Bronze Age skeleton removed from school playground
The skeleton of a small Bronze Age man with worn-away teeth was today removed from his grave a metre beneath a primary school playground. The 4000-year-old remains were found by archaeologists surveying Victoria Primary School in Newhaven, Edinburgh, ahead of a proposed school extension. Read more
Scientists find evidence women did metalwork in Bronze Age
Archaeologists have discovered remains of a woman believed to be a metal worker from the Bronze Age, a finding that challenges ideas about the division of labour in prehistoric times. Researchers are confident that the skeleton found in Geitzendorf, north-west Vienna, Austria belongs to a woman despite the fact that the pelvic bones are missing. Read more
Ancient stinging nettles reveal Bronze Age trade connections
A piece of nettle cloth retrieved from Denmark's richest known Bronze Age burial mound Lusehøj may actually derive from Austria, new findings suggest. The cloth thus tells a surprising story about long-distance Bronze Age trade connections around 800 BC. The findings have just been published in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports. Read more
One of Western Europe's earliest known urban societies may have sown the seeds of its own downfall, a study suggests. Mystery surrounded the fall of the Bronze Age Argaric people in south-east Spain - Europe's driest area. Data suggests the early civilisation exhausted precious natural resources, helping bring about its own ruin. The study provides early evidence for cultural collapse caused - at least in part - by humans meddling with the environment, say researchers.