Pic: BBC News

The skulls of scores of young men have been found in a burial pit in Dorset on the route of a new road for the 2012 Olympics. So far 45 skulls, believed to be almost 2,000 years old, have been found, and more may be found as the pit is emptied. Archaeologists have called the discovery extraordinary, saying it could be evidence of a disaster, a mass execution, a battle or possibly an epidemic.

"We think that these dismembered bodies are likely to be native Iron Age Britons." 

The question is – how did they die and who killed them," said David Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology. Continue Reading »

Pic: Evening Star

For generations the sarsen stones at Alphamstone near Sudbury (on the Essex/Suffolk border, England) have been at the centre of hot debate as to whether they were ever part of the only proper stone circle outside the west of England. There are two stones marking the entrance to St Barnabas Church and a number of others further back near – and in – the church, but they form neither a circle nor part of a circle.

But Paul Daw, a surveyor who has visited more than 300 of the 400 or so stone circles, timber circles and henge sites in England, believes he might have found the original location of a stone circle in the churchyard using dowsing. He believes the stones which visitors to the church can see have been moved away from a once-standing circle in a corner of the churchyard. Continue Reading »

Pic: Aldaron

NS Gill, About.com’s Ancient History specialist has blogged about Boudicca in some detail. She writes that Boudicca (also spelled Boadicea and Boudica) was the wife of King Prasutagus of the Celtic Iceni, in the east of ancient Britain. When the Romans conquered Britain, they allowed the king to continue his rule, but when he died and his wife, Boudicca took over, the Romans wanted the territory. They are said to have stripped and beaten Boudicca and raped her daughters.

As a result, in about A.D. 60, Boudicca led her troops and the Trinovantes of Camulodunum (Colchester) against the Romans, killing thousands in Camulodunum, London, and Verulamium (St. Albans). The tide turned and the Roman governor in Britain Gaius Suetonius Paullinus (or Paulinus) defeated the Celts. Continue Reading »

One of the Vikings’ most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland. The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old. It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings.

The news was announced by the BBC, and they say:

Almost 6,000 artefacts and a Viking chieftain’s grave have been discovered at the site, which was established by the year 860. The grave contains a sword, shield and silver mark.

Source

Originally posted 2008-05-12 11:43:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

A member of the Catalan government told Welsh Member’s of Parliament this week that business had nothing to fear from the introduction of legislation in Wales that would strengthen the position of the Welsh language, reports Cornwall 24. Bernat Joan i Mari, who is the Secretary for Language Policy in the Catalan Government was speaking to Westminster’s Welsh Affairs Select Committee, who are considering whether to give the Welsh Assembly the power to update the 1993 Welsh Language Act.

A new language act for Wales is likely to extend into the private sector, which has given rise to the concerns of businesses in Wales that they could incur higher costs. Currently the 1993 act only covers the public sector. Continue Reading »

Pic: BBC

The four Bone Caves of Inchnadamph in the north west Highlands, which are protected by SNH, contained a physical record of Scotland’s ancient beasts, reports the BBC. They are a window in to the past, according to Alex Scott, an officer with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). Since the late 1800s remains have been excavated from the underground complex.

Last week an almost complete skeleton, recovered over a period of years by cavers, was confirmed as that of a large male brown bear (see our earlier post).

It joined a long list of creatures whose remains have been retrieved from the darkness. They include bones from a polar bear, lemming, arctic fox, reindeer, tundra vole and wolf. Some may have been washed into the caves during Ice Age floods.

Most exciting

The polar bear skull found in 1927, and held in the collections of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, continues to fascinate scientists. Believed to the only remains of its kind found in Britain, a sample was taken last year for DNA analysis.
Ireland-based genetics expert Ceiridwen Edwards had hoped to compare the DNA of the animal found in a cave in Scotland with that of modern polar bears.

However, she said there was not enough DNA left in the sample for an analysis to be done. According to SNH’s leaflet on the Bone Caves, one of the most exciting finds was the skull of a Northern lynx dated at about 1,770 years old and also found in 1927.

The caves were also a burial site and the bones of four people found there have been radiocarbon-dated to being between 4,515 and 4,720 years old.

The recovery of the newly-confirmed brown bear was a painstaking process. Caving club, Grampian Speleological Group, retrieved the first pieces of bone in 1995. Cave divers then spent the next 12 years wriggling through narrow spaces and moving soil to unblock entrances in their effort to recover all they could.

Their efforts have paid off with another valuable addition to the record of Scotland’s long gone residents.

You can read the full article on the BBC website

Pic: Utah Spearfishing

Old fish bones and dead insects could be the key to the story of Ireland’s transport system, 500 years before gridlock reports the Irish Herald. The fish bones, insect carcasses and dead plant material are wedged in the timbers of a medieval boat recovered from the river Boyne, near Drogheda.

The boat has now been lifted from the river-bed and the Department of Environment is looking for experts who will be able to unravel the story from minute remains left in the vessel. Continue Reading »

Pic: FreeFoto.com

A dialect known and used by a dwindling number of people in Cromarty has been recorded in a new booklet reports the BBC. Researcher Janine Donald, from Highland Council’s history and culture website Am Baile, has compiled a booklet of words and phrases. The initiative is part of an effort by Am Baile to preserve the community’s fisherfolk dialect.

The 40-page publication also has weather lore, biblical expressions and local tales and customs.

Included is the word "tumblers" for dolphins and harbour porpoises and phrases such as "At now kucka" for a friendly greeting. Continue Reading »

Pic: Wiki

War and Game featured an article about the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and politics of King Aethelberht I. His reign occurred at a time of diverse kingdoms of Anglo-Saxons and Celts as can be seen in the map to the left. A powerful and important king of Kent, in southern England. Although he was recognized by his English contemporaries as the leading power in the south, his marriage to a Frankish princess brought little excitement from continental chroniclers. Although of little note to the chroniclers, he was recognized as important enough to marry a Merovingian princess and received attention from Pope Gregory I. Aethelberht is important as the first king in England to convert to Christianity. He was also the first Anglo-Saxon king to issue a legal code. Even if Frankish chroniclers did not notice it, Aethelberht had an important impact on early medieval England.

Aethelberht was king of the most sophisticated and most populous kingdom of England in the late sixth and early seventh century. Although Bede says that he ruled from 560 to 616, it is more likely that he assumed the throne at some time between 589 and 593 and was born in 560. He was the most powerful ruler of his time, extending his authority across most of southern England, and is identified by Bede as the third king to rule all of England south of the Humber. Continue Reading »

Pic: Grampian Speleological Group

The BBC reports that an almost complete skeleton recovered after years of work from a cave in the Scottish Highlands has been confirmed as that of a male brown bear. The pieces of bone were recovered by cavers exploring a network of caves at Inchnadamph in Sutherland. Previously the remains of a polar bear were found at the site. The National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh said tests have established the most recent bones found were those from a brown bear.

The first pieces were discovered in 1995 by cavers exploring a network of caves at Inchnadamph in Sutherland.

But it was only last year that caving club, Grampian Speleological Group, reached some of the final fragments. Continue Reading »