Details of the archaeological discoveries made at the construction site for a new Exeter (England) school have been unveiled. The excavation, which took place last summer, was on the proposed playing field for Clyst Heath Nursery and Community Primary School. The bottoms of ditches and pits indicated the presence of an Iron Age settlement. Traces of four circular-based homes were found and fragments of jars and pottery were exposed in the remains of the settlement which is up to 2,500 years old. The jars, some of which have been partly pieced together, are thought to date within the last three centuries BCE, a latter period of the Iron Age. Archaeologist Jo Frost said: "The pieces found were some of the best examples of South West-decorated pottery in Exeter so far."
The earliest evidence of human activity in Lincoln, England, dating back to 4,500-6,500 BCE, has been discovered. Hundreds of pieces of flint were unearthed during the excavation of a new flood alleviation pond south of the university's Lincoln School of Architecture. Tools found include microliths and blades typical of the Mesolithic period, or Middle Stone Age.
"This extremely important site is by far the earliest evidence of human activity on the site of the present-day city." - Mick Jones, City archaeologist.
The previous earliest evidence was of an Iron Age building dating to the first century BC, also found near the Brayford Pool.
It's an ordinary suburban garden with an apple tree, paving and borders. But its owner has uncovered an astonishing secret history that is delighting archaeologists and helping to paint a new picture of life in the region thousands of years ago. The remarkable amount of ancient flints Aled Jones has dug up in his tiny front garden in Bridlington (Yorkshire, England) suggests it was once the site of a Neolithic settlement. Mr Jones made his discoveries while weeding the borders at his home on the outskirts of the resort, which sits on one of the highest natural points in the town. To date, artefacts he has uncovered include a beautiful Neolithic stone bead, arrowhead and toffee-coloured blade, made sometime between 4,500 BCE and 2000 BCE. Enthralled by what he has found, his next move could be to dig his patio up and carry out a full excavation.
"It just amazed me that things that old should turn up in my garden. There's too much stuff for it to be a coincidence. It may be that there was a small fortified encampment here in Neolithic times. Archaeologists believe that Neolithic hill-forts were not used for military purposes but to pen in cattle and other livestock" - Mr Jones, who has a university diploma in archaeology and the landscape.
"If Mr Jones has found a bead as well, there are probably going to be Neolithic houses nearby. This is the first stuff we've had from this part of Bridlington because so much has been redeveloped, probably before the archaeology unit was set up. It's a big black area for us and it is important to get this information and it does help put a lot of stuff that's turning up to the north on the other side of Martongate into context. We can see that essentially there is a lot of Neolithic activity on the south-facing slopes to the north of Bridlington" - Dave Evans, manager of Humber Archaeology Partnership
Mr Jones's finds will be entered on to the county Sites and Monuments Record. They tie in nicely with the recent nationally important discovery a couple of miles away of three Neolithic houses on the Sewerby Cottage farm site. Flints have been recovered from nearly every field on Flamborough Head some five miles away, which was a hotbed of prehistoric activity.
The discovery of a 3,000-year-old bronze axe head has been described by archaeologists as Orkney's most exciting chance find in a decade.
The Bronze Age treasure was uncovered by Kirkwall man Michael Watt during peat turning on Hobbister Moor, overlooking Scapa Flow. He thought at first it was a part from a tractor or digger, dropped during earlier work on the moor which provides peat for the whisky making process at Highland Park distillery. Archaeologists, however, dated it back to 1000 BC.
"The state of preservation was so good that for a split second I thought it was a fake. We're used to seeing objects that have undergone years of attrition, but this was perfectly preserved thanks to the anaerobic nature of the peat." - Julie Gibson, county archaeologist.
Photographs of the axe head, which bears some decorative markings at the shaft joint, were sent to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Archaeologist Dr Trevor Cowie determined its age by comparing it with other similar artefacts found in Scotland.
"This find is exciting because we don't find shiny metal treasures very often. In terms of discoveries in Orkney and Shetland it is not one among hundreds, but one among dozens, but in terms of chance finds this is one in a decade." - Ms Gibson.
Ms Gibson said the axe head was probably placed in a standing pool of water for religious reasons and its discovery highlighted the value of wetland areas to archaeologists.
"These areas are hidden gems. Wetlands are usually judged by their value as nature reserves, but they also hold huge amounts of information about how people lived in earlier ages. They are significant resources which need more attention in archaeological and planning terms." - Ms Gibson
The peat for the Kirkwall distillery is dug by machine during the spring and turned by hand during the summer. Once harvested, it is burned in traditional kilns to dry the barley, giving subtle influences of peat, heather and smoke to the famous single malt whisky. The axe head will be sent to the National Museum of Scotland for further examination before being listed on the Treasure Trove register.
Ms Gibson said she expected it to be returned to Orkney and put on public display.
Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists.
Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet, Kent.
Excavations revealed the skeleton of an extinct species of elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) lying at the edge of what would once have been a small lake. Flint tools lay scattered around, suggesting the animal had been cut up by a tribe of the early humans around at the time, known as Homo heidelbergensis.
"It is the earliest site of elephant butchery in Britain" - Dr Francis Wenban-Smith of the University of Southampton.
The Britons of 250,000 years ago were a good deal more sophisticated than they are sometimes given credit for, new archaeological evidence suggests.
It comes in the form of giant flint handaxes that have been unearthed at a site at Cuxton in Kent. The tools display exquisite, almost flamboyant, workmanship not associated with this period until now.
The axes - one of which measured 307mm in length - were dug up from old sand deposits in a front garden.
"It is a site where there would once have been a slow-moving river. It would have periodically overflowed its banks; and there would have been occasional sand bars and islands that got exposed. Obviously, at some point, Palaeolithic man was doing something there, left his handaxes, and they got covered up" - Dr Francis Wenban-Smith, from the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of Southampton.
The biggest of the tools - the second largest of its type found in Britain - is beautifully preserved and sharply pointed. It was probably used to butcher prey, which at that time would have included rhino, elephants, large deer and an extinct type of cattle known as aurochs. Another big implement was uncovered immediately beside the star find; this time a cleaver, 179mm long by 134mm wide. The lands which are now the UK have been occupied on and off by human species since before 500,000 years ago. When the retreat of great ice sheets permitted, people would move in from warmer climes further south; and then abandon the region when conditions turned harsh again. But the period from about 400,000 to 250,000 years ago is known to have been one of intense occupation; not by modern humans (Homo sapiens), who were not in Europe at this time, but by what is now an extinct human form evolving into Homo neanderthalensis, the Neanderthals.
The culture at Cuxton is one that archaeologists refer to as Acheulian, to describe the type of stone tool manufacturing that was dominant at that time. Dr Wenban-Smith says the latest finds hint that these people were more advanced in their cognitive and behavioural development than is normally assumed. The Cuxton manufacturing techniques were soon supplanted by a different way of making stone tools, known as Levalloisian technology. Dr Wenban-Smith said it was unclear whether this knowledge was imported from further south in Europe or independently discovered by the Britons themselves.
Evidence of a roundhouse that could be up to 3,000 years old has been uncovered near the North Sea coast. The site in Lowestoft has revealed finds from the Bronze Age and Iron Age including a decorated 5cm plaque made from Jet.
Archaeologists working on the one-hectare parcel of industrial land found an enclosure surrounded by ditches and probably used to house an extended family. Experts from Suffolk County Council's Archaeological Field Team moved onto the Hadenham Road site while planning permission was being sought to turn it into a new household waste centre for Lowestoft. After taking away the topsoil, the team started to dig trenches in February. Jon Newman from the team said the discovery of Jet, which is made from ancient, compressed wood, was particularly exciting.
"We are not quite sure what the decoration is supposed to show, but it is a very fine plaque" - Jon Newman.
The settlement is thought to date back to between 500 and 1,000 BC and it is hoped that detailed examination of the finds there could reveal metalwork.
"Later Bronze Age and early Iron Age evidence was found, including the roundhouse, which is about eight to nine metres across, and was made with timber posts set in the ground. The whole enclosure is about 20 metres across. You are talking about something that is getting on for 2,500 to 3,000 years old, he said. And we are probably talking about a farmhouse for an extended family" - Jon Newman.
The finds follow the discovery of flint tools at nearby Pakefield that revealed man was living in northern Europe 700,000 years ago and 200,000 years earlier than had been previously thought.
Stone tools found at Great Pan Farm, Newport, one of Britain's most important early prehistoric sites could date back 250,000 years. The historic finds were uncovered at a former gravel quarry on the Isle of Wight during digs last summer. Flint axes are thought to be of the sort used by Neanderthal man. Elephant teeth from the same period were also found. Specialists are now to carry out further investigations of the site. The digs were launched at the site as it has been earmarked for future housing development.
Position: 50°41'16.10"N 1°16'56.78"W
The area around Pan is said to offer huge potential for archaeologists. Middle Palaeolithic flint tools were first discovered around Great Pan Farm in the 1920s during gravel extraction and were dated to the period where Neanderthals, the forerunners of modern humans, were hunting on the land which was later to become part of the Island during the warm periods between the Ice Ages. An archaeological evaluation is needed to accompany any planning application for development of the site because of the national importance of the remains so far found. A preliminary study of the Pan area shows that as well as the very early remains several of the field boundaries and hedgerows have been shown to date back to the medieval manor of Lepene, which is described in the Domesday Book of 1086. There may also be a medieval village buried under the houses and fields of modern Pan.
Scientists at the University of York used a 'protein time capsule' to confirm the earliest record of human activity in Northern Europe.
A team of bio-archaeologists from York were able to provide the final piece of scientific evidence which confirmed that primitive stone tools discovered in East Anglia dated back around 700,000 years 200,000 years earlier than any other traces of human colonisation of northern latitudes.
Dr Kirsty Penkman and Dr Matthew Collins were part of an international team, headed by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project, which studied the worked flint flakes discovered two years ago in a cliff at Pakefield near Lowestoft, Suffolk. After members of the international team used stratigraphy to indicate the likely age of the flints, the York scientists were called in to confirm the antiquity of the artefacts using a newly-refined technique of amino acid analysis. The technique measures the extent of deterioration of proteins in fossils found close to the flints - in this case, opercula, the tiny trap-doors that close a snail's shell. The results of the research are published in Nature (Thursday 15 December 2005).
"The amino acids were very securely contained in enclosed crystals of the opercula, unchanged by environmental factors other than normal internal protein degradation. In effect, they are a protein time capsule, enabling us to confirm the Pakefield opercula were significantly older than 500,000 years, the previous earliest date for humans north of the Alps."- Dr Kirsty Penkman, Associate member of AHOB.
"The method relies upon measuring the products of decomposition, so we had to isolate a protein sample that was well protected and did not leak the products of decay." - Dr Matthew Collins.
"Helping to demonstrate the antiquity of the Pakefield site has been very exciting, and we are now trying to apply the same technique to more sites in Britain and overseas. A systematic survey will enable us to build a framework which records the extent of protein degradation in different sites, so that we can link the patchy terrestrial records of past climate change with the long continuous records from ice cores and marine sediments" - Dr Kirsty Penkman.