For those that survive, the traumas of military conflict can be long lasting. It might seem astonishing that archaeology, with its uncovering of the traces of the long-dead, of battlefields, of skeletal remains, could provide solace, and yet there is something magical about the subject. In archaeology there is a job for everyone; from surveying and drawing, to examining the finds, to digging itself. Often this is in some of the most beautiful and restful of landscapes and with talks around a campfire at the end of the day.Operation Nightingale is a programme which was set up in 2011 within the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom to help facilitate the recovery of armed forces personnel recently engaged in armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, using the archaeology of the British Training Areas. Over the following decade, the project has expanded to include veterans of older conflicts and of other nations – from the United States, from Poland, from Australia and elsewhere.This book is the story of those veterans, of their incredible discoveries, of their own journeys of recovery – sometimes one which can lead to a lifetime of studying archaeology. It has taken them to the crash sites of Spitfires and trenches of the Western Front in the First World War, through to burial grounds of Convicts, camp sites of Hessian mercenaries, and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Lavishly illustrated, this work shows the reader how the discovery of our shared past – of long-forgotten houses, of glinting gold jewellery, of broken pots, can be restorative and help people mend otherwise damaged lives.The book features a foreword and illustrations by Professor Alice Roberts, presenter on BBC's The Big Dig, Digging for Britain and Coast, alongside superb photography by Harvey Mills.

Just six miles from the center of Belfast, County Down, on the plateau of Ballynahatty above the River Lagan, is one of Ireland’s great Neolithic henge monuments: the 200 m wide Giant’s Ring. For over a thousand years, this area was the focus of intense funerary ritual seemingly designed to send the dead to their ancestors and secure the land for the living. Scattered through the fields to the north and west of the Ring are flat cemeteries, standing stones, tombs, cists, and ring barrows – ancient monuments that were leveled by the plough when the land was enclosed in the 18th and 19th centuries. A great 90 m long timber enclosure with an elaborate entrance and inner ‘temple’ was first observed through crop marks in aerial photos. Excavation of the site between 1990–1999 revealed a complex structure composed of over 400 postholes, many over 2 m deep. This was a building in the grand style, elegantly designed to control space, views, and access to an inner sanctum containing a platform for exposure of the dead. By 2550 BC, the timber ‘temple’ had been swept away in a massive conflagration and the remains dismantled. Ballynahatty was one of the last great public ceremonial enterprises known to have been constructed by the Neolithic farmers in Northern Ireland, an enterprise proclaiming their enigmatic religion, ancestral rights and territorial aspirations. This report reconstructs the remarkable building complex and explains the sophistication and organization of its construction and use. The report sets the site and excavation in the wider development of the Ballynahatty landscape and its study to the present day.

The Hadrian’s Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to promote the value of heritage – specifically of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site – to local communities, and to provide opportunities for volunteers to engage with the archaeology and conservation of the Wall to better ensure the future of the monument.This short book provides a summary of the project, communicating the range of activities undertaken during the project and key results. It explores the structure and aims of the project, and creates an insightful overview of the many different people and communities that participated. Archaeological fieldwork resulted in a number of new discoveries and insights into Hadrian’s Wall. The revolutionary new work to explore the stones of Hadrian’s Wall, its source geology and how stones were reused from the monument is also discussed. Each chapter is supported by full colour illustrations, and contributions from project volunteers also bring the project into a vibrant focus.

Oxford Archaeology undertook a series of excavations in 2015–16 at Graven Hill on the former site of MoD Bicester, a large military storage and distribution centre built during the Second World War. The archaeological works revealed evidence of prehistoric, Roman, medieval and post-medieval activity, as well as finds relating to the use of the military site during the 1940s and 1950s. Ephemeral signs of early prehistoric activity were limited to stone tools, including an impressive Neolithic axe head, and a Bronze Age cremation burial. The first sign of occupation dated to the middle Iron Age in the form of a small settlement on the northern slope of the hill. A late Iron Age settlement to the north-west appeared to have been abandoned shortly after the Roman invasion, perhaps as a direct consequence of the arrival of the army at Alchester, 1.6km west of Graven Hill. This coincided with the construction of Akeman Street, the alignment of which was discovered to circumnavigate the north side of the hill. The town of Bicester later originated in the 6th century AD, around the time that a collection of dress and personal items were buried to the north of Graven Hill. A new farmstead was established in the late 11th century, developing in the 13th century with a series of masonry buildings arranged around a central courtyard, linked via a road to the deserted medieval village at Wretchwick. The site is significant for its well-preserved structural foundations and a considerable number of artefacts, including one of the largest medieval pottery assemblages known from rural Oxfordshire. The farmstead was abandoned about the same time as the village in the mid-14th century, perhaps as a result of the Black Death. The land was subsequently used for agriculture until the development of MoD Bicester in the 1940s. Together, the archaeological findings presented in this monograph have enriched our understanding of the history of the Oxfordshire landscape.

The Battle of Pinkie, fought between the English and the Scots in 1547, was the last great clash between the two as independent nations. It is a well-documented battle with several eyewitness accounts and contemporary illustrations. There is also archaeological evidence of military activities. The manoeuvres of the two armies can be placed in the landscape near Edinburgh, despite considerable developments since the 16th century. Nevertheless, the battle and its significance has not been well understood. From a military point of view there is much of interest. The commanders were experienced and had already had battlefield successes. There was an awareness on both sides of contemporary best practice and use of up-to-date weapons and equipment. The Scots and the English armies, however, were markedly different in their composition and in the strategy and tactics they employed. There is the added ingredient that the fire from English ships, positioned just off the coast, helped decide the course of events. Using contemporary records and archaeological evidence, David Caldwell, Victoria Oleksy, and Bess Rhodes reconsider the events of September 1547. They explore the location of the fighting, the varied forces involved, the aims of the commanders, and the close-run nature of the battle. Pinkie resulted in a resounding victory for the English, but that was by no means an inevitable outcome. After Pinkie it briefly seemed as if the future of Britain had been redefined. The reality proved rather different, and the battle has largely slipped from popular consciousness. This book provides a reminder of the uncertainty and high stakes both Scots and English faced in the autumn of 1547.

Renowned archaeologist, Dale Serjeantson, tells the story of human engagement with birds from the end of the last Ice Age to around AD 1650. In this book, she integrates the study of archaeological bird remains with ethnography and the history of birds and avian biology. It identifies changing patterns of wetland, water bird and game species through time, and in addition to their food value, examines our changing interactions with them. This includes considering evidence for use of bird body parts in religious rituals; taboos, totemism and superstitions surrounding eating certain species; their capture and role in falconry and as companion animals; and their importance in the economy from the Viking period onwards. Essential reading for archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, and historians, it is an eye-opening, accessible introduction to the archaeology of wild birds in Britain and Ireland for anyone interested in our natural history.

Between 2018 and 2019, Cornwall Archaeological Unit undertook two projects at Mount’s Bay, Penwith. The first involved the excavation of a Bronze Age barrow and the second, environmental augur core sampling in Marazion Marsh. Both sites lie within an area of coastal hinterland, which has been subject to incursions by rising sea levels. Since the Mesolithic, an area of approximately 1 kilometre in extent between the current shoreline and St Michael’s Mount has been lost to gradually rising sea levels. With current climate change, this process is likely to occur at an increasing rate. Given their proximity, the opportunity was taken to draw the results from the two projects together along with all available existing environmental data from the area. For the first time, the results from all previous palaeoenvironmental projects in the Mount’s Bay area have been brought together. Evidence for coastal change and sea level rise is discussed and a model for the drowning landscape presented. In addition to modelling the loss of land and describing the environment over time, social responses including the wider context of the Bronze Age barrow and later Bronze Age metalwork deposition in the Mount’s Bay environs are considered. The effects of the gradual loss of land are discussed in terms of how change is perceived, its effects on community resilience, and the construction of social memory and narratives of place.The volume presents the potential for nationally significant environmental data to survive, which demonstrates the long-term effects of climate change and rising sea levels, and peoples’ responses to these over time.

The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed, rediscovered in 2010, is an exceptional piece of late medieval English royal furniture: no other equivalent example of secular domestic furniture is known to have survived, and, indeed, precious little woodwork from this period remains outside of ecclesiastical settings. As a tour-de-force of medieval royal woodwork, the bed offers an unprecedented insight into elite domestic furniture from this period.Since its rediscovery, the bed has been subjected to a wide array of investigation by furniture specialists, medieval historians, design historians and scientists. Emerging from a decade-long multidisciplinary research project, this book is the first sustained account of the bed: it shows how numerous disciplines covering the arts and conservation sciences can be brought together to assess and interpret such rare historic survivals.Broken down into thematic chapters, the book explores the bed’s form and structure, context, iconography, wood, paint, physical history, provenance – including its curious reproduction by George Shaw in Victorian England – and relationship with known surviving Tudor furniture, as well as Georgian and Victorian Gothic Revival beds. Although thought to be a 19th-century fake, this book presents historical, archival and scientific evidence to show, beyond doubt, the bed’s late medieval age.Whilst grounded upon research presented at a 2019 conference funded by the Institute of Conservation and held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the book incorporates additional historical and scientific discoveries made since the conference. Written by a range of scientists, historians and specialist researchers, this volume is a multi-disciplinary work of immeasurable value to readers from numerous disciplines.

Jutting out some thirty miles into the Irish Sea, from the western edge of Snowdonia, the Llŷn Peninsula, in north-west Wales, is renowned for its stunning beaches and countryside, with much of its landscape designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The peninsula is also home to a remarkable and abundant collection of archaeological sites and monuments, some of national importance, which bear witness to the ancient societies who once inhabited this narrow finger of land on the western fringe of Britain. This abundantly illustrated book examines this rich corpus of archaeological evidence, beginning with the faint but fascinating traces that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers have left in the landscape of the Llŷn Peninsula and ending in the early medieval period, with about 9,000 years of human habitation thus covered in its pages. In the course of the book, we will encounter a wealth of fascinating archaeological evidence, which includes impressive megalithic tombs and an axe ‘factory’ from the Neolithic; burial mounds and mysterious standing stones from the Early Bronze Age; rural settlements and magnificent hillforts occupied in the Iron Age and Romano–British period; and memorial stones erected by early Christian communities. Much more besides will be found in the pages of this volume, which throws considerable light on the ancient peoples of the Llŷn Peninsula, and the rich archaeological heritage of this special part of the United Kingdom, which has much to offer those who are interested in the distant lives of our ancestors.

Previously suspected on the basis of a tile stamped with the name and titles of the emperor Nero found alongside other brick and tile in the ploughsoil, excavation of two tile kilns at Little London near Silchester, Hampshire confirmed production during the reign of Nero. In addition to the manufacture of standard bricks and roofing materials, the kilns produced the more specialist materials required for building bath-houses. Work on the fabrics and distinctive, roller-stamped flue-tiles shows that products reached a wide variety of destinations between Cirencester, some 100 km to the north-west, and Chichester, on the south coast, though Silchester appears to have been the main market and is the only location where Nero-stamped tile has so far been found. A suggestion is made linking the stamped tile to the visit to Britain by the emperor’s trusted freedman, Polyclitus in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. An unexpected discovery was the ancillary production from at least three pottery kilns of a wide range of pre-Flavian domestic wares, so far only identified in Silchester and its environs. Alongside the publication of the kilns there are illustrated catalogues of the complete range of brick and tile types produced as well as of the pottery. Other reports include analysis of the fuels used and a suite of radiocarbon dates which support the pottery evidence for production ceasing in the early Flavian period. Analysis of the numerous animal foot-impressions on the bricks presents one aspect of the environment of the kilns.

The First Stones brings together the results of recent research on the Neolithic long cairns lying in the shadow of the Black Mountains in south-east Wales, focusing upon Penywyrlod and Gwernvale, the two best known tombs within the group, previously excavated in the 1970s. Important results lie in both new site detail and reassessment of the wider context. Small-scale excavation, geophysical survey and geological assessment at Penywyrlod – the largest of the Welsh long cairns – gave further information about the distinctive external and internal architecture of the monument. In turn, this opened the opportunity to reassess the pre-monument sequence at Gwernvale, with re-examination of both Mesolithic and Neolithic occupations, including a timber structure and midden, lithic and pottery assemblages, and cereal remains. The frame for wider reassessment is given by fresh chronological modelling both of the monuments themselves, suggesting a sequence from Penywyrlod and Pipton to Ty Isaf and Gwernvale, probably spanning the 38th to the 36th or 35th centuries cal BC, and of early Neolithic activity in south Wales and the Marches, probably beginning in the 39th century cal BC. A detailed study of the major assemblages of human remains from the Black Mountains tombs includes evidence for diet, trauma and lifestyles of the populations represented. Recent isotope analysis of human remains from the tombs is also reviewed, implying social mobility and migration within local populations during the early Neolithic. The First Stones makes a significant contribution to the study of tomb building, treatment of the dead, place making, the relationship of monuments to landscape, local and regional identities, connections and affiliations across southern Britain and the adjacent continent, and Neolithisation in western Britain. Viewed within the context of tombs within the Cotswold-Severn tradition as a whole, it leads to an appreciation of the local and regional distinctiveness of architecture and mortuary practice exhibited by the tombs in this area of south-east Wales, emerging as part of the intake of a significant inland area in the early centuries of the Neolithic.

For many centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have been fascinated by Stonehenge, the world’s most famous stone circle. In 2003 a team of archaeologists commenced a long-term fieldwork project for the first time in decades. The Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009) aimed to investigate the purpose of this unique prehistoric monument by considering it within its wider archaeological context. This is the second of four volumes which present the results of that campaign. It includes studies of the lithics from excavations, both from topsoil sampling and from excavated features, as well as of the petrography of the famous bluestones, as identified from chippings recovered during excavations. Other specialist syntheses are those of the land mollusca. The volume provides an overview of Stonehenge in its landscape over millennia from before the monument was built to the last of its five constructional stages. It concludes with a chapter placing Stonehenge in its full context within Britain and western Europe during the third millennium BC.With contributions by:Umberto Albarella, Michael Allen, Richard Bevins, Benjamin Chan, Robert Ixer, Claudia Minniti, Doug Mitcham and Sarah Viner-Daniels

Canterbury Cathedral possesses a unique marble mosaic pavement, dating from the early 12th century, which has long intrigued scholars and been the subject of speculation and debate. It forms part of the floor of the Trinity chapel, adjacent to the site where the shrine of St Thomas Becket stood, prior to the Reformation. Since the mosaic is older than the chapel itself and partly destroyed a pavement of figurative roundels, laid c. 1215, it must have been moved here from elsewhere in the cathedral. This volume explores the history and archaeology of the Trinity chapel, the pavement and the physical remains of the cult of Becket, based largely on hitherto unrecorded and unpublished evidence. In the early 12th century, Archbishop Anselm rebuilt the eastern arm of the cathedral, introducing architectural elements from his native Italy, and these included a magnificent mosaic pavement, composed of the most expensive marbles, which lay in front of the high altar. In 1170, Archbishop Becket was murdered in the cathedral, and his body rested overnight on the pavement before being buried in the crypt. Thomas was immediately revered as a martyr, and in 1173 was canonised by the pope; a simple shrine was erected over his tomb. In the following year, a fire (arson) destroyed the eastern arm of the cathedral, precipitating the construction of the present Trinity and Corona chapels, wherein St Thomas’s remains were enshrined. After decades of delay and political strife, the enshrinement took place in 1220, in the presence of Henry III. The shrine comprised a great marble table, supported on six clusters of columns. On top of the table was a marble sarcophagus containing the saint’s body in an iron-bound timber coffin, over which stood the sumptuous feretory, a gabled timber ‘roof’, plated with sheets of gold and adorned with jewels. East of the shrine lies the small Corona chapel in which a fragment of Becket’s skull was separately encased in a ‘head-shrine’, and to the west a large area was paved with forty-eight figurative stone roundels, created by French artisans. All around, stained-glass windows display the early miracles of Becket. The layout of the Trinity chapel underwent transmutations, first around 1230, when the mosaic pavement was taken up from the old presbytery, reduced in size and relaid in front of Becket’s shrine, where is it today. Second, the chapel was reordered in c. 1290, when the podium carrying the shrine was enlarged and the paving around it reconfigured. Medieval tombs were now being installed in the chapels, including those of the Black Prince and Henry IV. The end came in 1538, when Henry VIII ordered the thorough destruction of Becket’s shrines, but a great deal of archaeological evidence remained in the floors, walls and a few surviving fragments of the shrines, all now recorded and discussed in this beautifully illustrated volume for the first time.

Excavations at Panattoni Park, at Harpole within the Nene Valley west of Northampton, uncovered part of a Roman villa and evidence for preceding prehistoric and early Roman settlement. The earliest evidence was a Mesolithic flint-knapping site. During the early Iron Age or at the start of the middle Iron Age, a pit alignment was constructed running down the valley side. A middle Iron Age settlement of at least seven roundhouses lay 450m to the east of the pit alignment. It is likely that both the boundary and the settlement were associated with cattle grazing on the valley floor, and the settlement may have been seasonally occupied. An enclosure complex was constructed against the pit alignment during the late Iron Age and occupied until c AD 50/70, after which there was an apparent hiatus of about a century before the establishment of the villa during the mid-2nd century. The villa was first discovered in the 1840s when a mosaic was accidentally uncovered. It was believed to have been largely destroyed during widening of the adjacent A4500 road in 1966 when excavation of only a small area was possible. However, the new excavation has demonstrated the survival of part of the main villa complex, including a substantial aisled building that may have formed the southern range. An extensive part of the agricultural landscape surrounding the villa was investigated, including an area devoted to malting and an enclosure complex used as a stockyard for processing livestock. A further notable find was a small hoard of mower’s tools, perhaps the toolkit of an individual agricultural worker. A building interpreted as a temple-mausoleum of Romano-Celtic form situated beside a spring channel was also investigated. Pollen from the channel indicating the presence of a walnut grove may be the earliest definite evidence for the cultivation of walnut trees in Britain.

Clachtoll broch is one of the most spectacular Iron Age settlements on the northern mainland of Scotland. When it became clear that the structure was threatened by coastal erosion, community heritage group Historic Assynt launched a major programme of conservation and excavation works designed to secure the vulnerable structure and recover the archaeological evidence of its occupation and use. The resulting excavation provided evidence of a long and complex history of construction and rebuilding, with the final, middle Iron Age occupation phase ending in a catastrophic fire and collapse of the tower by the early years of the first century AD. The internal deposits span perhaps 50 years of the broch’s final occupation and were remarkably well preserved, with no evidence for secondary re-use or disturbance after the fire. As a result, the excavation provides a remarkable snapshot of life in Iron Age Scotland, with an artefact assemblage attesting to daily agricultural life as well as long-range contacts that sets the broch within a wider Atlantic community. Specialist analysis of the artefactual and palaeoenvironmental evidence coupled with detailed analysis of the structure in its local geographical context combine to provide a major new contribution to the archaeology of north-west Scotland, with wider implications for our understanding of late prehistoric society in northern Britain. This report comprises the results of the archaeological investigations at Clachtoll, compiled by a team of archaeologists and specialists from AOC Archaeology Group, and brings together evidence from a range of specialist analyses as well as environmental and landscape investigations.

Old orchards have an irresistible appeal. Their ancient trees and obscure fruit varieties seem to provide a direct link with the lost rural world of our ancestors, a time when the pace of life was slower and people had a strong and intimate connection with their local environment. They are also of critical importance for sustaining biodiversity, providing habitats, in particular, for a range of rare invertebrates. Not surprisingly, orchards and the fruit they contain have attracted an increasing amount of attention over the last few decades, from both enthusiastic bands of amateurs and official conservation bodies. But much of what has been written about them is historically vague, romanticised and nostalgic. Orchards have become a symbol of unspoilt, picturesque rural England. This book attempts, for the first time, to provide a comprehensive review of the development of orchards in England from the Middle Ages to the present day. It describes the various different kinds of orchard and explains how, and when, they appeared in the landscape – and why they have disappeared, at a catastrophic rate, over the last six decades. Chapters discuss the contrasting histories of fruit growing in different regions of England, the complex story of ‘traditional’ fruit varieties and the role of orchards in wildlife conservation. In addition, a chapter on researching orchards provides a practical guide for those wishing to investigate the history and archaeology of particular examples.