The sunny, dry spells of May and June over Britain were enjoyed immensely by the populace, but it wasn’t just Brits who were taking advantage of the soaring temperatures. Archaeologists were taking to the skies to observe cropmarks which occur when wheat or barley crops grown over ancient buried sites at a different rate. The aerial surveys have produced many new discoveries, including newly-discovered Roman and prehistoric settlements, representing the most successful summer flights since the drought of 1976.
Results of the flight have revealed the Roman fort in Newton Kyme, North Yorkshire to be bigger than previously thought, with a larger, stronger defence built in 290AD covering seven hectares, with stone walls up to three metres thick and a ditch 15 metres wide. Large ditches of the defences were visible, along with many signs of buildings, roads and other activity within the fort.
Click the images to see a larger version.
New discoveries included a Roman fort discovered in Dorest, a region where only three other known forts are known. The fort, near Bradford Abbas, is a lightly built defensive enclosure that provided basic protection for Roman soldiers while on manoeuvres in the 1st century AD. It was noticed during June after three sides became visible in the drought-ridden fields of crops. Flights over the Holderness area of the East Riding uncovered about 60 new sites including livestock and settlement enclosures, mainly from the prehistoric era.
The summer of the Icelandic ash cloud which saw many flights across Britain (including new flights to Iraq) grounded surprisingly proved advantageous to the aerial researchers, who conducted their flights using piston-powered Cessna aircraft, which were unaffected by the flight ban. The quieter skies meant flights could be carried out over airspace normally used by traffic to Gatwick, Standsted, Bristol and Luton.
Dave MacLeod, English Heritage Senior Investigator based in York, said: Its hard to remember a better year. Cropmarks are always at their best in dry weather, but the last few summers have been a disappointment. This year we have taken full advantage of the conditions. We try to concentrate on areas that in an average year dont produce much archaeology. Sorties to the West Midlands and Cumbria, together with more local areas such as the Yorkshire Wolds and Vale of York, have all been very rewarding.
Damian Grady, a Swindon-based English Heritage senior investigator added: ”It will take some time to take stock of all the sites we have photographed, but we expect to discover several hundred new sites across England.”
Britain, man your TVs and iPlayers!Great Britain might be a small island but it has a huge history and, every year, hundreds of excavations bring lost treasures up to the surface. Presented by Dr Alice Roberts, ‘Digging For Britain‘ joins these excavations in a new BBC Twohistory series.
‘Digging for Britain’ is produced by 360 Production (a look behind the scenes) and follows ayear of archaeology around the country, revealing and contextualising some of the newest finds, research and social history.
Its four episodes focus onfocus on the Roman, Prehistoric, Anglo-Saxon and Tudor eras.
Preview: Habledon Villa Human Remains (360 Production)
‘The Romans’ episode also investigates the mystery of a man buried face down on a bed of meat in rural Dorset and the extensive excavation project at the Fort of Vindolanda.
Digging up Prehistory
The further back in time we go, the more rare those glimpses into our ancestors become and, with no written records, the pieces of evidence pulled from the ground are the only clues about the mysterious world of pre-historic Britain.
At Happisburgh in Norfolk, Dr Roberts follows the discovery of seventy flint flakes showing clear evidence of having been worked by humans a find that pushes back the earliest known human occupation of Britain by at least 200,000 years. The discovery of these tools challenge the conventional belief that the earliest human species would not have been able to survive in northern Europe.
Digging for Britain’sPrehistory episode also uncovers a 3,000-year-old tragedy at sea, the earliest rock art ever uncovered in Britain and what is potentially the earliest metal working site discovered in Britain.
Digging for the Anglo-Saxons
At Bamburgh, on the North East coast, skeletons excavated by the Bamburgh Research Project (blog) offer insight into the illnesses and conditions the aristocratic Anglo-Saxons suffered, and hold clues about the societies in which they lived clues that are somewhat at odds with the stereotypical, warlord Anglo Saxon people have come to know.
There are thousands of grave goods to clean and conserve at the Anglo-Saxon cemetery discovered in Sittingbourne in 2008.Dr Robertslearns about a unique way of dealing with the sheer volume of material a pioneering project in the heart of Sittingbourne that’s engaging the whole community.
The programme would not be complete without a glimpse at the richest ever Anglo Saxon find in Britain: the Staffordshire Hoard, discovered by a metal detector last year and a visit to Sutton-Hoo which is still revealing new insights more than 70 years after it was first discovered.
‘Digging for Britain’ (video preview) is a four-part series. ‘The Romans’ airs this Thursday August 19, 9pm on BBC Two. (Prehistory August 26, Anglo-Saxons September 2, Tudors September 9)
A second henge has been discovered near Stonehenge, less than one kilometre away from the iconic stone circle. A cutting edge archaeological survey (view images), part of the ‘Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project‘ has uncovered the henge-like monument.
Because of the circular monument’s shape, the archaeologists believe the henge to be contemporary to Stonehenge. The henge comprises of a segmented ditch, surrounded by a ring of pits up to one metre in diameter. It is possible the pits held a free-standing timber structure and inside the circle is a burial mound, which was added later.
With two entrances on the north-east and south-west sides, the Late Neolithic monument appears to be on the same orientation as Stonehenge.
Project leader Vince Gaffney hailed the find as one of the most significant yet for those researching the UKs most important prehistoric structure. This finding is remarkable, Professor Gaffney said. This discovery is completely new and extremely important in how we understand Stonehenge and its landscape.
Its location, a short distance from Stonehenge, and the fact that the two monuments were inter-visible, raises exciting new questions about the complex sacred landscape that existed around Stonehenge when the sarsen and bluestone monument was constructed, commented Paul Garwood, prehistorian at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham.
Click images for a larger version
The sub-surface discovery was made using a magnetometer. The devicemeasures and maps magnetic fields in the soil. Different layers or deposits of earth and rock each have theirown magnetic properties. If soilhas been moved – in this case byearthwork constructionand ditch infill -thisis visible from the variations in soil magnetism against the general background of the earth’s magnetic field.
The next step for the international team is mapping the monument using an array of technologies that will allow them to view this new discovery, and the landscape around it, in three dimensions.
“This new monument is part of a growing body of evidence which shows how important the summer and winter solstices were to the ancient peoples who built Stonehenge, commented Dr Amanda Chadburn, Stonehenge archaeologist at English Heritage.
She continues, the discovery is all the more remarkable given how much research there has been in the vicinity of Stonehenge, and emphasises the importance of continuing research within and around the World Heritage Site.
Nearby, English Heritage archaeologists are excavating Marden Henge. The henge, close to the source of the River Avon, is at least ten times bigger than Stonehenge, and contained a huge mound, similar to nearby Silbury Hill, which collapsed in 1806.
A Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) pilot survey at the New Forest National Park has revealed previously unknown features to archaeologists. The data, from a a 34 square kilometres section of the New Forest between Burley and Godshill, has allowed researchers to identify a wide range of features, from Iron Age field systems and Bronze Age burial mounds (known as barrows) to anti-glider obstacles, a practice bombing range and a searchlight position from World War II.
Normally archaeologists rely on lengthy and labour-intensive field surveys to uncover such features, but airborne Lidar helps speed up the process.
Tom Dommett, carrying out the historic landscape research for the National Park Authority says: One of Lidars greatest benefits in the Forest is its ability to penetrate all but the densest vegetation like conifer or holly. It reveals very subtle features which are difficult to see on the ground and are even more difficult to map accurately, particularly in woodland.
At the current rate of survey carried out in the National Park it would take roughly 200 years to obtain a full understanding of the archaeological resource, Dommett adds, but with Lidar we will hopefully be able to do it in 10 years.
Airborne Lidar is a ‘remote sensing technology’ that uses the time delay between transmission of a pulsed laser beam from a light aircraft and the detection of the reflected signal to measure up to 100,000 points per second, building a detailed model of the landscape and the features upon it.
But no technology is perfect. As Lidar is indiscriminate in what it shows, the date sometimes has to be backed up by a targeted field survey, known as ‘ground-truthing’.
This is where the involvement of the wider volunteering community has been really helpful and the New Forest History and Archaeology Group have already made an invaluable contribution, says Dommett.
Originally developed for submarine detection Lidar has only become popular with archaeologists in the last decade. Being a huge time-saver, it has become more and more common in ‘modern’ archaeology. It is mainly used to survey possible excavation sites (its ability to penetrate forest canopy reveals features that are invisible on satellite images) but also for mapping ancient structures themselves.
An example is recent research at the ancient Maya site of Caracol, where the laser survey covered a 200 square kilometre radius in four days and revealed several unknown terraces, hidden caves and roads. Archaeologists estimate it would have taken them 25 years of machete-wielding to gather the same data.
Closer to home, laser scans are being used to map Rome’s ancient catacombs and Scottish heritage sites such as the Antonine Wall, New Lanark, the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh and the island of St Kilda.
Naturally not everyone welcomes the news without a hint of skepticism, and the blogosphere’s been buzzing with hoax stories, images, background info and videos – one of which you can see right here. So here’s a snippet of what the web’s been saying about this ‘breakthrough’ –
Hot From NIMA
The NIMA site itself gives little more than a few newspaper cut-outs (nearly all in Chinese) and an expedition timeline.
Quote:March 2010 – “The We Touched Noahs Ark: The Search for A Carpenters Heart Evangelistic Campaign was launched. Worldwide press conferences, exhibitions and sharing are carried out to spread the Gospel through the Noahs Ark discovery.”
Quote: Mike Pitts – “If there had been a flood capable of lifting a huge ship 4km up the side of a mountain 4,800 years ago, I think there would be substantial geological evidence for this flood around the world. And there isn’t.”
Ark Gets Around
The Gaea Times points to several unnamed ‘historians’, who it says are skeptical of the discovery, pointing out that ‘discoveries’ of Noah’s Ark are frequent ocurrances.
Quote: “It is being claimed…that the evangelists…may only have been misled. The historians base their skepticism in the fact that so-called evidences of Noah’s Ark pop up almost every other day…generally in different parts of the world.“
American Nation is slightly less even-handed in its approach, enlisting a phalanx of skeptics with few good words to say on the news, including Paul Zimansky and Peter Ian Kuniholm.
Quote: Paul Zimansky – “You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to get something tolerable, and theyre not even working much with the Bible.”
Stay Frosty, Guys!
The Marshian Chronicles warns its followers to ‘stay frosty’ on the story, but accepts the gravity of the story when pointing out that, if true, it blows apart disbelief of the Bible stories like no other event in history.
Quote: “If thats really Noahs Ark, this discovery is the equivalent of an Atom Bomb in the historical and spiritual world. I dont know how you could possibly not believe the Old Testament on other issues if this one is proved true.”
Have Your Say
Flag up below any other takes on the story that you spot on the blogosphere and think are interesting.
What do you think about the discovery?Do you think it’s too good to be true? Should it be added to our list of favourite hoaxes and pranks? Or is there enough evidence for us to take the team seriously? – don’t hold back!
Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced today the discovery of 383 coins from the Ptolemaic period near the Fayum Oasis. Prehistoric jewellery made from ostrich eggs, and a skeleton of a 42-million-year-old whale were unearthed as well.
According to the statement released by the SCA (Supreme Council of Antiquities) the coinage, very well preserved and dating to the reign of King Ptolemy III (246 to 222BC), was discovered during routine excavations north of Lake Quarun.
Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said that the 383 coins are fashioned out of bronze and have a weight of 32 grams each.
Click the images to open a larger version.
The bronze coins are decorated on one side with a scene depicting the god Amon-Zeus (Amon was identified by the Greeks as a form of Zeus), with two horns and a cobra. The other side of the coin is decorated with a falcon standing on a wooden branch. Underneath, ‘King Ptolemy’ is written in Greek.
The excavation – spanning an area of 1 x 7 km – also uncovered antiquities that can be dated to several historical eras, from the prehistoric to the Ottoman period.
Three prehistoric necklaces made of ostrich eggs were discovered, as well as a Kohl container and two decorated rings from the Ottoman period.
Khaled Saad, director of the Prehistoric Department of the SCA, asserted that the ostrich egg necklaces are unique. The technique used to create the jewellery has never been seen before in prehistoric (over 5,000 year old) necklaces.
Even older is the skeleton of a whale unearthed at the site, which dates back 42 million years. Whale fossils are not a rare occurance in ancient Egypt. AtWadi El Hitan – the Valley of the Whales, south west of the Faiyum Oasis – a remarkable concentration of fossilised whale skeletons can be found, and visited.
The whale fossil and the prehistoric necklaces will go on display in the planned site museum.
London is a complex delight of cultures and crime, of poverty and wealth, of gang warfare and suburban bliss, of traffic jams and serene parks and gardens. People of all races and religions flock to London always have, always will. Some have come more peacefully than others.
When discussing attacks on London, the idea that comes into your head is of some foreign power invading the city or, in more modern times, attacking from the air. The reality is that the majority of the attacks on the capital have come not from a foreign enemy but from members of the (now) British population or even from Londoners themselves.
The Attack of the Romans
The first attack on the city was actually carried out by the native population of Britain on the foreign founders of the city, the Romans. Although there have been problems with immigration throughout history and up to the present day, thankfully not many of the new arrivals have been as severely treated as those Roman inhabitants of London were by Boudicca in 60 AD.
The attack on London by Boudicca was the most ferocious and devastating attack London ever faced. Not only was almost the entire population slaughtered but the town as it was then was entirely destroyed. London grew again, however, and achieved an even greater level of importance.
The departure of the Romans supposedly led to the almost abandonment of London according to some the invading Saxons had no use for towns. This may have been a slight exaggeration as when areas of Kent were attacked by the Jutes in the fifth century, the native population fled to the stronghold of London, which still had the Roman wall.
There were to be further foreign attacks on the town when the Vikings arrived on their raids in the ninth century. By this time, of course, the Saxons were themselves seen as British.
It may shock some to learn that by the following century, all Jews in Britain over the age of seven years old were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes
Vikings attacked London in 842 with a resulting slaughter of many of the inhabitants. They returned in 851 and actually destroyed much of the town before occupying it in 871. At this time there were no standing armies, so as in the attack by Boudicca, when the Roman army had departed, the main victims were civilians.
It was the success of the attack by King Alfreds men in 886 that finally took London back into native hands. It is also from this period that London seems to have become more than just another town due to its position.
For the next few centuries the position of London was to become one of uncertainty as the crown of England was disputed between a number of Saxon and Viking rulers whose supporters seemed to have changed sides as often as they changed their clothes. The loyalty of Londoners in the past was also just as questionable. It was finally to be the arrival of William the Conqueror, himself descended from Vikings that put an end to the dispute over the city and it became firmly entrenched in Norman hands. This was especially the cas once he built the Tower of London.
There was to be some time before any foreign enemy was to attack the city again. This is not to say that London was now safe and peaceful: the next few centuries were to see never-ending disputes between the king and the Aldermen of the city, rebels and Parliament. Little seemed to have changed from earlier days when former allies changed sides at the drop of a hat.
A Riotous 12th Century for London
The 12th century was to see a number of disputes over the city, the first being when Matilda, the daughter of Henry l, became queen but was then deposed by her cousin Stephen. The population of London accepted Matilda but preferred Stephen because Matilda had revoked some of the rights of the Aldermen. When Matilda took the Tower, the population revolted against her.
Later in the 12th century, King John had his falling out with the rebel barons who invited the eldest son of the King of France to become king. When he arrived in London he was greeted with pleasure by the population who had by then turned against John.
One royal who held a grudge against the population of London was Edward I. His mother had been attacked by Londoners from the bridge as she tried to sail from the Tower to Windsor. During the battle of Lewes in 1263, he led his father’s cavalry against the rebel infantry, who were mainly Londoners, and committed widespread slaughter.
The 12th century also saw an increase in violence towards the Jewish population of the city. There were a number of violent attacks due on the surface to the difference in religion and the mania prompted by the crusades. An underlying reason was that murdering the Jewish was a way of getting out of paying debts to Jews the main moneylenders. It may shock some to learn that by the following century, all Jews in Britain over the age of seven years old were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes.
Tax Riots:Thatcher Had It Easy
The Middle Ages saw a number of attacks on London by peasants from various parts of the country. In 1381, Wat Tyler and his men arrived in the original Poll Tax riots. They were more forceful than the poll tax protestors of the Thatcher era, and destroyed a number of large houses in the city; they were helped by a large proportion of the London population, who joined them.
In 1450, Jack Cade arrived with another mob that also wanted to show their displeasure over taxes. They did this by executing a number of government officials and by grabbing as much loot as they could before going home. There were no doubt also a number of looters who did not have far to go to carry their haul home. Attacks on London were not always feared by the local people, who were not averse to joining in if it meant they could pocket some of the loot on offer. This wasnt only the case in the medieval period the danger was greater by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Religious persecution had not disappeared by this time and the main target of this persecution was Roman Catholics. There had even been a strong belief that it was a Catholic plot that had led to the Great Fire of London; when the monument to the fire was first erected, one of the plaques on it said that Papists had started the fire deliberately.
Religion Becomes an Issue
The proof that violence in the city was not only inspired from outside was shown in the Gordon Riots of the late 18th century. What began as a demonstration against pro-Catholic moves by Parliament led to serious rioting that resulting in widespread damage to several parts of the city, hundreds of deaths and ended with the almost complete control of the city by the army.
The untrustworthy nature of the native population was shown again during the Napoleonic Wars when military forces had to be available in London not only in case of invasion, but also as a means of controlling the huge underclass that had grown around the city. Frequent riots causing widespread damage in London were to carry on until the beginning of the 20th century. There may be problems in London today with knife crime and gang culture, but in comparison with the past, London today is much safer than it ever was.
An article in the most recent issue of Newsweek magazine that basically constitutes an invitation to pause in wonder at the fantastic age of the Gbekli Tepe – or “potbelly hill” – site in southeastern Turkey, believed to be 11,500 years old, is a great reminder that, the further back in time an event occured, the easier it is to talk preposterous rot about it.
The Newsweek feature, which is admirable at least in the sense that it dedicates a whole three pages (in full colour, too) in a major mainstream magazine to an archaeological subject, nevertheless talks a lot of nonsense about ancient man. They would have us believe the that main reason for people coming together all those years ago was, first and foremost, for the purposes of performing acts of religious worship. It quotes German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt’s theory that “it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomeration.”
What Came First – Temples or Tig?
Schmidt’s argument is solipsistic, at best. You decide the oldest human structure that’s ever been dug up is a temple, so
Concluding that civilization sprang from religion and not the other way around is both intellectually dubious and socially irresponsible.
therefore the purpose of the earliest man-made structure must be worship. What if the buildings at Gbekli Tepe are not temples?
Supposing we make the analogy that Mesolithic man was as a child. Certainly, he did not have the luxury of paying attention to much more than his most primal urges. Weather, sustenance, and predators took care of most of his brain-space, no matter how sophisticated his emotional and intellectual capacities were. In other words, he was like a child. What do most children do, once they’re up and about and begin to have the freedom to bring their will to bear on theoutside world?Do they build Lego temples and solemnly gather together to pay homage to the great divine? They do not! They play with one another. They form essential human connections through apparently trivial interactions.
In the case of the average 10th millenium BC bloke, those kinds of connections might well later save his life. Indeed, as humans, we’re still hard-wired to seek out companionable agreement and respond to lack of social acceptance as a mortal threat, precisely because we haven’t evolved very far from the men and women who needed every friend they could get when the woolly mammoth was upon them. Furthermore, anthropology tells us that humans like to compete in order to establish who carries the best genetic material in their eggs or sperm, and games therefore serve another function, which is to allow that ranking to occur. Gbekli Tepe looks to me just as much like an arena or entertainment space as it does a temple.
Concluding that civilization sprang from religion and not the other way around is both intellectually dubious and socially irresponsible. There are enough spurious facts out there for religious nutters to latch on to without Newsweek adding to the pile. The article reminds me of a review I once read by Rebecca West of a sociological book published in the 1950s that announced that adults were not especially emotionally attached to their children until the 19th century. As she wrily pointed out, if true, this must have caused much bewilderment among Shakespeare’s contemporary audiences.
My suspicion is that, if the buildings at Gbekli Tepe are, indeed, temples – that is, buildings constructed purely for the purpose of ritualized acknowledgement of matters beyond the everyday – then it will turn out that the organized concentration of human habitation vastly predated them. Man, after all, invented God – not the other way around – and it seems highly unlikely that this was his first order of business.
A panel of Japanese experts recently revealed what they considered to be the world’s greatest chat-up line, based upon reams of psychological and sociological research. The result? “This time next year, let’s be laughing together.”
Apparently the sure-fire phrase is based on keywords guaranteed to get the romantic juices flowing. I’m not convinced: it’s hardly Shakespeare, barely even Barbara Cartland.
Still, you might be surprised to learn that the world’s first chat-up wasn’t from a man to a woman, but from man to man. Yes, that’s right folks: the world’s first chat-up line is gay. The Tale of Horus and Seth, an Late Middle Kingdom (1850 – 1700BC) Egyptian papyrus, tells the story of the two gods’ rivalry for Horus’ father Osiris’ throne. After 80 years of arguing, Seth decides to take a rather different route to fool his foe.
“How lovely are your buttocks! And how muscular your thighs…”
Having invited Horus round his house for a feast, Seth performs a sex act on him to have Horus fall out of favour with the courts deciding who will succeed Osiris. In most papyri the act occurs of itself, yet in a version held at London’sPetrie Museum, Seth has to work a little more for his conquest:”How lovely are your buttocks! And how muscular your thighs,” he mentions cheekily.
A 3,000 year old Bronze Age trading vessel the oldest shipwreck ever found in British waters has been located off the coast of Devon in southwest England.
It went down around 900 BC carrying a precious cargo of tin and copper ingots from the continent, and has lain undetected on the seabed in just eight to ten metres of water in a bay near Salcombe ever since. Experts have hailed the discovery one of only four Bronze Age vessels found in British waters as extremely important, and genuinely exciting.
Investigation and recovery work on the boats cargo was carried out by archaeologists from South West Maritime Archaeological Group (SWMAG) between February and November 2009, but the find was only made public this month at the annual International Shipwreck Conference in Plymouth (you can view their full presentation here).
295 artefacts with a combined weight of 84 kilograms have been retrieved so far, including weapons and jewellery, alongside abundant raw metal.
This cargo points to a healthy and sophisticated trade network that existed between Britain and Europe during the Bronze Age. The find as a whole is testimony to the incredible seafaring capabilities of prehistoric Britons.
Plying the Bronze Age Seaways
A Bronze Age settlement is known to have existed on the coast near Wash Gully where the wreck was found the boat was probably attempting to land there when it came a cropper just 300 yards from the shore. The waters around this stretch of the Devonshire coast are notoriously treacherous. A nearby reef hints at the most obvious reason for the vessels demise.
Sadly none of the ships structure remains most likely it has rotted away over the centuries. But experts have speculated that it was probably a bulk carrier about 12 metres long by almost two metres wide, and made out of long timber planks or a wooden frame with animal hide stretched across it. It would have been crewed by about 15 men and powered by paddle.
A narrow row boat might sound like an exposed and treacherous way of crossing the English Channel, but its thought that intrepid Bronze Age mariners would have used vessels like this to criss-cross the waterway with some frequency. And directly between Devon and France too, rather than skirting the coast up to the narrower stretch between Dover and Calais, as some people have suggested they did.
Dr Stuart Needham, a Bronze Age archaeologist, commented to The Telegraph: This is genuinely exciting. Everyone knows that man has been walking around on land since time immemorial, but I think people now will be surprised to know how much they were plying the seaways at this time, up and down the Atlantic seaboard and across the Channel.
Theres a complex lattice of interactions across Europe happening throughout this period, he added.
A Big Scale Trading Vessel
Everyone knows that man has been walking around on land since time immemorial, but people will be surprised how much they were plying the seaways.
The large quantity of copper and tin found aboard the ship which appears to have come from scattered locations as far afield as the Iberian Peninsula, Switzerland, France or Austria via a wide and complex trade network would have been used to make bronze, which was the key product of the period. The bronze would in turn have been used to fashion all from tools to weapons and jewellery.
Academics from Oxford University have taken charge of investigating the discoveries, to see if their exact origins can be determined. Its hoped that more artefacts will be raised from the seabed yet.
Chairman of SWMAG Mick Palmer told The Telegraph: For the British Isles, this is extremely important. This was a cargo trading vessel on a big scale. There is more down there and we will carry on searching for it. We anticipate a lot more will be found.
This cargo would have made a tidy profit for the ships Bronze Age crew had it reached land; 3,000 years late, its finally set to be cashed-in. SWMAG stands to net a healthy return on their find, with the British Museum due to individually value and purchase each piece over the next few weeks.
Well have some pictures of finds from the Bronze Age shipwreck and an interview with a marine archaeologist from SWMAG up on the site soon.
The sunny, dry spells of May and June over Britain were enjoyed immensely by the populace, but it wasn’t just Brits who were taking advantage of the soaring temperatures. Archaeologists were taking to the skies to observe cropmarks which occur when wheat or barley crops grown over ancient buried sites at a different rate. The aerial surveys have produced many new discoveries, including newly-discovered Roman and prehistoric settlements, representing the most successful summer flights since the drought of 1976.
Britain, man your TVs and iPlayers!Great Britain might be a small island but it has a huge history and, every year, hundreds of excavations bring lost treasures up to the surface. Presented by 
A second henge has been discovered near 
London is a complex delight of cultures and crime, of poverty and wealth, of gang warfare and suburban bliss, of traffic jams and serene parks and gardens. People of all races and religions flock to London always have, always will. Some have come more peacefully than others. 
The proof that violence in the city was not only inspired from outside was shown in the Gordon Riots of the late 18th century. What began as a demonstration against pro-Catholic moves by Parliament led to serious rioting that resulting in widespread damage to several parts of the city, hundreds of deaths and ended with the almost complete control of the city by the army.
