantis of Britain or the prehistoric Garden of Eden, is an area archaeologists have been waiting to rediscover. Finally, modern technology has reached a level in which their dreams may become a reality.

Doggerland is thought to have been first inhabited around 10,000 BC, and innovative technology is expected to aid a new study in glimpsing what life was like for the prehistoric humans living in the region before the catastrophic floods covered the territory sometime between 8000 – 6000 BC.

Sunken Land Reveals its Secrets

The latest research was made by a group of archaeologists and volunteers led by a team from Archaeological Research Services Ltd, which previously performed some other projects related to the Northumberland.

The works were possible due to the lower level of water. The major excavations involved a total of 700 people and uncovered part of an Iron Age site dating from around 300 BC near Druidge Bay.

Doctor Clive Waddington, of Archaeology Research Services, said:

”In 5,000 BC the sea level rose quickly and it drowned the land. The sand dunes were blown back further into the land, burying the forest, and then the sea receded a little. The sea level is now rising again, cutting back the sand dunes, and uncovering the forest.”

Ancient Footprints

Waddington maintains that his team also discovered evidence of humans living nearby. They found footprints of adults and children. Due to the results of the analysis of the footprints, it is believed that they wore leather shoes.  Animal footprints of wild boar, brown bears and red deer also had been found.

Fossilized Forests

The remains of the forest of Doggerland do not belong to the oldest known forest. The oldest fossilized forest was discovered by a team from Binghamton University in the town of Gilboa in upstate New York.

The Gilboa area has been known as a tree fossil location since the late 19th century. However, the first researchers arrived there in the 1920s.

The most recent research started in 2004, when Linda VanAller Hernick, palaeontology collection manager, and Frank Mannolini, palaeontology collection technician, uncovered more intact specimens.

According to the article published in 2012 by William Stein, associate professor of biological sciences at Binghamton, the fossils discovered in this area are between 370 to 380 million years old.

See the 5,000-year-old forest unearthed by storms:

HUNDREDS Of Megalithic Monuments Discovered Around Stonehenge

In a groundbreaking news release, archaeologists have revealed the results of a four-year-long project to map the hidden landscape beneath the surface of the Stonehenge environs, and what they found is nothing short of amazing.

Through their high-tech devices, they could see a landscape teeming with burial mounds, chapels, shrines, pits, and other structures, which had never been seen before, including another massive megalithic monument composed of 60 giant stones stretched out along a 330-metre long c-shaped enclosure.

According to The Independent, the discovery dramatically alters the prevailing view of Stonehenge as the primary site in the landscape. Instead, it presents the Salisbury Plain as an active religious centre with more than 60 key locations where ancient peoples could carry out sacred rituals and fulfil their religious obligations.

“This is not just another find,” said Professor Vince Gaffney of the University of Birmingham. “It’s going to change how we understand Stonehenge.”

Using powerful ground-penetrating radar, which can scan archaeological sites to a depth of up to four metres, investigators from Birmingham and Bradford universities and from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Vienna discovered hundreds of hidden monuments and features that cover the landscape in all directions.

The biggest surprise was a 330-metre-long line of up to 60 buried stone pillars, inside the bank of a large, bowl-shaped feature called Durrington Walls, Britain’s largest henge, which sits beside the River Avon.

The 3-metre long and 1.5-metre wide stones are laid horizontally inside the mound, although they may have once stood vertically.

“Up till now, we had absolutely no idea that the stones were there,” said Professor Gaffney.

The line of megalithic stones seems to have formed the southern arm of a c-shaped ritual enclosure which faced directly towards the river, the rest of which was made up of an artificially scarped natural elevation in the ground.

The monument was later converted from a c-shaped to a roughly circular enclosure, now known as Durrington Walls – Britain’s largest pre-historic henge, roughly 12 times the size of Stonehenge itself.

In addition to this monumental discovery, the research team found more than 60 other previously unknown pre-historic monuments scattered across Salisbury Plain, including 20 large ritual pits up to 5 metres in diameter, 8 previously unknown Bronze Age burial mounds, 4 Iron Age shrines or tombs, 6 Bronze Age and Iron Age livestock enclosures, and 17 other henge-like Neolithic and Bronze Age structures, each between 10 and 30 metres in diameter.

Some may well have consisted of circles of large timber posts – wooden equivalents of conventional prehistoric stone circles.

“It shows that, in terms of temples and shrines, Stonehenge was far from being alone,” said Professor Gaffney.

Another significant discovery was a mound between Durrington Walls and Stonehenge, located approximately 3 km from Stonehenge, which has been revealed as a 33-metre long, wooden ‘House of the Dead’.

Archaeologists found evidence of ritual practices including excarnation, in which the skin and organs of the deceased were removed.  The building is thought to have been used for seven generations by a single family before it was buried in chalk and forgotten for thousands of years.

The research team is now analysing the data in an attempt to piece together exactly how Neolithic and Bronze Age people used the Stonehenge landscape. Using computer models, they are trying to work out how all the newly discovered monuments were connected with each other.

This incredible discovery has been announced ahead of a two-part special BBC Two documentary titled ‘Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath, in which the research team will release the full extent of their findings.

Watch trailer of the Operation Stonehenge BBC series:

Neolithic Tomb Linked to King Arthur Investigated in England

High above one of western Britain’s loveliest valleys, the silence is broken by the sound of gentle digging, scraping and brushing, along with bursts of excited chatter as another ancient feature is revealed or a curious visitor stops by to find out what is going on.

This summer archaeologists have been granted rare permission to excavate part of the Arthur’s Stone site, a neolithic burial plot with soaring views across the Golden Valley in Herefordshire and the Black Mountains of south-east Wales.

Using their version of keyhole surgery, the archaeologists unearthed features, including what appear to be stone steps leading up to the 5,000-year-old tomb, and tools used by the first people to farm this landscape.

The 25-strong team have launched drones that have pinpointed possible sites of several other ancient burial spots nearby, all of which are leading them to surmise that Arthur’s Stone – like the circles at Stonehenge and Avebury – was an important meeting place and possibly part of a much larger complex of inter-related monuments.

“Arthur’s Stone is one of the most wonderful ancient monuments in the care of the nation but it’s been very poorly understood,” said Julian Thomas, a professor of archaeology at the University of Manchester, who is leading the dig. “We’re trying to do justice to it, put it in the context of what was happening in the very early neolithic.”

Over the centuries the site has inspired storytellers as well as archaeologists and historians. King Arthur was said to have killed a giant on the spot; indentations on the surface of the tomb’s capstone were supposedly made by the creature’s elbows as it fell backwards.

In the 20th century, CS Lewis is said to have used the monument as the inspiration for the stone table on which Aslan is sacrificed in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Thomas said the true story emerging was of a monument developed over many decades or centuries in the very early neolithic period by the first farmers and last hunter-gatherers.

He said it was becoming clear that it was almost certainly connected to two other nearby sites, Dorstone Hill, where prehistoric halls were burned and incorporated into burial mounds, and a long barrow at Cross Lodge.

The site also seems oriented towards a mountain on the horizon across the border in Wales called the Skirrid, another place steeped in myth and legend, where a landslide was said to have been caused by an earthquake or lightning strike at the moment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Keith Ray, an honorary professor of archaeology at Cardiff University, who is also overseeing the digging, said he had been asking people to look afresh at the Skirrid and imagine what it may have meant to ancient people. “I’ve thrown out one idea, it’s a bit wacky, but could it have looked like a mammoth to them and reminded them of this giant creature that used to roam here.”

Visitors have flocked to the dig from near and far. Ben Hughes, a musician based in Cardiff, said he found the site “strange, weird, wonderful, fascinating”. He said: “For me it feels like an in-between sort of place, with the more gentle landscape behind and the mountains over there. I can see why people have met here for centuries.”

Pam Thom-Rowe, an English Heritage volunteer guide, said visitors from as far away as Texas had been on site. “To me it feels like the monument is putting feelers out on the landscape.”

Such is the excitement at what is being found – and the public response – that the chief executive of English Heritage, Kate Mavor, is paying a visit on Friday. She said new archaeology and research continued to find fresh stories.

“Exploring a site like Arthur’s Stone is a fascinating process and something we wanted to open up to the public,” she said. “We’ve had a great response.”

Keeping an eye on the dig was Win Scutt, a properties curator at English Heritage. He said it was rare for permission to be given for this type of exploration within a scheduled monument. “This is very delicate, targeted keyhole sampling to try to answer specific questions,” he said.

Scutt said ideas about what the site was all about had changed immensely over the past few weeks – making the details on the English Heritage interpretation board out of date. “But I won’t be in too much of a rush to change it. The story will be different next year and the year after that. Which is the very exciting thing.”

Helle’s Toilet: Three-Person Loo Seat was Unusual Medieval Status Symbol

A rare 12th-century toilet seat built to accommodate three users at once is to go on display for the first time at the Museum of London Docklands.

Nine hundred years after the roughly carved plank of oak was first placed over a cesspit near a tributary of the Thames, it will form the centrepiece of an exhibition about the capital’s “secret” rivers.

The strikingly well-preserved seat, still showing the axe marks where its three rough holes were cut, once sat behind a mixed commercial and residential tenement building on what is now Ludgate Hill, near St Paul’s Cathedral, on land that in the mid-1100s would have been a small island in the river Fleet.

Remarkably, archaeologists have even been able to identify the owners of the building, which was known at the time as Helle: a capmaker called John de Flete and his wife, Cassandra.

“So what I love about this is that we know the names of the people whose bottoms probably sat on it,” said Kate Sumnall, the curator of archaeology for the exhibition.

They would probably have shared the facilities with shopkeepers and potentially other families who lived and worked in the modest tenement block, she said. “This is a really rare survival. We don’t have many of these in existence at all.”

Around 50 small rivers and tributaries of the Thames are known, according to Sumnall, many of which, including the Fleet, Westbourne, Effra and Tyburn, have now been routed underground. But their influence on the topography of London has been significant, and their banks, bends and islands can still be identified in the capital’s slopes and bumps. “No one perfectly flattens the land before building the next stage,” she said.

Among the other artefacts going on display is a late bronze age sword dating from 1000BC, two Viking battleaxes and a 14th-century iron sword found in Putney, all of which appear barely corroded despite having spent centuries buried in mud.

Also on display will be a late 18th-century copper alloy dog collar, inscribed to “Tom, of the Gray Hound, Bucklers Bury” – a street close to what is now Bank – which was also excavated from the Fleet.

“We are very lucky in London that we tend to get really great preservation of a lot of things from the river,” said Luisa Duarte, the archaeological conservator.

Thanks to the low-oxygen environments of the waters and surrounding muds, she said, “in the case of the metals we have very low corrosion, and in organics, we have a very low biological activity. That’s why in London we have so much wood and leather – sometimes we have more organic Roman material than in Rome.”

The toilet seat was first excavated in the 1980s as part of what was, at the time, the largest archaeological dig in London. But because the money ran out, the findings were never published, which is why the seat has never gone on display before now.

The museum has commissioned a replica, which will form part of the exhibition and which visitors will be invited to try.

Sumnall said it was quite comfortable, but were three people to use at once “I imagine you would be touching shoulders, which would be slightly awkward.”

A Search for a Lost Hammer Led to the Largest Cache of Roman Treasure Ever Found in Britain

The Hoxne Hoard is the largest cache of late Roman silver and gold which had been discovered in Britain. It was found on 16th November 1992 in the village of Hoxne by a metal detectorist Eric Lawes who was only looking for a lost hammer.

He discovered a hoard that consists of 865 Roman gold, silver and bronze coins from the late fourth and fifth century, currently estimated at around $4.3 million.

The hoard contains several rare and important objects and one of them is the Empress pepper pot.

It was excavated by professional archaeologists, who estimated a particular significance in the items found, for they were largely undisturbed and intact.

The hoard had been placed in a wooden oak chest and within the chest, there had been some objects placed in smaller boxes while others had been wrapped in a woollen cloth.

The Hoxne Hoard contains 569 gold coins which date to the reigns of eight different emperors, 191 silver coins (siliquae – silver coins produced from the 4th century CE) and 24 bronze coins (nummi).

The coins date after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province.

The jewellery in the hoard is entirely made of gold. There is one body chain, six necklaces, three rings, and nineteen bracelets.

The most precious jewel in the hoard is the body chain which is made of four finely looped gold chains, attached at front and back to plaques.

This kind of body chain can be seen in Roman art, sometimes on the goddess Venus or Nymphs.

One of the most important finds in the hoard is the Empress pepper pot.

The empress’ hair, clothing and jewellery are carefully represented and she is holding a scroll in her left hand, giving the impression of education as well as wealth.

There are other pepper pots in the hoard: The Hercules pepper pot and Antaeus pepper pot.

The hoard also contains a lot of silver-gilt items: four pepper pots, a beaker, a vase, four bowls, a small dish and 98 silver spoons.

Iron and organic materials from the remains of the outer wooden chest were found in large iron rings, double-spiked loops and hinges, angle brackets, iron strips, strap hinges and nails.

The most important items are on display in a perspex reconstruction of the chest at the British Museum alongside the roughly contemporary Thetford Hoard.

Sutton Hoo: One of the most magnificent archaeological finds in England

In 1939, an excavation was carried out on two 6th and 7th-century cemeteries at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, England.  Beneath Mound No. 1, a stunning archaeological discovery was made. 

Historians were amazed to find an undisturbed ship burial that contained a wealth of outstanding artefacts of significant cultural and historical significance.

The archaeological team found the complete outline of the ship perfectly preserved in the sand of the burial chamber.  The wood of the ship had decomposed, but the stains in the sand gave an accurate depiction of the construction of the ship, and all the metal rivets were perfectly in place. 

The ship was built from oak and was found to have a tall, rising stem and stern that measured 27 meters.  At its broadest part, the ship was 4.4 meters wide, and it had an inboard depth of 1.5 meters.  The hull followed a clinker construction style, with nine planks on each side of the hull riveted together with iron rivets.

The ship had been laboriously carried from the river and carefully placed in a prepared trench.  It was buried at a depth where only the stem and stern posts peeked out of the ground. 

The body and all the funeral artefacts were then placed in the ship, and the site was covered with a soil mound.  The burial place remained undisturbed until carefully uncovered by archaeologists in 1939.

This excavation was an incredibly important find, as it straddled the time in English history between myth and legends and the creation of historical documentation. It is generally accepted that the ship was the tomb of Raedwald, who was the ruler over East Anglia.

There was no body found, but analysis of the soil indicates that there was a body that had been destroyed by the acidic soil.  The coffin or wooden platform that carried the body was close to 9 feet long. 

From the distribution of the artefacts, it appears the head was placed at the western end of the platform.  The archaeologists found an iron ringed bucket, an iron lamp that still had its beeswax fuel inside, and high-quality personal items such as a helmet, belt buckle, shoulder tabs, jewellery, coins, silverware, and armour. 

The artefacts found in the tomb have provided a wealth of information about the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia as well as the Anglo-Saxon civilization.

Only one occurrence of Middle Eastern bitumen had been found in the British Isles prior to this discovery, but the Sutton Hoo bitumen is older than the previously discovered specimen. This new discovery is very exciting, as it adds further evidence to the theory that the Anglo-Saxons traded over a far wider territory than was previously thought.

The bitumen was not left in the grave by mistake.  It was deliberately placed at the head and foot of the body, and its proximity to the body indicates its value to the people.  It is not clear if this bitumen was a diplomatic gift or if it was a product gained through trade routes, but its presence in the grave indicates that the Anglo-Saxons traded widely and made use of goods brought from afar.

It is evidence that the bitumen deposits in the Middle East were traded north through the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe to reach as far north as England, Mail Online reported.

The discovery of trade goods such as this bitumen adds extensively to our understanding of how people lived in this era since the myths and legends of that time tend to obscure facts.  Historians can use these artefacts to try to identify how trade routes worked, and thus learn more about how people moved and interacted so long ago.

Bronze Age Pot Discovered in Wales

An archaeological dig has uncovered what could be the earliest house found in Cardiff. Volunteers and archaeologists from the Caerau and Ely Rediscovering (CAER) Heritage Project, found a clay pot which could be about 3,000 years old.

The group were looking for the missing link between the late Iron Age and the early Roman period.

Co-director of the project Dr David Wyatt said what they found was “much more remarkable.”

The archaeologists said the roundhouse, located near Cardiff West Community High School, could provide the earliest clues on the origins of Cardiff.

Over 300 people have taken part in the dig, at Trelai Park, about half a mile away from the Caerau Hillfort, a heritage site of national significance.

Archaeologists and community members had previously discovered finds of Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman and medieval origins at the hillfort.

Experts believed the settlement dubbed “Trelai Enclosure” could provide the missing link between the late Iron Age and early Roman period, showing what happened to people once they had moved on from the hillfort.

‘Incredible development’

But, the roundhouse predates it, a clay pot discovered at the site has given the team a firmer indication of the time period the building can be traced to.

Dr Wyatt added that they believed the roundhouse could have been constructed in the mid to late Bronze Age, going back to between 1500 and 1100 BC.

“The enclosure definitely predates the hillfort, people were living here before the hillfort was built.

“It’s an incredible development and sheds light on the earliest inhabitants of Cardiff,” he added.

Project co-director Dr Oliver Davis said: “What we’ve found is completely unexpected and even more exciting.

“This enclosure could be providing us with the earliest clues on the origins of Cardiff, the pot that’s been found is beautifully decorated and preserved – it is extremely rare to find pottery of this quality.

“It’s also unusual to find a Bronze Age settlement in Wales – there are only one or two other Bronze Age sites in this country.”

‘Opportunity to learn’

Nearly 300 volunteers have participated in the dig so far, run by CAER, a partnership between Cardiff University, Action in Caerau and Ely (ACE), local schools, residents and heritage partners.

Archaeologist Tom Hicks and volunteers Charlie Adams both found and recovered the pot during the dig.

Mr Hicks said: This is a very well-preserved example of Bronze Age pottery, and a significant find for the archaeological record in the region.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to learn more about the lives of the people living on the sire around 3,000 years ago.”

He added that further scientific analysis may be able to tell what the pot was used for before it ended up in the enclosure ditch, and how or where the pot was made.

Headteacher at Cardiff West Community High School, Martin Hullard said: “We’re delighted to be involved in this exciting archaeological project, our students have loved learning about the history that’s just a stone’s throw away from their school.”