A cemetery excavated on the site of New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms, near Battersea, is illuminating the lives of some of 19th-century London’s poorest inhabitants. The investigation, which uncovered nearly 100 burials, was carried out by Wessex Archaeology as part of modernisation work on the site by the VINCI St Modwen, in partnership with the Covent Garden Market Authority.

Two decorated Roman lead coffins have been uncovered during recent work at a quarry in Surrey. Only a few hundred burials involving such caskets are known from the whole of Britain, with these latest examples discovered by Wessex Archaeology during work on behalf of Sibelco, a raw materials company.

A figurine thought to be Britain’s only known example depicting the Celtic god Cernunnos has been found during the excavation of a late Iron Age/early Roman settlement in Cambridgeshire.

When a strikingly well-preserved example of a Recumbent Stone Circle was identified in Aberdeenshire farmland (shown above), archaeologists were intrigued by its unusual design. After further investigation, however, the reason behind the Leochel-Cushnie monument’s quirks became all-too-apparent: rather than being an ancient site, the stone circle was built only 20 years ago.

Several previous ‘Science Notes’ have featured osteological analysis tangentially (see CA 337, 338, 342, and 344), but we have not explored it in depth – until now. This month’s column considers the effects of vitamin D deficiency, how it can be identified in skeletal remains, and what it can tell us about past populations.

Some 65 years after it concluded, the results of Brian Hope- Taylor’s excavation of the Mote of Urr – a motte-and-bailey castle near Dalbeattie in Dumfries and Galloway (shown above) – have finally been published.

This month The History Press is offering a copy of Drawing Somerset’s Past by Victor Ambrus to five lucky competition winners. The History Press is the UK’s largest dedicated history publisher, publishing a broad range of topics and on periods, exceptional people, places, and events that have shaped our lives today. In Drawing Somerset’s Past, Victor tells the […]

When archaeologists from MAP Archaeological Practice discovered a remarkable Iron Age chariot burial during the final stages of an excavation at Pocklington, East Yorkshire, in 2017, along with an impressive 164 burials and 74 square burials, they did not realise that more amazing discoveries were to come. At the end of last year, though, another seven-month excavation on the site – undertaken in advance of a 200-house development by Persimmon Homes Yorkshire – revealed two Iron Age barrows, the contents of which archaeologists on site have described as ‘most impressive, with no British parallel’.

A previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery has been revealed in Scremby, Lincolnshire. On a chalky outcrop of the Lincolnshire Wolds, it was found by a local metal-detectorist, who discovered a number of Anglo-Saxon artefacts, including copper gilded brooches, iron shield bosses, and spearheads.

A record number of Treasure finds have been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) for the second year running. At the launch of the 2016 Treasure Act Annual Report and the 2017 Portable Antiquities Scheme Annual Report, held at the British Museum last December, it was announced that 1,267 Treasure items had been recorded across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 2017.